Jeffrey Paparoa Holman

Jeffrey Paparoa Holman (born 1947) is a New Zealand poet, writer, and retired academic. He has published ten poetry collections, a historical non-fiction book and two memoirs, and has received several writing awards and residencies. He returned to his university studies in adulthood, completing his PhD in 2007 and becoming an advocate for lifelong learning. Many of his works feature elements of te reo Māori (the Māori language) and Māori culture, as well as focusing on his own history: growing up on the West Coast of New Zealand, labouring and working-class culture, and his relationship with his parents, particularly his father.

Life and career Early life and career: 1947–1996

Holman was born in London in 1947, and in 1950 moved to New Zealand with his family. His father had served in the Royal Navy on aircraft carriers in World War II and later suffered from drinking and gambling problems, related to the PTSD he suffered as a veteran. On Holman's mother's side, he is a great-nephew of the naval historian, Hector Charles Bywater. He later wrote of his experiences growing up in Blackball in the poetry collection The Late Great Blackball Bridge Sonnets (2004).

His first published poem, "Night" (1963), was dedicated to his English teacher (and, later, lifelong friend and mentor) Peter Hooper. After dropping out of high school in 1965 he attended university briefly, but did not graduate. During his career, Holman worked in a number of working class jobs including as a sawmill worker, a sheep-shearer in both Australia and New Zealand, a farmhand, a forestry worker, a rubbish man and a delivery driver. He returned to university in the early 1970s, but again did not graduate.

In 1987 Holman moved to London with his family, and worked for a time as a residential social worker followed by work as a bookseller. While in England, he read Ask That Mountain: The Story of Parihaka by historian Dick Scott, and decided to return to New Zealand and learn more about Māori culture. This experience led to his enrolment in Māori language classes, kapa haka group membership, and the study of New Zealand's colonial history. He studied te reo Māori (the Māori language) as part of his degree, which he said was something he "had wanted to do for a long time".

Since his 1998 poetry collection Flood Damage, Holman has published a number of poetry collections. The title poem of his 2002 poetry collection, As Big as a Father, received the 1997 Whitireia Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Poetry Prize at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in 2003. The award's judges said his poems "are redolent of senses of the South Island's West Coast: arms wide spread, wind, seas, ruggedness". His poetry has been included in anthologies such as Essential New Zealand Poems (2001), Big Sky (2002), Land Very Fertile (2008) and Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2021, and in magazines like the New Zealand Listener and Landfall.

In The Long Forgetting: Post-colonial literary culture in New Zealand, academic Patrick Evans said of Holman's 2004 collection The Late Great Blackball Bridge Sonnets:

In 2007, Holman completed his PhD in Māori studies. His thesis Best of both world: Elsdon Best and the metamorphosis of Maori spirituality. Te painga rawa o ngā ao rua: Te Peehi me te putanga ke o te wairua Māori, examined the works of the ethnographer Elsdon Best. the same year he won the CLNZ Writers' Award, together with Martin Edmond, and received 35,000 towards a non-fiction work. His subsequent work, Best of Both Worlds: The Story of Elsdon Best and Tutakangahau, which grew out of his PhD thesis, was published in 2010. In 2011 the work was shortlisted for the Ernest-Scott History prize in Australia. In 2012, Creative New Zealand awarded him with a three-month residency at the University of Iowa. He wrote the Māori fiction section of Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, published online in October 2014. In 2014 Holman was awarded a Goethe-Institut scholarship to study in Germany.

In 2017, the collection Blood Ties was published, containing new and selected poems written by Holman over the previous five decades. Reviewer Siobhan Harvey for The New Zealand Herald described Holman as a "classic New Zealand author" and the collection as being a "luscious, long-overdue medley collecting the best of his poems". Murray Bramwell for the New Zealand Review of Books noted Holman "comes from the working world, and his poems affirm a sense of social justice and remembered hardship". He concluded that the book "is a richly rewarding collection in its range, its assured (and reassuring) voice and the deft vividness of its language". In the same review, Bramwell also discussed Holman's Dylan Junkie, a collection published the same year in tribute to the music of Bob Dylan, noting that there were "undoubtedly excellent stand-alone poems here, but Dylan Junkie is also inextricably connected to its host texts". Critic Steve Braunias named it as one of the five best collections of poetry published in New Zealand in 2021.

Selected works Poetry collections Strange Children (published as part of Two Poets, Pumpkin Press, 1974) Flood Damage (Ngā Kupu Press, 1998) As Big as a Father (Steele Roberts, 2002) The Late Great Blackball Bridge Sonnets (Steele Roberts, 2004) Fly Boy (Steele Roberts, 2010) Autumn Waiata (Cold Hub Press, 2010) Shaken Down 6.3 (Canterbury University Press, 2012) Blood Ties: New and Selected Poems (Canterbury University Press, 2017) Dylan Junkie (Mākaro Press, 2017) After Hours Trading & The Flying Squad (Carbide Press, 2021)

Non-fiction Best of Both Worlds: The Story of Elsdon Best and Tutakangahau (Penguin, 2010) The Lost Pilot: a memoir (Penguin, 2013) Now When it Rains: a writer's memoir (Steele Roberts, 2018)