Brian Lindsay Turner (4 March 1944 – 5 February 2025) was a New Zealand poet, author, environmental campaigner and field hockey player. He was New Zealand Poet Laureate between 2003 and 2005.

Life and career Turner was born in Dunedin on 4 March 1944.World Who's Who, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group (2012). He played hockey for New Zealand in the 1960s and was a senior cricketer and veteran road cyclist of note. His mountaineering experience included ascending a number of major peaks including Aoraki / Mount Cook.

In 1978, Turner was one of the founders of the South Island Independence Movement.

His writing included columns and reviews for daily and weekly newspapers, articles, given radio talks, and written scripts for TV programmes. His publications included cricket books with his brother Glenn Turner, the former NZ cricket captain, essays, books on fishing, the high country, and many collections of poetry. His other brother was golfer Greg Turner.

In late 1999, Turner moved to Oturehua, a town of about 40 people in the Maniototo region of Central Otago.Interview in The Sunday Star-Times, 13 July 2008 pages C1-C2 He died in Wānaka on 5 February 2025, at the age of 80.

Awards and recognition

1979 – Commonwealth Poetry Prize 1984 - Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago 1985 – J.C. Reid Memorial Prize 1993 – Montana New Zealand Book Award for Poetry 1997 – appointed Canterbury Writer in Residence 2003 – appointed Te Mata Estate New Zealand Poet Laureate for two years 2009 – Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry 2010 – Poetry Award for Just This at the New Zealand Post Book Awards 2020 – appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature and poetry, in the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours

Bibliography

Poetry Collections Ladders of Rain (John McIndoe, 1978) Ancestors (John McIndoe, 1981) Listening to the River (John McIndoe, 1983) Bones (John McIndoe, 1985) All That Blue Can Be (John McIndoe, 1989) Beyond (John McIndoe, 1992) Taking Off (Victoria University Press, 2001) Two Otago Poems (Bibliography Room, University of Otago, 2003) Faces in the Water (Bibliography Room, University of Otago, 2004) Footfall (Random House, 2005) Just This (Victoria University Press, 2009) Inside Outside (Victoria University Press, 2011) Elemental: Central Otago Poems (Godwit/Random House, 2012) Poets' Night Out with Vincent O'Sullivan, Jenny Bornholdt and Gregory O'Brien (Fernbank Studio, 2014) Night Fishing (Victoria University Press, 2016) Selected Poems (Victoria University Press, 2019) Selected Poems (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2025)

Anthologies Timeless Land (Longacre Press, 2001) – includes paintings by Grahame Sydney and writing by Owen Marshall Into the Wider World: A Back Country Miscellany (Random House, 2008) Boundaries: People and Places of Central Otago (Penguin Random House, 2015) – also includes essays and interviews Landmarks – includes paintings by Grahame Sydney and writing by Owen Marshall (Godwit, 2020) Sport Opening Up with Glenn Turner (Hodder and Stoughton, 1987) Lifting the Covers with Glenn Turner (Longacre Press, 1998) On the Loose with Josh Kronfeld (Longacre Press, 1999) Meads (Hodder Moa Beckett, 2002) Anton Oliver inside with Anton Oliver (Hodder Moa, 2005) Non-fiction Images of Coastal Otago - photographs by Michael de Hamel (John McIndoe, 1982) New Zealand High Country, Four Seasons with Gordon Roberts (Millwood, 1983) The Visitor's Guide to Fiordland New Zealand - photographs by Michael de Hamel (1983) The Last River’s Song - photographs of the Clutha and Kawarau by Lloyd Godman (John McIndoe, 1989) The Guide to Trout Fishing in Central Otago (1983, revised 1994, revised 2003)

Memoir Somebodies and Nobodies (Random House, 2002)

References

External links Interview with Brian Turner, from New Zealand Listener of 5–11 March 2005, Vol 197 no 3382