Poet chooses when to die

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Beveridge and the nuclear-free movement

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The campaign to declare New Zealand nuclear free in the 1980s began at the local level throughout the country. In September 1983 Nelson City was declared a nuclear-weapon-free zone. This is the story of this historic decision and the notable events and characters involved. In March 1976, Mike Beveridge and Darryl Kennedy, the owners of the Everyman Bookshop in Hardy Street (later also a record store known to Nelsonians as 'the Everyman' and a Nelson institution) launched a petition to ban nuclear warships from NZ ports. They challenged other shopkeepers to have the petition in their stores for people to sign. In only three months, in July 1976, the petition was presented to parliament with over 20,000 signatures. Mike Beveridge was a poet ('Poems for Remembering' 2022) and Frank Sargeson Fellow, and had been a schoolteacher at Nayland College prior to opening the Everyman.  Read more at:  https://www.theprow.org.nz/society/nuclear-free-nelson/   March for peace (anti-V...
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Four poems from Mike Beveridge’s book Poems for Remembering

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  All poems copyright Mike Beveridge   Once A Catholic Who would have guessed one day we’d all awake Beneath an unseen cloud whence we can take Uploadings of pornography, giga- Mega, all free, all unforbidden too, Full detailed fantasies of me and you, Acted out with non-stop, noisy vigour?   And who’d have picked good parents might invite Their youngsters’ friends to fornicate the night Away, then chat through breakfast? Or that Jo And Kev from two doors down, both freshly waged, Should grab this chance to get engaged? Engaged?!!? Twelve years on bennies, and five kids in tow!   I like all this. I like these bold attempts In bright new days to function with some sense That morals ought fit people – this is brave! Forgivingness. Transparency. Such times: No manic need to punish lovers’ crimes, Nor call unsanctioned covenants depraved.   I do approve. I do. But for myself, I got addicted young to thinking stealt...
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The poetry of Mike Beveridge, a critical review

  Generosity, Intelligence and Love in the Poetry of Mike Beveridge An obituary in The Post newspaper on Tuesday 13 July 2023 informs us that “ Mike Beveridge died at 3 pm yesterday. He chose the time. He chose the place.” Among scholars, Beveridge is best remembered for Conversation with Frank Sargeson: an interview with Michael Beveridge (published in Landfall 24 while he was a post-graduate student at the University of Canterbury and which is still required reading for students of New Zealand literature at university level), for a series of short stories in Islands and Landfall during the 1970s and 80s and for having been the 1989 Grimshaw Sargeson fellow . To most residents of Nelson, however, he was indelibly associated with Everyman , a second-hand book and record store that he founded with a partner in 1975, the fame of which spread throughout New Zealand and even worldwide over the forty-or-so years of its existence. Even so, the rougher and readier coevals of the ca...
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