I’m an ‘occasional’ author. I started writing poetry well before I wrote songs, and from my mid teens I admired poets such as Kahlil Gibran, Leonard Cohen & James K Baxter. For a time I was the ‘resident musician’ with a group of Auckland performance poets, so I got to hear a lot of good writing, and I guess I developed a certain covetousness of their craft, especially when I saw them producing their own books.

My own first attempt came in 1995, with Perhaps... where I pulled together everything half-decent I’d written up to that point. Over time I’ve refined my craft a fair bit, publishing 4 collections of poetry & an illustrated children’s book, RUFUS AND THE RAIN. I’ve written articles and reviews for NZ and international magazines. I’ve also kept journals since the 1970s - a good seed-bed for poems, stories and songs.

For several years Brenda & I were ‘role models’ for Duffy Books In Homes, an organization that gets free books to children in lower decile schools. This meant that we traveled the country, visiting schools, often in poorer or rural communities, and put on a show based around my RUFUS book (which all the schools have in their libraries). It was a great way to combine the words and music.

I’ve often included a few poems in our concert setlist.  People who don’t normally read poetry seem to warm to it because they get to ‘hear’ it - perhaps it’s an artifact of childhood, liking someone to read to us?

Photo: Brenda Liddiard