Poetry
New Zealand poetry, like all poetry, is influenced by time and place and has been through a number of changes. Poetry has been part of New Zealand culture since before European settlement in the form of Māori sung poems or waiata. The first colonial Pakeha poetry was also predominantly sung poetry. Initially colonial poetry had a preoccupation with British themes. New Zealand poetry developed a strong local voice from the 1950s, and has now become a "polyphony" of traditionally marginalised voices.
Read more about this topic: New Zealand Literature
Famous quotes containing the word poetry:
“Good poetry could not have been otherwise written than it is. The first time you hear it, it sounds rather as if copied out of some invisible tablet in the Eternal mind than as if arbitrarily composed by the poet.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I by no means rank poetry high in the scale of intelligence—this may look like affectation but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“For me, poetry is always a search for order.”
—Elizabeth Jennings (b. 1926)