Autumn 2014, Volume 5, Issue 1

. Poetry Notes Autumn 2014 Volume 5, Issue 1 ISSN 1179-7681 Quarterly Newsletter of PANZA member of a well-known settler family Inside this Issue Welcome in the Canterbury/South Canterbury region. Most of the Sherratt family were Hello and welcome to issue 17 of Primitive/Wesleyan Methodists and Welcome Poetry Notes, the newsletter of PANZA, were prominent as JPs, borough 1 the newly formed Poetry Archive of councillors, timber merchants, mill Michael O’Leary on New Zealand Aotearoa. owners, station managers and sheep A. Stanley Sherratt Poetry Notes will be published quarterly farmers in the Canterbury/Geraldine and will include information about Report on the Hawke’s area, and the family originating from goings on at the Archive, articles on Cheshire, England, has its own coat of Bay Poetry Conference 3 historical New Zealand poets of interest, arms. occasional poems by invited poets and a Comment on John Gallas Stan’s own father Alfred Sherratt record of recently received donations to (d. 1940 aged 78 years, buried at 4 the Archive. Kaiapoi) was a tenterer at Buchanan’s Classic New Zealand Articles and poems are copyright in the Paddock (1890 Timaru Electoral Roll) poetry from NZ Farmer names of the individual authors. and moved the family north to Kaiapoi 5 1937-65 The newsletter will be available for free soon after, where he was a long-term Joan of Arc sonnet found download from the Poetry Archive’s employee of the Kaiapoi Wool Mills. website: Stan’s mother was Elizabeth Ellen 10 Colin Meads rugby poem Barker (d. 1949 aged 81 years, buried at http://poetryarchivenz.wordpress.com found Kaiapoi) who had married Alfred in 11 1889 and is the householder at Peraki Street according to the Wise’s Post Comment on Harvey Office directory from the 1890s till her McQueen Michael O’Leary on death. The couple had four children A. Stanley Sherratt (Stan and two sisters, Marjorie May and New publications by PANZA Dorothy Alice, and a fourth eldest son member and launch report Alfred died in infancy). In Kaiapoi the Wellington writer and publisher family was affiliated with St Donate to PANZA through Dr Michael O’Leary (co-founder of Bartholomew’s Anglican Church, 13 PayPal PANZA) discusses the forgotten although they have may have also had Canterbury poet, A. Stanley Sherratt, earlier Methodist Church affiliation. Recently received whose text Polynesian Legends has been Stan was educated in Canterbury at donations published in book form for the first time Kaiapoi Borough School (where also since 1924, when it was first serialized was the poet Edith Howes) and Kaiapoi About the Poetry Archive in the Christchurch Star newspaper. District High School which opened in 1902. Edith Howes’ poem ‘Kaiapoi’ Alfred Stanley (Sherry) Sherratt along with her specially written school (4 December 1891-26 April 1977) is a poem ‘School Days’ give insight into PANZA little known Canterbury-born poet, and Stan’s earlier childhood days there: 1 Woburn Road his preferred name was Stan. Of the few Northland biographical details researched by Mark Wellington Pirie, we know that Stan Sherratt was a . Autumn 2014 KAIAPOI He resigned his commission from the of poets during the 1922-26 period. He NZEF in 1920. also wrote shorter lyrics or individual Cool willowed walks and poplar’s grace After the war, according to the Electoral pieces for the Star from 1923-24 outside O green-embowered Kaiapoi, Roll, he is listed on the Christchurch of his legends. Wellington literary Belong to thy remembered face; South Roll 1919, 1925-38 and lived for scholar, poet and publisher Mark Pirie And childhood’s tears and childhood’s a while in Invercargill and Kaiapoi has recently produced a book of mostly joy. between the 1919 and 1925 rolls. In unknown and previously 1919 he had returned to his job as a unacknowledged Star poets in his Curved river’s call and gleaming oar, clerk/official with Railways living in broadsheet/12 (special issue, November And summer days in summer fields, Christchurch at Moorhouse Avenue. On 2013) published by The Night Press, Where matchless skylarks sing and 25 October 1922, Stan married Eleanor Wellington, as well as republishing soar— Shardlow. The two are living at the Sherratt’s Polynesian Legends Fair visions these remembrance same address at Carrick Street on the (HeadworX/ESAW, 2013). yields… 1922 Invercargill Roll, with Stan given Sherratt uses Sir George Grey’s as ‘NZR clerk’. In Kaiapoi, he must Polynesian Legends and Maori Myths As a school boy Stan won prizes in have been a clerk at the Kaiapoi Rail as his primary source text. Grey bugle competitions (1904-05) and a office. During his Kaiapoi return 1923- compiled his collection of Māori myths photo survives in the school history of 24 he published the bulk of his and legends, Ngā Mahinga a ngā the boy scout cadets