Poetry

Sen McGlinn born in 1956 in Christchurch, New Zealand, has lived in the Netherlands since 1989.
He has a B.A. Honours in English Literature from Otago University. His dissertation was on T.S. Elliot's Ash Wednesday.

He has been writing poetry since childhood.
Individual poems have been published in some New Zealand literary journals (Islands, Landfall, Art's Horizon).
His first collection of poetry, Dawndreams was published in 1974 by College Writers/Caxton Press.
His next collection Feeding Harbour, was self-published in 1984. More about this book.
Both collections consist of short lyrical poems. Many of the poems are about the Chatham Islands

The long poem, New Vessels (self-published in 1987) is a response to Eliot's The Waste Land in the form of a journey through night, a descent into darkness and return to the light. It uses the pattern of resurrection-myth, which couples death and fertility, and the opposed imagery of the apocalyptic and of the voyage of discovery, as pictures of two possibilities in the turning moment of choice.
Illustrations by Sonja van Kerkhoff

The book is sold out.
It should be found in some public libraries in New Zealand.

New Vessels

21 pages, without illustrations

See a larger view of these pages on Sonja's website

The "New Vessels" series inspired by this poem

Feeding Harbour

1984, 48 pages of short lyrical poems. Themes relate to Chatham Island landscapes, Relationships, Spirituality, Writing, and the Sea. Cover Illustration: Sen McGlinn

Cords

Feeding Harbour, page 5.     To the poems index

Gulls

Feeding Harbour, page 6.     To the poems index

Selentropy

Feeding Harbour, page 7.     To the poems index

Outpost

Feeding Harbour, page 8.     To the poems index

Silt on the Nairn

Feeding Harbour, page 14.     To the poems index

Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet

Feeding Harbour, page 16.     To the poems index

Ait Burn and Worm's Turn

Feeding Harbour, page 17.     To the poems index

The Panzers, when they came

Feeding Harbour, page 19.     To the poems index

Moon

Feeding Harbour, page 21.     To the poems index

My life-pulse

Feeding Harbour, page 24.     To the poems index

Beginning

Feeding Harbour, page 25.     To the poems index

Why in the Sun-tongued hills

Feeding Harbour, page 27.     To the poems index

The Village of the Hidden Singing Birds

Feeding Harbour, page 29.     To the poems index

A Letter to Roger White

Feeding Harbour, page 36.     To the poems index

Once below a Glenfield

Feeding Harbour, page 41.     To the poems index

Ship-wreck (For Peter Smart)

Feeding Harbour, page 42.     To the poems index

Roadsalong

Feeding Harbour, page 43.     To the poems index