Some people get into poetry at university, all berets, booze and broodiness. I discovered it through Whim Wham in The Press. The Saturday poems were bitingly funny, took the mickey out of people, and had all sorts of things in them I didn’t understand.
Whim Wham was a pen-name for noted poet, academic and former sub-editor Allen Curnow. Today would have been his 100th birthday. So for all those laughs and grins and questions, and for all the ‘little of the little I know of myself and the world’, thanks man.
- Read more about Allen Curnow’s life and work
- Read about Landfall in unknown seas – Curnow’s collaboration with composer Douglas Lilburn
- Titles by Allen Curnow in our catalogue including Whim Wham’s New Zealand
- Read Russell Brown’s Hard News piece on Curnow’s 100th birthday
17 June 2011 at 11:34 am
Whim Wham was all news to me until last week when I heard some of the Stuart Devenie readings on National Radio http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the_reading It was so timeless in nailing politics, bureaucracy, and all that stuff, I was well impressed. Happy 100th indeed.
17 June 2011 at 8:42 pm
I love some of his “serious” stuff too. “Wild Iron” is an amazing poem. But yeah, Whim Wham was fantastic. I only discovered Whim Wham through the book of selections from it, edited by Terry Sturm.
30 June 2011 at 12:55 pm
Did Curnow write a poem called the Silent Majority? I heard it on radio NZ and am desperate to have a copy, I have hunted through the Tauranga library without luck and wondered if you would have more?
Please can you email me it if you have a copy, I fell in love with it when I heard it and are now stranded.
Thank you
J Bruning
30 June 2011 at 1:28 pm
Hi there – I’m not sure. You can phone us on 941-7923 if you like.
Donna mentioned the Radio NZ link above – you may be able to contact them to find out which poems were read? You could also search the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre, which has several Curnow works online.