Brian Turner (New Zealand poet)

Brian Lindsay Turner ONZM (4 March 1944 – 5 February 2025) was a New Zealand poet, author, environmental campaigner and field hockey player.^[1] He was New Zealand Poet Laureate between 2003 and 2005.

Brian Turner ONZM
Turner in 2020
4th New Zealand Poet Laureate
In office 2003–2005
Preceded by	Elizabeth Smither
Succeeded by	Jenny Bornholdt
Personal details
Born	Brian Lindsay Turner (1944-03-04)4 March 1944 Dunedin, New Zealand
Died	5 February 2025(2025-02-05) (aged 80) Wānaka, New Zealand
Relatives	Glenn Turner (brother) Greg Turner (brother) Sukhi Turner (sister-in-law)
Sports career
Country	New Zealand
Sport	Field hockey

Life and career

Turner was born in Dunedin on 4 March 1944.^[2] He played hockey for New Zealand in the 1960s and was a senior cricketer and veteran road cyclist of note. His mountaineering experience included ascending a number of major peaks including Aoraki / Mount Cook.^[3][4]

His writing included columns and reviews for daily and weekly newspapers, articles, given radio talks, and written scripts for TV programmes. His publications included cricket books with his brother Glenn Turner, the former NZ cricket captain, essays, books on fishing, the high country, and eight collections of poetry.^{[citation needed]} His other brother was golfer Greg Turner.^[4]

In late 1999, Turner moved to Oturehua, a town of about 40 people in the Maniototo region of Central Otago.^[5] He died in Wānaka on 5 February 2025, at the age of 80.^[3][6]

Awards and recognition

Memorial plaque dedicated to Brian Turner in Dunedin, on the Writers' Walk on the Octagon

• 1979 – Commonwealth Poetry Prize^[7]
• 1985 – J.C. Reid Memorial Prize^[7]
• 1993 – Montana New Zealand Book Award for Poetry^[8]
• 1997 – appointed Canterbury Writer in Residence^[7]
• 2003 – appointed Te Mata Estate New Zealand Poet Laureate for two years^[7]
• 2009 – Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry^[9]
• 2010 – Poetry Award for Just This at the New Zealand Post Book Awards^[7]
• 2020 – appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature and poetry, in the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours^[10][11]

Bibliography

Poetry

Collections

• Ladders of Rain (John McIndoe, 1978)
• Ancestors (John McIndoe, 1981)
• Listening to the River (John McIndoe, 1983)
• Bones (John McIndoe, 1985)
• All That Blue Can Be (John McIndoe, 1989)
• Beyond (John McIndoe, 1992)
• Taking Off (Victoria University Press, 2001)
• Timeless Land (Longacre Press, 2001) – includes paintings by Grahame Sydney and writing by Owen Marshall
• Footfall (Random House, 2005)
• Just This (Victoria University Press, 2009)
• Inside Outside (Victoria University Press, 2011)
• Elemental: Central Otago Poems (Godwit/Random House, 2012)
• Boundaries: People and Places of Central Otago (Penguin Random House, 2015) – also includes essays and interviews
• Night Fishing (Victoria University Press, 2016)

Memoir

• Somebodies and Nobodies (Random House, 2002)