Tony Beyer

ANZL Member

Tony Beyer was born (1/7/1948) in Auckland, and educated there. Following a career as a secondary school teacher throughout the North Island he has lived mainly in Taranaki since 2005. Tony has published eighteen collections of poems since 1971, books that record very diverse poetry activity in NZ over time and indicate the context of his writing. His principal published work is concentrated in Dream Boat: selected poems (HeadworX, Wellington 2007), Great South Road and South Side, two longer poems (Puriri Press, Auckland 2013) and Anchor Stone (Cold Hub Press, Lyttelton 2017), which was a finalist in the poetry category of the 2018 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Tony has received the United States Tanka Splendor Award twice as well as Australia’s Jack Stamm Award. His poems have been anthologised widely in New Zealand and elsewhere, and appear frequently online in Otoliths.

Poet and critic David Howard describes Tony as a poet who ‘has never followed signposts’ and who ‘has always attended to the road, rewarding us with a considered prosody that honours the moment yet goes beyond it.’ He describes Anchor Stone as ‘disciplined, almost ascetic, but there is a generosity in even the most clipped line, a kind of ‘elated patience’ that is rare, and all the more welcome for its rarity, in New Zealand poetry’.

Tony wrote his most recent chapbook collection Friday Prayers (Cold Hub Press, 2019) in response to the 2019 Christchurch Massacre.

 

Links

Poetry Shelf review of Friday Prayers (Dec, 2019)

Radio NZ review of Anchor Stone on Nine to Noon (Feb, 2018)

Takahe review of Anchor Stone (Dec, 2018)

Bibliography: Tony Beyer

Poetry

Friday Prayers (Chapbook: Cold Hub Press, Lyttelton, 2019)

Anchor Stone  (Cold Hub Press, Lyttelton, 2017)

Nine Songs (Puriri Press, Auckland, 2017)

Great South Road and South Side (Puriri Press, Auckland, 2013)

the drum soloist (Puriri Press, Auckland, 2011)

Dream Boat: selected poems (HeadworX, Wellington, 2007)

City Limit (Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop (ESAW), Paekakakariki, 2006)

Isthmus (Puriri Press, Auckland, 2004)

Electric Yachts (Puriri Press, Auckland, 2003)

Human Scale (Sudden Valley Press, Christchurch, 2002)

Weatherboard (Square One Press, Dunedin, 2000)

The Century (HeadworX, Wellington, 1998)

The Male Voice (Dead Poets Books, Auckland, 1998)

The Singing Ground (The Caxton Press, Christchurch, 1986)

Brute Music (Hard Echo Press, Auckland, 1984)

Dancing Bear (Melaleuca Press, Canberra, 1981)

The Meat (Caveman Press, Dunedin, 1974)

Jesus Hobo (Caveman Press, Dunedin, 1971)

 

 Anthologies

Number Eight Wire: The Fourth New Zealand Haiku Anthology (Sandra Simpson and Margaret Beverland (eds), Piwakawaka Press, Tauranga, 2019)

Short Poems of New Zealand (Jenny Bornholdt (ed), Victoria University Press, Wellington, 2018)

A Vast Sky: An Anthology of Contemporary World Haiku (Bruce Ross, Koko Kato, Dietmar Tauchner, Patricia Prime (eds), Tancho Press, Bangor, ME, 2015)

Paekakariki: poetry, prose, pictures (Sylvia Bagnall (ed), Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop (ESAW), Paekakariki, 2015)

Gedichte aus Neuseeland (Axel Vieregg (ed/tr), Poesiealbum, MarkischerVerlag, Wilhelmshorst, 2014)

Essential New Zealand Poems (Siobhan Harvey, James Norcliffe and Harry Ricketts (eds), Godwit, 2014)  

Still Heading Out: An Anthology of Australian and New Zealand haiku (Jacqui Murray and Katherine Samuelowicz (eds), paper wasp, Queensland, 2013)

100 Tanka by 100 Poets (Amelia Fielden, Beverley George and Patricia Prime (eds), Ginnindera Press, Port Adelaide SA, 2013)

Best New Zealand Poems (Ian Wedde (ed), 2012)

These I Have Loved (Harvey McQueen (ed), Steele Roberts, Wellington, 2010)

‘A Tingling Catch’: A Century of NZ Cricket Poems (Mark Pirie (ed), HeadworX, Wellington, 2010)

Wildes Licht: Gedichte aus Aotearoa/Neuseeland (Dieter Riemenschneider (ed/tr), Tranzlit, Christchurch and Kronberg im Taunus, 2010)

Coast to Coast: Images of Canterbury in poetry & prose (Karen Zelas (ed),Wily Publications, Christchurch, 2009)

Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand (Mark Pirie and Tim Jones (eds) Interactive Press, Brisbane, 2009)

Just Another Fantastic Anthology: Auckland in Poetry (Stu Bagby (ed), Antediluvian Press, Auckland, 2008)

a taste of nashi: New Zealand Haiku (Nola Borrell and Karen P. Butterworth (eds), Windrift, Wellington, 2008)

A Good Handful (Stu Bagby (ed), Auckland University Press, 2008)

Kaupapa: New Zealand poets, world issues (Hinemoana Baker and Maria McMillan (eds), Development Resource Centre, Wellington, 2007)

The Earth’s Deep Breathing (Harvey McQueen (ed), Godwit, 2007)

Poetry Pudding (Jenny Argante (ed),Reed, 2007)

The Unbelievable Lightness of Eggs (Bernard Gadd (ed) Hallard Press, 2006)

Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami (Judith Robinson, Joan Bauer and Sankar Roy (eds), Rupa & Co, New Delhi/Bayeux Arts, Calgary, 2005)

Manukau in Poetry (Bernard Gadd, Bruce Ringer and Melissa Steiner (eds), Hallard Press, 2004)

Under Flagstaff: An Anthology of Dunedin Poetry (Robin Law and Heather Murray (eds), University of Otago Press, 2004)

Real Fire: New Zealand Poetry of the 1960s and 1970s (Bernard Gadd (ed), Square One Press, 2002)

Essential New Zealand Poems (Lauris Edmond and Bill Sewell (eds),Godwit, 2001)

New Zealand Love Poems (Lauris Edmond (ed),Oxford, 2000)

An Anthology of Twentieth Century New Zealand Poetry in English (Jenny Bornholdt, Gregory O’Brien and Mark Williams (eds),Oxford, 1997)

White Feathers (Terry Locke, Peter Low and John Winslade (eds), Hazard Press, 1991)

The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Poetry (Miriama Evans, Harvey McQueen and Ian Wedde (eds), 1989)

An Anthology of Twentieth Century New Zealand Poetry (Vincent O’Sullivan (ed), Third Edition, Oxford, 1987)

The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse (Harvey McQueen and Ian Wedde (eds), 1984)

The Oxford Book of Contemporary New Zealand Poetry (Fleur Adcock (ed), 1982)

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Editor

Poetry Aotearoa: new poetry from New Zealand’s independent presses (Picaro Press, Warner’s Bay, NSW, biannual 2003-2005)

'Novels stand outside time, with their narrative structure of beginning, middle and end. They outlast politics, which are by nature ephemeral, swift and changeable and can quickly become invisible, detectable only to the skilled eye. ' - Fiona Farrell

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