with Bugler newspaper poetry. He returned to Tupuna (also published in translation as Sherratt noted for his prize-winning Sydenham, Christchurch, by December Polynesian Mythology), with about a performances. In 1901 he experienced 1924 resuming his role as a quarter of his material taken from the the Cheviot earthquake, which brought clerk/official for Railways; his manuscripts of Wiremu Maihi Te down the school tower. occupations are given by the Electoral Rangikaheke, also known as William After finishing school, Stan seems to Roll and the Wise’s Post Office Marsh. Te Rangikaheke was a famous have moved to Christchurch to work for directory for the years up until the chief of Ngati Rangiwewehi, in the NZ Railways at the Southern Cross 1950s when he retired from Railways. Rotorua district. The son of a celebrated Hotel, becoming a clerk/official there. Stan and his wife Eleanor had two priest, he was born about 1820 and died In 1916, during The Great War, Stan daughters: Eleanor Elizabeth (1928- in 1893. In his 1967 book, Te Arawa, was called up to the NZEF 2011) and Mae Russell. D M Stafford tells us that Te (New Zealand Gazette, 24 February By 1946, the Wise’s directory lists him Rangikaheke was ‘one of the more 1916) to be an officer on the as having moved to Cholmondeley turbulent characters of Te Arawa’. Grey recommendation of Railways. He Avenue, Opawa, Christchurch, where he also made extensive use of the works of served as 2nd lieutenant, Coprs of soon retired and eventually moved north Te Rangikaheke in his collection of New Zealand Engineers, with his daughters to Nelson living out songs, Ngā Moteatea. New Zealand Railways Battalion (South his later years at the family’s Waimea Like J E Ollivant’s Hine Moa, the Island) as a probationary officer but did Road address. Stan died in April 1977 Maori Maiden (1879), A Perry’s not pass initial examination. Railways and was buried at Marsden Valley Hinemoa and Tutanekai: A Legend of had posted him to Greymouth where he Cemetery (Anglican plot). His wife died Rotorua (1910), J McLauchlan’s could get little training (according to his in March 1979 and is buried there with Legend of the Dauntless Rimu and the service file) and failed his examination him. Princess Hia Wata (1912), Charles having an “insufficient knowledge of Oscar Palmer’s Hinemoa: A Legend of musketry”. He was noted as a West Ao-tea-roa (1918), Marieda Coast reservist working as a clerk at the Polynesian Legends (c1924) Batten’s Maori Love Legends (1920), Duke of Edinburgh Hotel in Greymouth James Izett’s Tutanekai and Hinemoa (Grey River Argus, 9 May 1917). In Sherratt’s imaginative interpretations of (1925) and Johannes C Andersen’s Tura 1918 he was again called up and passed Māori myths, Polynesian Legends, and the Fairies (1936), several writers for service with the NZEF (New published in 1924 (under the name of the late 19th Century and early 20th Zealand Gazette, 6 June 1918) and was “Sherratt”1) during his time spent at Century produced literary works in the transferred from Trentham Camp to the Kaiapoi are significant works for his English language, both poetry and 45th Reinforcements as an NCO time period. There may be no other prose, inspired by Māori myths and engineer (probationary corporal) with comparable work that is as powerful as legends. Many writers published in the the territorial forces. It’s uncertain he his in early telling of Māori legends in Journal of the Polynesian Society as saw much service before peace was poetry. The ‘Thirty Polynesian with John McGregor, James Izett and declared in November because he sent a Legends’ date from February- Elsdon Best also adapted, retold and wreath to a railway worker’s funeral in September 1924 when he serialised the interpreted legends; so too did James Christchurch in October 1918, work as a sequence published in the Cowan and A W Reed in the 1950s and suggesting he was still in the country. Christchurch Star newspaper. Sherratt 1960s. L F Moriarty made a poetry was the most prolific of the Star group collection of them in his Verse from 2 . Poetry Archive Maori Myth and Legend (1958). A full The children of Rangi and Papa Sources used: list is given by Linda Hirst in her Select, (The offspring of heaven and earth) Sue Coltart. Thornley & Ella Sherratt: Annotated Bibliography of Publications Had lived many years in a darkness— Their Ancestors and Descendants. on The Myths, Legends and Folk Tales The darkness that shadowed their Havelock North: 2006. of the Maori (1973). birth. Kaiapoi Borough School: KBS Jubilee: Other writers since the 1950s who have 1875-1925. written contemporary takes on these The poet then takes the reader through a Births, Deaths and Marriages official myths and legends in poetic form tour de force of Māori myths and records.

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