9/02/05
Poets on Ice
Three notable New Zealand poets, Bill Manhire, Chris Orsman and Bernadette Hall, will appear at a public reading which
celebrates the Antarctic in fiction and poetry. All three are Antarctic Arts Fellows and have visited Antarctica as part
of the Artists to Antarctica programme run by Antarctica New Zealand in association with Creative New Zealand.
The public event, at City Gallery, Wellington on Friday 18 February, 6pm will also include a 'slideshow' of Antarctic
photographs by artist David Trubridge, also an Antarctic Arts Fellow.
Bill Manhire, in the introduction to this recent anthology of Antarctic fiction, "The Wide White Page", says, "
Antarctic visitors always want to write. Something about direct experience of the place tends to require a response
which is not simply scientific or scholarly." The poets will talk about their personal and artistic responses to
Antarctica and read work which has been influenced by "the great white continent".
Poets on Ice Bernadette Hall, Bill Manhire and Chris Orsman chaired by Fergus Barrowman of Victoria University Press
Friday 18 Feb 6-7.30pm City Gallery, Wellington Free entry - all welcome. Presented by Victoria University Press in
association with City Gallery, Wellington
For more information, interviews or images please contact Heather McKenzie at Victoria University Press
heather.mckenzie@vuw.ac.nz
ENDS