1972: Died Today: James K. Baxter

October 22, 2018

By AHNZ

Today in New Zealand History: 22 October 1972, death of James K. Baxter. The great New Zealand poet.

“One of the functions of artists in a community is to provide a healthy and permanent element of rebellion; not to become a species of civil servant.”
– J.K.Baxter

“It turned my heart to stone; That I was a New Zealander; And therefore Man Alone.” – A tribute to regional poetry, Baxter

He might have been a fine Anarchist and certainly did grapple, identify, and name The Matrix and The State. Along with an eventual reversion to Catholicism and being point-man in the short-lived phenomena of creating rustic communes the bard died in poverty.

“He was gentle and modest enough, but his younger followers caressed his streaks of vanity in to Messianic stances, which he in turn detected in himself, and lapsed into self-effacing guilt.”
– Brian Bell on James K. Baxter

Thanks Historical South Island for posting these pictures of the declining poet and his lost boys and girls.