The Rocky Shore

POETRY CATEGORY WINNER 2009

The Rocky Shore - Jenny Bornholdt

Victoria University Press, ISBN 978-0-86473-580-5, $25.00 pbk

The six long poems which make up The Rocky Shore were written over the course of six years. Together, they are as much autobiographical essay as long poem, and Jenny Bornholdt's most significant achievement to date.

Jenny Bornholdt is the author of eight previous collections of poetry and was Te Mata Estate New Zealand Poet Laureate 2005–2007.

Jenny Bornholdt is a poet and anthologist. Born in Lower Hutt in 1960, she holds a BA in English Literature and a Diploma in Journalism. She attended Bill Manhire’s original composition course at Victoria University of Wellington in 1984.

She is the author of a number of collections of poetry including Summer (April 2003) and These Days (2000) and Miss New Zealand: Selected Poems which was published in 1997 and this contains work from her four earliest collections of poetry This Big Face (1988), Moving House (1989), Waiting Shelter (1991) and How We Met (1995).

She has, with her husband poet Gregory O’Brien, edited a collection of New Zealand love poetry My Heart Goes Swimming (1996) and they, with Mark Williams, edited An Anthology of New Zealand Poetry in English (1997) which won the 1997 Montana New Zealand Book Award for Poetry.

Jenny Bornholdt spent six months of 2003 in Menton, France as the 2002 Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield Fellow. She was named as New Zealand's Poet Laureate in March 2005.