Expatriate poet Fleur Adcock is grateful to New Zealand for
the affection it has shown her, despite her having lived in
England since 1963.
Ms Adcock was named a Companion of the New Zealand Order of
Merit for services to literature in the Queen's Birthday
Honours today.
"I'm very pleased to have it. It's very nice of them to offer
it to me," she told NZPA.
Having been gone so long she said it was always strange to
receive awards as a New Zealander, although she had strong
family ties to the country.
"I've got a lot of descendants, I've got six grandchildren
and two great-grandchildren so I'm getting more and more
reattached to New Zealand over the years because of going
back to see them."
Ms Adcock is a poet of international acclaim who frequently
reviews New Zealand books in British journals.
A student at Victoria University from 1951-1955 she gained a
Bachelor and Masters of Arts in Classics. Her first published
poems were in the university's student newspaper Salient.
In 1984 Ms Adcock was awarded the New Zealand Book Award, the
same year she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature. This was followed by an Order of the British
Empire (OBE) in 1996 and in 2006 Ms Adcock became only the
second New Zealander to receive the Queen's Gold Medal for
Poetry.
She returned to England earlier this year after a two month
stay in New Zealand after being awarded an Honorary Doctorate
of Literature from her old university.
Ms Adcock said she was not sure where she would be accepting
the latest accolade, but the New Zealand High Commissioner to
Britain Derek Leask had offered to throw a party in London.
