Heather McPherson

For the Canadian politician, see Heather McPherson (politician).

Heather Avis McPherson (28 May 1942 – 10 January 2017) was a poet and lesbian feminist who played a key role in supporting women artists and writers in New Zealand. She was known as a publisher and editor, who in 1976 founded Spiral, a women's arts and literary journal that later published monographs. She was also a single mother and grandmother.

Her influential literary and visual arts activism was inspired by an all-male poets' evening at the 1973 Christchurch Festival, where she observed "twenty young men getting up on the stage one after another".

Career

Born in Tauranga, McPherson studied at the University of Auckland and Canterbury University. McPherson's poetry first appeared in print in 1963, and she went on to publish five collections of poetry.

In 1974, McPherson started one of New Zealand's first women's artist collectives, the Women Artists Group in Christchurch, and from this co-founded the first New Zealand women's art journal, Spiral. Spiral provided a forum for female artists and writers to publish their work, during a time in which female artists struggled to be recognised in New Zealand. McPherson herself said, "I worked with the material we received–that it didn't reflect our own reality didn't bother me too much, it was the idea of women working together positively, that was the aim, and the amalgam of arts – photographers as well as poets, writers, painters etc."The journal was first published in 1976 and was a collective effort from the outset, with the Spiral Collective established to produce the publication. The first four issues were published by McPherson and the Christchurch collective (1976–79), issue five was published by a Wellington collective, issue six by a Tauranga collective, and issue seven by a national collective.

Spiral also became a floating imprint used by these autonomous groups to publish other books by New Zealand women, including McPherson's debut poetry book, A figurehead: a face (Spiral, 1982), which was the first New Zealand poetry collection by an out lesbian, Keri Hulme's Booker Prize-winning novel The Bone People (1984), The House of the Talking Cat by J C Sturm (Jacquie Baxter, 1983), and Drawing Together by Janet Charman, Marina Bachmann and Sue Fitchett (1985). Artists and writers who were associated with the Women Artists Group initiatives and the Spiral Collectives included Joanna Margaret Paul, Marian Evans, Allie Eagle, Bridie Lonie, and Anna Keir, all prominent figures in the timeline of the feminist art movement in New Zealand.

In 1980, McPherson was involved in the opening show at the Women's Gallery in Wellington (another first for New Zealand), where she worked as a co-ordinator. Her poem, Have You Heard of Artemisia? was painted on the 1981 Matariki Mural on the outside wall of the gallery on Harris Street.

Works

Poetry books

Source: National Library of NZ

• This Joyous Chaotic Place: Garden Poems, Spiral, Wellington, 2018
• Travel and other compulsions, Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, Paekakariki, 2004
• Other world relations, Old Bags, Wellington, 1991
• The third myth, Tauranga Moana Press, Tauranga, 1986
• A figurehead: a face, Spiral, Wellington, 1982

Exhibition

Source: Mokopōpaki and Art New Zealand

This Joyous, Chaotic Place: He Waiata Tangi-ā-Tahu Mokopōpaki, 2018

Anthologies

Sources: National Library of NZ and Aotearoa Poetry Sound Archive

• This Joyous, Chaotic Place: He Waiata Tangi-āTahu (with texts from Allie Eagle, Dr P (Cushla Parekowhai), Heather McPherson, Margery Blackman, M (Marian Evans), Tiffany Thornley), Mokopōpaki & Spiral, 2019
• Manifesto Aotearoa ed. Philip Temple & Emma Neale, Otago University Press, Dunedin, 2017
• Live Lines IV ed. Miriam Barr, Rachael Naomi Heimann, Penny Sommervaile, Jeremy Roberts, Poetry Live, Auckland, 2011
• Remember us: women who love women, from Sappho to liberation ed. Miriam Saphira, Heather McPherson & Fran Marno, Charlotte Museum Trust, New Zealand, 2008
• Big Smoke: New Zealand Poems 1960–75 ed. Michele Leggott Murray Edmond, Alan Brunton, Auckland University Press, Auckland 2000
• Eat These Sweet Words, ed. Sue Fitchett, Marewa Glover, Cary McDermott & Rhona Vickoce, Giant Publishing Press, Christchurch 1999
• Car Maintenance, Explosives and Love, ed. Susan Hawthorne, Cathy Dunsford & Susan Sayer, Spinifex, Nth. Melb, 1997
• Spiral 7: a collection of lesbian art and writing from Aotearoa/New Zealand, ed. Heather McPherson, Julie King, Marian Evans, Pam Gerrish Nunn, Daphne Brasell Associates Press, Wellington, 1992
• Lavender Annual, ed. Miriam Saphira, Papers Inc., 1989
• Kiwi and Emu: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Australian and New Zealand Women, ed. Barbara Petrie, Butterfly, 1989
• The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Poetry, ed. Miriama Evans, Harvey McQueen and Ian Wedde, 1989
• A Women's Picture Book: 25 Women Artists of Aotearoa New Zealand ed. Marian Evans, Bridie Lonie, Tllly Lloyd, Government Print, Wellington, 1988
• Yellow Pencils: Contemporary Poetry by New Zealand Women, chosen by Lydia Wevers, OUP, 1988
• The New Poets of the ‘80s, ed. Murray Edmond & Mary Paul, Allen & Unwin, 1987
• The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse, ed. Ian Wedde and Harvey McQueen, 1985.
• The Turning Face, Twelve Writers from Tauranga Moana ed. Robert de Roo, Tauranga Moana Press, 1984
• Spiral 4 ed. Spiral Collective: Ruth Lawley, Heather McPherson, Wendy Prestney, Tiffany Thornily, Chris Smith, Gladys Gurney, Spiral, Christchurch, 1979
• Spiral 3 ed. Spiral Collective: Patsy Keene, Anna Keir, Ruth Lawley, Heather McPherson, Wendy Prestney, Tiffany Thornley, Spiral, Christchurch, 1978
• Spiral 2 ed. Spiral Collective: Kath Algie, Paulette Barr, Heather McPherson, Alison Mitchell, Spiral, Christchurch, 1977
• Private Gardens: An Anthology of New Zealand Women Poets, ed. Riemke Ensing, Caveman, 1977
• Spiral 1 ed. Heather McPherson, Spiral, Christchurch, 1976
• Arts Festival Year Book 1969, New Zealand Universities, ed. Bill Manhire & John Dickson, Dunedin
• Kiwi 1963, ed. Tyme Curnow & Terry Snow, Auckland University Press