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Eileen Duggan,1894-1972, poet and writer

Eileen Duggan as The Spirit of Ireland in a school play Special Collections, The University of Auckland Library & New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre
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At one time, Marlborough-born poet, Eileen Duggan, was one of New Zealand's most widely acclaimed poets.¹ 

Between 1922 and 1951, she published five volumes of poetry, with second editions of Poems (published 1937/39) printed in England and the United States. She was made an OBE in 1937 and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (London) in 1943. ²

Poetry, essays and journalism earned Duggan an income for nearly 50 years and her work was very popular. She used traditional poetic forms and simple lyrics, and Catholic beliefs, legends and symbols were important elements in her work.  However, apart from one eponymous volume published in 1994, her poetry is now largely out of print.³

Born in Tua Marina, which is now known as Tuamarina, the daughter of Irish Catholic immigrant parents, Duggan was the youngest of four daughters. She went to Marlborough High School, now Marlborough College, Wellington Teachers' Training College and graduated from Victoria University College in 1918 with an MA in History (first class honours).⁴

Eileen Duggan (left) and Julia McLeely, Wellington 1930-31, Special Collections, The University of Auckland Library & New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre
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Although she did not return to Tua Marina to live, Duggan's Marlborough childhood influenced much of her writing:  

"...until the days of motors Tua Marina, in the main, lived much to itself, even in our own times, though there were summer journeys to Picton or Cloudy Bay, and though the sea was so close, it had no pull as an occupation. The land was everything."

"In Tua Marina, the fruits of the earth were shared, often tools and machinery were lent, and, if labour was short,men gave a hand especially in flood time when stock or harvest was threatened." ⁵

Or  from the poem Tua Marina:

Who here has seen upon the road to Para
Five tuis swinging on a bough at noon?
Who here has heard the wind among the raupo,
As I have heard it by the old lagoon?⁶

Duggan's first volume Poems, published in 1921, reflected her Irish heritage but her next volumes: New Zealand Bird Songs (1929), Poems (1937/39) and New Zealand Poems(1940) had a New Zealand focus. ⁷

Eileen Duggan (with cat) and sister Mary. Special Collections, The University of Auckland Library & New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre
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However Duggan fell out of fashion.  The decline in her reputation may partly be due to the absence of her poetry from three influential anthologies of New Zealand poetry- two published by Caxton Press in 1945 and 1951 and a Penguin anthology in 1960. ⁸ Duggan was unhappy with the poems selected by editor Allen Curnow ⁹, who had written of her poetry 'that the whole effect is that of an emotional cliché', and she refused permission to publish the poems in the anthologies. ¹⁰

The other criticism of Duggan's poetry, was, that like other pre-1930s poets, she used words such as kowhai, rata and tui to try and make them New Zealand poems and this was considered by some to be gratuitous.  Duggan herself wrote in an essay on New Zealand poetry that "No art is made  national by the mere mention of kowhais and kiwis. ¹¹

Duggan's most iconic and timeless Marlborough poem was The Tides Run Up the Wairau¹²

The tides run up the Wairau
That fights against their flow.
My heart and it together
Are running salt and snow.
(Verse 1 )

'... we can be thankful for the uncompromising nature of Duggan's poetry... And she is worth reading ... (She) had great faith in herself as a poet, waiting these many years for readers...' Michele Leggott ("Lodestone at last", Listener, July 30, 1994).  ¹³

Note 
The Eileen Duggan Green was opened on Wednesday 7 October, 2009 by deputy mayor Jenny Andrews as part of Marlborough's 150th Anniversary celebrations. The small park with a plaque featuring a verse from the Tides run up the Wairau is situated behind Tuamarina School and accessed via Cotterell Street, Tuamarina.

Permission to print the poetry extracts was granted by Mark Horton, Literary Executor,  Estate Eileen Duggan

Sources used in this story

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