Selected Post Alexandrian Poems
Niel Wright wrote the Post Alexandrian Poems as a parallel or coda to his epic poem The Alexandrians. Most of the Post Alexandrian Poems are epigrams, triolets or extended triolets. Mark Pirie gives a representative selection from Wright's later work written in the final 16 years of his life.
Frank William Nielsen Wright was born in Sydenham, Christchurch, in 1933 and educated at Christchurch Boys’ High School and Canterbury University and Victoria University of Wellington (where he was awarded his PhD in 1974). His major literary work is the epic poem, The Alexandrians, published in 120 Books from 1961–2007. In 1966 he received international recognition with the publication of his collection, The Imaginings of the Heart (Book 7 of The Alexandrians), through The Chiron Press, Kansas, USA. His awards include the Bevan Brown Memorial Prize for Classics, 1951, and the W E Collins Prize in English Literature, 1965. As a publisher, writer, and critic, Wright has authored and published since the 1970s a wide range of books/pamphlets on literature, mostly focusing on New Zealand literature. Father of two children, he lived in the Wellington suburb of Northland with his wife. He ran the Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa, with Michael O’Leary until his death in 2024.
“Niel Wright is one of our greatest living poets. He has a similar tone to TS Eliot, a very learned but chagrined humour … as though he knew all his verse was forlorn and absurd.” – GLF, Zealandia
“…a poet of unusual range … Mr Wright’s use of prosody and his use of half-rhymes and assonances often recall those of Wilfred Owen.” – Peter Dronke, Landfall
“… if you like ideas but not imagery, forcefulness more than elegance, man more than nature, rationality more than emotionality, you will probably like Niel Wright’s poetry.” – Dennis List, Salient