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Story: Perceptions of the landscape

‘Towards Banks Peninsula’

Audio file

Denis Glover was one of the writers who came of age in the 1930s and began to explore the meaning and mythology of the land. In this extract from his 1958 poem ‘Towards Banks Peninsula’, he describes a walk from Port Levy to Pigeon Bay. The photo looks across Lyttelton Harbour to Banks Peninsula, echoing Glover’s description of the ‘lava fingers’ of land and the ‘clay balaclava’.

Permission to reproduce poem courtesy of the Denis Glover literary estate and Pia Glover.

Using this item

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Reference: 31422

Image: Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, by Jock Phillips

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How to cite this page

Jock Phillips, Perceptions of the landscape – Landscape and identity: 1930s–1960s, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/speech/14405/towards-banks-peninsula (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Jock Phillips, published 1 March 2009.