Mary Morris Cresswell (formerly Meyerhoff, née Howard; born 1937) is a poet living on the

Kāpiti Coast Kapiti or Kāpiti may refer to: *Kapiti Island, an island a short distance off the New Zealand coast north of Wellington *Kapiti Coast District, the local government district which includes much of the Kapiti Coast *Kapiti Coast Airport, an airport ...

, New Zealand.

Early life

Cresswell was born Mary Morris Howard in 1937 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, California. She grew up in

Evanston, Illinois Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, Wil ...

, and Los Angeles. She attended the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...

and

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, graduating from the latter with a degree in history and English literature. She was married first to the philosopher , who died in a car accident in 1965, and then married logician

Max Cresswell Maxwell John Cresswell (born 19 November 1939) is a New Zealand philosopher and logician, known for his work in modal logic.''Festschrift for Max Cresswell on the occasion of his 65th birthday.'' In: ''Logique et Analyse.'' Number 181, March 20 ...

in Los Angeles on 14 March 1970. She moved to New Zealand in 1970, and has lived in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

and

Waikanae Waikanae (, ) is a town on the Kapiti Coast, 60 kilometres north of the Wellington CBD. The name is a Māori word meaning "waters" (''wai'') "of the grey mullet". The town lies between Paraparaumu, eight kilometres to the southwest, and Ōtak ...

. Her daughter,

Miriam Meyerhoff Miriam Meyerhoff (born 1964) is a New Zealand sociolinguist. In 2020 she was appointed as a senior research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Early life and family Meyerhoff was born in 1964, the daughter of poet Mary Cresswell and philosop ...

, is a sociolinguist.

Career

Cresswell worked for many years as a science editor, including ten years as editor of the ''Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand'', and later as an editor for scientists at the

Department of Conservation An environmental ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for the environment and/or natural resources. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of the Environment ...

. Her science background infuses her poetry, which is characterised by frequent references to the natural world, "mov ngbetween people, science and nature" and demonstrating "a strong sense of respect for natural settings and features". Her poetry is notable for a focus on form, including rhyme. It often explores lesser-known formats such as

ghazal The ''ghazal'' ( ar, غَزَل, bn, গজল, Hindi-Urdu: /, fa, غزل, az, qəzəl, tr, gazel, tm, gazal, uz, gʻazal, gu, ગઝલ) is a form of amatory poem or ode, originating in Arabic poetry. A ghazal may be understood as a ...

s, glossas,

centos CentOS (, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) is a Linux distribution that provides a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat En ...

as well as more well-known forms such as the

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's invention, ...

. She acknowledges the influence of the poets

Kay Ryan Kay Ryan (born September 21, 1945) is an American poet and educator. She has published seven volumes of poetry and an anthology of selected and new poems. From 2008 to 2010 she was the sixteenth United States Poet Laureate. In 2011 she was named ...

Paul Muldoon Paul Muldoon (born 20 June 1951) is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he is currently both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University Pr ...

, and

Thom Gunn Thomson William "Thom" Gunn (29 August 1929 – 25 April 2004) was an English poet who was praised for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement, and his later poetry in America, even after moving towards a looser, ...

on her work. In 2000 she came third in the New Zealand Poetry Society's International Poetry Competition for her poem "Observations Made in Passing", and in 2008 was highly commended in an annual poetry competition run by the journal ''Bravado''. Her 2011 collection ''Trace Fossils'' was runner-up for the Kathleen Grattan Award. Her poems have been published in New Zealand, Australian, Canadian, American and British literary journals, including ''Best New Zealand Poems'' (2005) and ''Best of Best New Zealand Poems'' (2011).

Publications

* ''Millionaire's Shortbread'', with Mary-Jane Duffy, Mary Macpherson and Kerry Hines (2003, Otago University Press) * ''Nearest and Dearest'' (2009, Steele Roberts) * ''Trace Fossils'' (2011, Steele Roberts) * ''Fish Stories'' (2015, Canterbury University Press) * ''Field Notes'' (2017, Makaro Press) * ''Body Politic'' (2020, Cuba Press)

References

External links

Author biography
published by

Read NZ Te Pou Muramura Read NZ Te Pou Muramura (formerly the New Zealand Book Council) is a not-for-profit organisation that presents a wide range of programmes to promote books and reading in New Zealand. History It was established in 1972 as a response to UNESCO's ...

"Golden Weather (Cook Strait)"
poem published in ''Best New Zealand Poems'' (2005) {{DEFAULTSORT:Cresswell, Mary New Zealand poets 1937 births Living people Writers from Los Angeles American emigrants to New Zealand Stanford University alumni