Early Days Yet

Directed by Shirley Horrocks, Early Days Yet is a 73-minute documentary about New Zealand poet and editor Allen Curnow, made in the last months of his life. The poet talks about his South Island upbringing, his life and work, and visits the places that inspired his most important poems. Fellow New Zealand poets like Bill Manhire and Elizabeth Smither discuss Curnow's significance as an advocate for New Zealand poetry. As Curnow famously mused in front of a moa skeleton at Canterbury Museum: "Not I, some child, born in a marvellous year / Will learn the trick of standing upright here." Read more about the documentary here. 

It is good that Curnow allowed a filmmaker as deft and careful as [Shirley] Horrocks to finally tell us about him . . . While a raft of fellow poets has lined up to praise and explain, Horrocks has mostly chosen to let her subject, through his words, memories and presence, acquaint us with who he was and what he means.

– Reviewer Greg Dixon in The NZ Herald, 4 October 2001

Key Cast & Crew

Jennifer Ward-Lealand

Narrator

Roger Horrocks

Writer, Research

Bill Toepfer

Editor

Leon Narbey

Cinematographer

Ken Sparks

Editor

Shirley Horrocks

Director, Producer, Writer, Research