Peter Bland
Peter Bland emigrated to New Zealand in 1954. From the 1970s on he travelled between New Zealand and the United Kingdom, working as an actor, playwright and critic, and writing poetry.
He has had 13 volumes of poetry published in NZ and the UK and has received numerous prizes and awards for his writing including the Observer/Arvon Foundation International Poetry Prize, and a Chomondeley Award. His children’s poetry collection Shhh I’m Still a Stranger Here Myself (2003) was a finalist in the NZ Post Book Awards. In 2011 he won a Prime Minister’s Award for outstanding contribution to literature.
Peter Bland - Collected Poems: 1956-2011
Eva Radich talks to New Zealand poet Peter Bland on the release of his Collected Poems: 1956-2011 published by Steele Roberts.
Starkey the Gentle Pirate by Peter Bland
Read by Peter Bland
A poem about Starkey, a gentle pirate who ends up finding part of Captain Hook's buried treasure with his crew, but at a harsh price.
For ages 6-9 years.
Poetry with Peter Bland - Coming Ashore
The well known broadcaster, actor, co-founder of Wellington's Downstage Theatre and poet talks about his new collection Coming Ashore and receiving a 2011 Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement.
Peter Bland
NZ poet, actor and recipient of Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement talks to Eva Radich on Upbeat.
Peter Bland
Peter Bland blends his love of poetry with his theatrical past in his latest poetry, Mr Maui's Monologues.
Image by Kalen Bloodstone CC3.0
More poetry from RNZ
Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.
- Allen Ginsberg
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
- T.S. Eliot
Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.
- Audre Lorde
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
- Kahlil Gibran
All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.
- William Wordsworth
There's no money in poetry, but there's no poetry in money, either.
- Robert Graves
At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
- Plato
Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn
- Thomas Gray