Collected Poems: Ursula Bethell | VUP Classic

First published by Oxford University Press in 1985 and reissued with corrections and a new introduction in 1997, this is the definitive collection of the poems of Ursula Bethell.

Ursula Bethell stands with R.A.K. Mason at the beginnings of modern poetry in New Zealand. Born in England, she grew up in New Zealand but did not live there until the 1920s when she came back finally to Christchurch. There she established a garden and began, at the age of fifty, to write poetry. ‘New Zealand wasn’t truly discovered,’ said D’Arcy Cresswell, ‘until Ursula Bethell, “very earnestly digging”, raised her head to look at the mountains.’

Vincent O'Sullivan (1937–2024) was one of New Zealand’s leading writers. His novels include Let the River Stand, which won the 1994 The Montana NZ Book Awards, Believers to the Bright Coast, which was shortlisted for the 2001 Tasmania Pacific Region Prize, and All This by Chance (2018), which was shortlisted for the 2019 Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize. He wrote many plays and collections of short stories and poems, was joint editor of the five-volume Letters of Katherine Mansfield, edited a number of major anthologies, and authored acclaimed biographies of John Mulgan and Ralph Hotere.