Hyde, Robin

New Zealand, (1906-1939)

Revenant

  1. He was with these, Time’s unacknowledged armies,
  2. Borne on no shield but broken, boys: kicked out
  3. To affront the gay young captains, where no harm is
  4. And the soldier bears no stinging pox of doubt.
  5.  
  6. Some day he’ll tell you a story: but not now…
  7. Too clammy crawls the vision in his brain.
  8. Too close the memory of it… Life, old sow,
  9. Farrowing little pigs of death in Spain.

 Robin Hyde. Young Knowledge: The Poems of Robin Hyde, edited by Michele Leggott. Auckland: Auckland UP (2003).

About the Poet:

Robin Hyde, New Zealand, (1906-1939), real name: Iris Guiver Wilkinson, was a poet, journalist and travel writer.

As a poet and journalist, she did much to challenge the boundaries of women’s writing. In the late 1930s, she traveled to the China-Japan war front, the first woman journalist to do so. The author of over ten books of prose and poetry, Hyde’s originality is only slowly being recognized.

Poetry collections include: The Desolate Star and Other Poems (1929), Persephone in Winter: Poems (1937), Houses by the Sea and the Later Poems of Robin Hyde (1952 posthumous). Hyde’s books include: Passport to Hell (1936), Wednesday’s Children (1937), Dragon Rampant (1939) and her autobiographical novel The Godwits Fly (1938). [DES-03/18]

Additional information: