Bernard Cadogan

Australia has 'The Great South Land', South Africa has 'Shaka Zulu', Argentina has the gaucho epic 'Martin Fierro', and Chile has 'La Araucana' as its national poem. Now New Zealand has Crete 1941, an epic poem about the New Zealand-led defence of Crete during the Battle of Crete between 20 May and 1 June 1941. Crete 1941 is the only...

Bringing together 31 of his poems as a meditation on the work of the German poet, Friedrich Hölderlin, New Zealand poet Bernard Cadogan recommends that you read one poem each day for a month, allowing yourself the time to engage with it. Each poem is a response either to reading a poem by Hölderlin, or to his situation. He uses...