Brian Turner

Brian Turner has been a customs officer, publisher's rep, journalist, managing editor of a publishing firm, worker in sawmills and construction sites and, for a time, a rabbiter. There are few outdoor activities that he hasn't engaged in, including climbing and his great love, trout fishing. He lives in the Ida Valley in Central Otago, southern New Zealand. As well as plays and short fiction, he has written three biographies of rugby players.

His first collection of poetry, Ladders of Rain (1978) won the 1978 Commonwealth Poetry Prize, and he was the fourth Te Mata Estate NZ Poet Laureate, 2003-2005. In 2009, he received the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry, and Just In (VUP, 2010) won the Poetry Award at the 2010 New Zealand Post Book Awards. His poetic practice has been characterised as 'to cut away all intrusive pretension or platitude and render directly and with respect the independent reality of the things that matter to him: "Only the mountains know / where they have come from / and where they are going / and what will happen when we are gone."' (Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature)