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

in 1983 and

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” poets of the 1970s, political satire associated with the women’s…

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Citation: Wilson, Janet. "Fleur Adcock". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 July 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=34, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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