Kathleen Hawkins

Kathleen Jessie Hawkins (17 November 1883 – 31 August 1981) was a Tauranga, New Zealand, poet affectionately known as "The Pioneer Poet". Well known in Tauranga, her best-known volume The Elms and Other Verses ran into several editions or reprints covering historical pioneer subjects. Hawkins was specially interested in the first missionaries who came to Tauranga, and in the Land Wars with their loss of life on both sides.

Life

Hawkins (an only child) was born in Tewkesbury, England, in 1883. The River Avon flowed through the bottom of her garden.

Her poetry is also included and noted in historical publications such as Stanley Bull's Historic Gate Pa, 29th April, 1864: Pukehinahina (1968) and The Historic Bay of Plenty: Te Papa C.M.S. Mission Station, 1838-1883 (1984) or the journal article ‘Wharekahu CMS Mission Station, Maketu’ by A. H. Matheson in the Whakatane & District Historical Society journal Historical Review, May 2003; vol.51 no.1: p. 18-29. Other poems of hers also appeared in this journal.

In 2007, Hawkins had a poem included by the New Zealand poet and anthologist Harvey McQueen in The Earth’s Deep Breathing: Garden Poems by New Zealand Poets.