Rarotonga Gives Nz A Poet

ARAROTONGAN-BORN poet has 'attracted attention in New Zealand.

He is Alistair Campbell, whose first volume of poems, published recently under the title of “Mine Eyes Sparkle,” evoked high praise from New Zealand literary critics.

Mr. Campbell was born in Rarotonga in 1926 and went to New Zealand in 1934.

He is a son of the late Mr. John Archibald Campbell, who, until his death in 1933, was secretary of the Cook Islands Trading Co. Mr. Campbell first went to Rarotonga in 1919, after service in World War I, as clerk for A. B. Donald, Ltd., and there he married a native girl from Penryhn Island. When he and his wife both died

in hospital in Papeete, about the same time, the family of three boys and one girl—of which Alistair was the second youngest—was sent to New Zealand.

Alistair was educated at the Otago Boys’

High School, in Dunedin, and at the Universities in Dunedin and Wellington.

His ability as a poet was early manifest; but it was not until he met other young writers in the capital city where he is now living that he devoted himself seriously to verse.

Mr. J. L. Wolledge, CMG, Director General of Colonial Audit, London, visited Fiji recently during a tour of the Crown Colonies.

Miss Anatila Nordman, of Papeete, is now in New York. She left Tahiti two years ago, and has visited many cities in Europe.

Alistair Campbell