New Zealand’s most famous expatriate poet, Fleur Adcock, has developed a literary reputation for being accessible, witty and thought-provoking; for verse which is personal yet publicly aware, intimate yet detached. Described by Andrew Motion as cultivating a “flexible, all-purpose style, to allow herself the widest possible range of response”, she has captured generations of readers with her sardonic voice and measured, appraising style. Over the decades her poetry (twelve volumes, and a Selected Poems in 1983 and Poems 1960-2000 in 2000) has been identified with the changing phases of the British mainstream – the understated style of the “Group” of the 1960s, the surrealism and fantasy of the “Martian” …
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Citation: Wilson, Janet. "Fleur Adcock". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 July 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=34, accessed 22 November 2024.]
