Who is Jessie Mackay

Jessie Mackay (15 December 1864 – 23 August 1938) was a New Zealand poet, journalist, feminist and animal rights activist. She is often referred to as New Zealand's first local-born poet and was one of the earliest writers to have a distinctly New Zealand style.

Biography

Mackay was born in 1864 in Rakaia. Her Scottish parents were the shepherd (later station manager) Robert Mackay and his wife, Elizabeth Mackay (née Ormiston), and she was the eldest of a large family of daughters. She was homeschooled until she was 14 and went to Christchurch to train as a teacher, and taught at small rural schools from 1887 until 1898. She moved to Dunedin in 1898, and worked as a journalist for the Otago Witness for four years.Mackay's first volume of poetry, The Spirit of th...
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Jessie Mackay Poems

• Dunedin In The Gloaming
  Like a black, enamoured King whispered low the thunder
  To the lights of Roslyn, terraced far asunder:
  Hovered low the sister cloud in wild, warm wonder.
  ...
• Ortygia
  IN Ortygia the Dawn land the old gods dwell,
  And the silverâ??s yet a-quiver on the old wizard well
  By the milk-white walls of the Temple of the Moon,
  Where the Dawn Maids hallow the red godsâ?? tune, ...
• The Grey Company
  O the grey, grey company
     Of the pallid dawn!
  O the ghostly faces,
     Ashen-like and drawn! ...
• Song Of The Driftweed
  HEREâ??S to the home that was never, never ours!
  Toast it full and fairly when the winter lowers.
  Speak ye low, my merry men, sitting at your ease;
  Harken to the homeless Drift in the roaring seas! ...
• The Burial Of Sir John Mackenzie
  (1901)
  
  They played him home to the House of Stones
     All the way, all the way, ...

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Jessie Mackay Quotes

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Comments about Jessie Mackay

• Timothycbaker: (i'm not, but i'm currently like 'is it better to teach jessie kesson, george mackay brown, or neil gunn', and that is a terrible choice to make.)
• Thespinofftv: a new poem by the 2022 jessie mackay prize for poetry recipient
• Harlots_mackay: red hottt and ready for you. see jessie today!
• Trusorina: riley keough, jessie buckley, jena malone, juno temple, rooney mara, lucas hedge, george mackay, mia goth.
• Jamie_blom: happy birthday to two of my rock stars and they share the same day!! that is fun. i have my son here and we share the same day later…but for now. happy bday. josh t and jessie m. mackay heating and cooling. heroes here!!! go guys go

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