The Road to Jerusalem

...I said to him "I thought when you left you said 'no more books, no more poems.' And he just looked at me and said "Colin, I can't help it ... They just crawl up my back."

– Colin Durning recalls a conversation with his friend James K Baxter, early in this documentary

There was a point there in the later years in Jerusalem, where he actually tried to stop writing. And he couldn't. He could not stop writing. I mean it welled up in him like a sort of mountain spring. He had this almost pressure of creativity coming through him.

– James K Baxter's son John Baxter

He never had a study. He never had a little batch at the bottom of the garden like some other writers have ... We made no concessions to his writing whatsoever. I didn't. The kids didn't.

– James K Baxter's ex wife JC Sturm

He didn't start writing, actual writing, until he was about seven I think. Then he started writing, and he wrote then continuously until he died — without stopping almost.

– James K Baxter's mother Millicent Baxter

Father, I am no minor prophet who imagines the Garden of Eden is to be found among the Māoris. I dread the hardship, difficulty, change, into which I might go. Yet for years I have felt that the way of life I have led — and that many around me lead — is hollow, burdensome in the wrong way, too analytical, too dominated by money and words ... [I] now wish to make a radical change … this thought of Jerusalem is like water in the mouth of a man who has been without it a long time.

– James K Baxter in a letter to Pat Cleary, the Catholic priest at Jerusalem/Hiruhārama

He was a man who walked out, and left everything behind him ... [he] became like a beggar.

– James K Baxter's ex-wife JC Sturm

It changed Jim. The road from India led to Jerusalem. That plus the shock of being a member of an ethnic minority group.

– James K Baxter's ex-wife JC Sturm on Baxter's time in India

Auckland, even when I'm well stoned on a tab of LSD or Indian grass, you still look to me like an elephant's asshole...

– A quote from one of James K Baxter poem 'Ode to Auckland', at the start of this documentary

In 40 years, I haven't found a cure for being human.

– A quotation from James K Baxter

I've often thought that if I ever wrote my memoirs ... the title would be 'In My Father's Shadow.' It was very hard growing up as the son of James K Baxter.

– John Baxter

No way did he ever set himself up to be a guru. He did on the other hand project a certain image, and that was deliberately done — the long hair, the beard, the bare feet, you know. In those days the way you looked was very important. Short, back and sides and a suit was establishment, and he wanted to make it very clear that he did not subscribe to that...

– James K Baxter's son John Baxter, late in this documentary