Mason: The Life of R.A.K. MasonThe full story of the gifted but troubled R. A. K. Mason is told for the first time in this accessible biography. The puzzling reasons after his extraordinary beginning that Mason almost completely stopped writing poetry are investigated. The legendary story of how Mason dumped 200 copies of his first book, The Beggar, into Auckland harbor in disappointment, disgust, or despair because no one would buy it is explored as a symbol of a time--the 1920s and 1930s--when a true, vital, native literature struggled to be written or heard in a provincial and puritanical country. Also explored are how Mason's political beliefs prompted him to turn his creative energies to left-wing theater movements in the 1930s, the impact that family pressures had on his life, and his late-in-life diagnosis with manic depression. |
Contents
ΙΟ | 45 |
17 | 53 |
8 | 115 |
9 | 131 |
II | 169 |
12 | 189 |
13 | 206 |
Waiting for Lefty 193738 | 227 |
17 | 272 |
18 | 279 |
John ii 4 194849 | 309 |
21 | 317 |
A separate country 1962 | 336 |
25 | 372 |
Bags dog boat 196571 | 385 |
Exegi monumentum | 398 |
Common terms and phrases
Allen Curnow Alley anthology Auckland Star Auckland University Beggar Bertram Brasch Caxton Charles Brasch China Christchurch Collected Poems Communist Party copies death Denis Glover Dorothea Mason drama Dunedin English Fairburn to RM Frank Sargeson Harold Monro Hocken Library Hone Tuwhare interviewed by John Islands Jennifer Barrer Jessie Mason John Caselberg July June Labour letter Lichfield literary London Lowry Maori Mason wrote Monro Montalk months notebooks organised Otago People's Theatre People's Voice perhaps Phoenix play poet poetry political Press printed published R.A.K. Mason Rewi Alley Rex Fairburn RM to Fairburn Robin Hyde Ron Mason Samoa secretary sent Sept Shirley Barton social Sonnet student T.S. Eliot talk Teddy things told Tuwhare verse watersiders Wellington Westbrook Winston Rhodes workers writing written young Zealand Herald Zealand literature