Leggott Michele - Young Knowledge

I would like to acknowledge the assistance and encouragement of Derek and Lyn Challis, Lisa Docherty, Mary Paul and Patrick Sandbrook in bringing this project to completion 19942003. It was supported in that time by funding from the University of Auckland Research Committee and (19992001) by a Royal Society Marsden Award. In 1997 and 2001 academic leave from the University allowed me to continue with research and preparation of the poems for publication. I wish to thank Derek and Lyn Challis for making available manuscripts and biographical information, and for dealing punctiliously with many requests on their time. Staff at the following institutions have been involved at various points and I am grateful for their expertise and help: Alexander Turnbull Library, Auckland Art Gallery Conservation, Auckland City Libraries Special Collections, Hocken Library, Macmillan Brown Library, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) Academic Libraries Manuscripts Department. Special thanks to Stephen Innes, Natalie Mahony and Giles Margetts at the University of Auckland Library Manuscripts and Archives, and to Brian Flaherty and Ann McKillop who are designing and implementing the online Notes for this volume as part of Robin Hydes author page on the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre (nzepc).

In addition to my Marsden colleagues, Martin Edmond, Murray Edmond, Alison Hunt and John Newton read and commented on drafts of the introduction. Lisa Docherty made the original transcriptions and Ricci Van Elburg has been an untiring and good-humoured proofreader and library researcher. Retrieval and documentation of Hydes published work is an ongoing effort; among many who have helped locate or verify material are Lucy Alcock, Jill Beytagh, Hilary Chung, Jacob Edmond, Mark Hanson, Alison Hunt, Alison Jeffreys, Adrian Kingston, Robyn Lendrum, Chris Madden, Valerie Laura Marshall, Heather Murray, Patricia Northcott, Jenny Sturm, Dasha Volga, Jenny Wilson and Niel Wright. To all of these people and others who have read, admired and asked questions about Robin Hydes poetry, I owe gratitude and thanks. I would also like to thank Elizabeth Caffin, Katrina Duncan, Annie Irving, Christine OBrien and Anna Hodge at AUP for their dedication and care in the production of Young Knowledge. My family has been patient with the extension of the poems project over almost ten years and through inevitable difficulties associated with my gradual loss of sight in that time.

They have remained gracious and interested throughout and I thank them for that. This book is dedicated to Alan Brunton (1946 2002), poet, performer and friend. A man who travels with his dream travels with a dark torch Robin Hyde / Iris Wilkinson 1937