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MURRAY EDMOND was born in 1949 in Hamilton, New Zealand. He has written nine books of poetry, the latest two being Laminations (Auckland University Press, 2000) and A Piece of Work (Kane’ohe, Hawai’i: TinFish Press, 2002), and edited three anthologies, the latest being Big Smoke: New Zealand Poems 1960-1975 (Auckland University Press, 2000), which was co-edited with Alan Brunton and Michele Leggott. Edmond currently teaches theatre, drama and poetry at the University of Auckland.
Edmond comments: ‘“Voyager” was written in Warsaw in July 2002. I had been going to meet Alan Brunton and his partner and longtime theatre collaborator Sally Rodwell in Warsaw at the beginning of July 2002 to take in the Street Arts Festival in that city. But Alan died suddenly of a heart attack in Amsterdam three days before he was due to arrive. Just before his death, Alan had been performing with Sally at a festival in Norway under the banner of Red Mole, the company they started in 1974. For 27 years Red Mole had toured and performed in New Zealand, New York, New Mexico, Amsterdam and many other places. “Voyager” is an elegy for Alan and incorporates a more-or-less complete translation of Apollinaire’s poem “Voyageur.”’
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