Meg Campbell

Aline Margaret Campbell (, 19 November 1937 – 17 November 2007) was a New Zealand poet. She began writing in 1969, and became known as a poet after publishing several well-received collections in the 1980s. Many of her poems deal with issues of mental illness and domestic life, and with her life on the Kāpiti Coast.

Personal life Campbell was born and raised in Palmerston North. She studied acting at Victoria University for a period and obtained a speech and drama qualification from Trinity College. They had three children together, and in the early 1960s moved to the Kāpiti Coast region.

After her first child was born, Campbell suffered from a combination of postpartum depression and bipolar disorder, and had a nervous breakdown.

Her work appears in anthologies of New Zealand poetry including The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse (1985), An Anthology of New Zealand Poetry in English (1997), Essential New Zealand Poems (2001) and Essential New Zealand Poems: Facing the Empty Page (2014).

Style and themes Campbell's poetry expresses her personal experiences and struggles, and often demonstrates wit and a sense of humor. In The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, Roger Robinson suggests that the role of mythology within her poetry speaks about gender roles and sexuality as well as domesticity; he states that Campbell's poetry "can form unexpected links, between the mythic and the domestic, for instance, as in 'Maui', or the universal and psychological, as in 'Things Random' or 'Evolution'." The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English and Robinson both describe Campbell's voice as strong. Her work often features a sense of place in the Kāpiti Coast region, where she lived for most of her life.