Patrick Valdimar White – 2010

Photo of Patrick Valdimar WhitePatrick Valdimar White is a poet, essayist and artist whose work reflects his passion for the natural environment and an exploration of the way individuals relate to the land. His poetry collections are: Signposts (1977), Bushfall (1978), Cut Across the Grain (1980), Acts of Resistance (1985), Dark Backward (1994), Drought and Other Intimacies (1999), and Planting the Olives (2004). He has also published In Gallipoli: In search of a family story (Red Roofs, 2005).

Pat White lives in the rural Wairarapa near Wellington. In 2009, he completed an MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters with a folio of essays entitled How the Land Lies. He was writer in residence at the Robert Lord Cottage in Dunedin 2009/10. White will use the Randell Cottage residency to research and write a biography of West Coast writer, teacher and fellow environmentalist Peter Hooper (1919 – 1991). He says living in Thorndon will facilitate his research at the Turnbull Library and allow him easy access to papers in private hands.