James K. Baxter

James Keir Baxter was born in Dunedin in 1926, to a well-known Otago family with his father being the renowned conscientious objector; Archibald Baxter. Growing up, Baxter’s life was difficult and seemingly lonesome. He faced bullies at school and had a rather delinquent brother named Terrence. And so, it seemed, Baxter looked to poetry as a way to escape; his first poem was written at the age of seven, his first collection published when he reached eighteen. His troubled youth was solely expressed as being a time that “Created a gap in which the poems were able to grow”. Around six hundred poems were drafted by Baxter between the years 1942 and 1946.

After school, Baxter attended Otago University however after failing to complete his degree he settled for part time work. One of his most well known jobs was at the Chelsea Sugar Refinery, the muse for his poem “Ballad of the Stonegut Sugar Works." In 1951, Baxter then attended teachers training college while completing his studies at Victoria University in 1953. In later years he was to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Meanwhile, in his days at Otago University, Baxter began to succumb to the pull of alcohol and not long after beginning his studies at Victoria, he checked into Alcoholics Anonymous. His own battles with drinking were often visible in his work, as were his attempts at establishing a Narcotics Anonymous for drug users he met while living in Grafton later in life.

Baxter had, from a young age, shown a deep interest in religion. 1957 saw his conversion to Roman Catholicism however his plight to work at the monastery was frowned upon, his wife (an Anglican) divorcing him soon after. This sadly did not deter Baxter, who had never had a close relationship with his children or his wife, who he struggled to live within the bounds of domesticity and the concept of ‘marriage.’ Once his family was out of the picture, he took a trip to India in 1959, and returned with a new found appreciation for the way that we live after seeing such poverty and strife. He brought back home with him, a writing style, far more overtly critical of our society (clearly visible in his poems) as well as his wife, after an apparent reconciliation.

In April 1968, what Baxter noted as a ‘minor revelation’ coupled with his experiences in India, saw him set off to follow his dreams. He settled, living in the rather distressed Auckland suburb of Grafton, amongst drug addicts and frequent police visits, before moving on to Jerusalem, a mission station beside the Wanganui River, named because in Maori ‘Hiruharama’ means Jerusalem. Baxter decided that this tiny Maori settlement, its neighbouring Catholic Church and convent, would become his home. He hoped that he would be able to “Form the nucleus of a community where the people, both Maori and pakeha, would try to live without money or books, worship God and work on the land.” In October 1972, after many years living with his Commune in Jerusalem, Baxter died of a heart attack in Auckland aged 46. 

Reflecting on the life of James K. Baxter one can easily see his struggle to comprehend the ideals of society. He found it difficult that New Zealanders were unable to face his perception of their small world, expressed in the quotation, “(It is) reasonable and necessary that poetry should contain moral truth, and that every poet should be a prophet according to his lights.” Baxter believed strongly in the power of the truth, much of his inspiration heading itself from his questionable faith, his experience in protesting against the Vietnam War and his pacifist parents. Baxter once described his poetry is “Part of a large subconscious corpus of personal myth, like an island above the sea, but joined underwater to other islands’, and elsewhere commented that what ‘happens is either meaningless to me, or else it is mythology.” This above all else depicts Baxter’s tendency figment his life in his writing.

At times Baxter appears to evaluate New Zealand society too harshly, with his social conscience often appearing too large for his stature. It seems that his criticism of a mainstream life and his ultimate choice to live outside of it is merely the result of his unique and analytical nature. How can a boy who has written poetry from age seven, grow up without his own anomalous view on the world? Ultimately, Baxter chooses to place his poetry under a larger umbrella than most, preferring to direct our thoughts towards universal facets of our human life.