The 1929 anthology of New Zealand poetry Kowhai gold was intended by the editor, Quentin Pope, as an expression of distinctively New Zealand perspectives. As the name and the imagery on the cover suggests, the New Zealand element was more represented by superficial symbols derived from the natural world than by penetrating analysis of national identity. The volume was much maligned by the intellectuals of the 1930s, with poet Allen Curnow dismissing it as 'insipidities mixed with puerilities.'
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Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference:
Quentin Pope, Kowhai gold: an anthology of contemporary New Zealand verse. London: E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc, 1930, cover (B-K-1096-Cover)
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
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