Brian Turner was born in 1944. After many Dunedin years, he now lives in Central Otago’s Ida Valley. His books include eight volumes of poetry, sporting biographies and a memoir, Somebodies and Nobodies (2002). He has won several literary awards, including the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry for Beyond (1992). He served as the 2003 Te Mata Estate NZ Poet Laureate (or, as he put it, ‘the lorikeet’). His poetic enterprise is clear in the closing stanzas of Beyond:
I hear of paragons,
I see hypocrits.
I hear of generosity,
I note it draining away.
I live in the space between
long ago and
from now on,
the one a blur, the other
a mystery,
the now
a riddle.
Tell me more lies
that I can live with.
Tell me I remember
what is worth
remembering.
Tell me the story
of my name.
