Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive records.

Collection

Identifier: MSS-Archives-2005/1

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

(1) Recordings of 171 New Zealand poets reading their work. Final version. 40 CDs. CD1 - CD 40. In Media Cabinet (2) Playlists of recordings. Ochre label. 1 CD. CD 41. In Media Cabinet (3) Texts of poems and bio-bibliography of poets represented in the collection. Burgundy label. Edited version of item 4. 1 CD. CD 42. In Media Cabinet. (4) Text files sent by poets / edited by Jack Ross. Blue label. 1 CD. CD 43. In Media Cabinet (5) Printout of playlist (item 2). 1 folder (Loose on shelves). (6) Poetry texts and bio-bibliographies received from poets and edited by Edmund King. Filed alphabetically by poet. 15 folders. (Loose on shelves). (7) Original sound recordings of poets reading their work at regional studios in Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and from individual poets. 48 CDs, 2 DATs + 2 minidiscs. RESTRICTED. Box 1 (8) Text files received directly from poets, arranged in alphabetical order by poet. 136 floppy disks + 6 CDs. RESTRICTED. Boxes 2-3 (9) Initial recordings made in SCAPA studios, University of Auckland 2002 - 2003. 68 CDs. Inventory of these recordings in Box 4. RESTRICTED. Boxes 4-5

Dates

2002 - 2004

Creator

Kemp, Jan, 1949- (Person)
King, Mark (Person)
Ross, Jack (Person)
Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive (Organization)
King, Edmund (Edmund George Coghill) (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Partly restricted. The written permission of the copyright owner and/or other rightsholders is required before any requests will be granted for copies of works in the collection.

Biographical / Historical

Compiled and edited by Jan Kemp and Jack Ross, with assistance from Edmund King and Mark King. Material collected by Jan Kemp, Elizabeth Alley, David Howard with Morrin Rout, and Richard Reeve with Nick Ascroft.

In July 2002, Jan Kemp approached Alan Smythe, the Director of SCARPA (School of Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Auckland) about the possibility of creating an archive of spoken poetry, updating the "Waiata' recording which they produced with Dr Jonathan Lamb in 1974. Jan Kemp arranged for the collection of recordings and texts using SCARPA as a home base for the archive, and organised the use of regional studios, as well as appointing regional co-ordinators in Wellington (Elizabeth Alley), Christchurch (David Howard and Morrin Rout) and Dunedin (Nick Ascroft and Richard Reeve).

A Creative New Zealand grant allowed Jan Kemp to invite Jack Ross to become the textual editor and later co-director of the archive. He began editing the texts of the spoken poems, and continued doing so throughout 2003 and into 2004, assisted by the Archive's research assistant, Edmund King. Edmund worked on the project based in the Special Collections department of the University of Auckland Library.

Mark King, from the University of Auckland's Multimedia Teaching Support Unit, established order in the labyrinth of sound recordings from studios all over the country. Jan assisted Mark in ensuring that the digital audio texts of all the recorded poems correlated with the electronic texts and support materials compiled by Jack and Edmund.