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James K Baxter was one of New Zealand most accomplished poetry writers. Baxter has tended to show his life emotions through his writing. Baxter’s life has changed dramatically. And with this his poetry content has changed dramatically. Many things have helped to change his life including, His parents, Pacifism, Schooling, University, Alcohol, Religion, Work environments, Marriage, United Nations Commitments, Operating a Auckland Safe House and Having a number of occupations. James K Baxter describes his poems as ‘part of a large subconscious corpus of personal myth, like an island above the sea, but joined underwater to other islands’ James K Baxter was born in Otago to a farming family. His parent’s labour voting influenced Baxter a lot as well as his parents contrasting backgrounds. Also his father being a pacifist made Baxter teenage years solitary. During 1942 and 1946 he drafted up to 600 poems. This helped his poetry mind to develop and grow and helped him to release feelings that he had never been able to, about life in general. James K Baxter always had strong views about the world, which has come out in his poetry. His views on systematic schooling were showed when on the first day of school he burnt his hand. He was a very unmotivated student who focused his time on reading poetry. He read a lot of poetry from Aude, Spencer, Macniece and Day Lewis , which inspired Baxter to write poetry on the problems with society. By his late teens he was developing a very strong inner voice to the views of the world and of New Zealand. In 1944 he started what Baxter called “a long and unsuccessful with the higher learning” at the time when he started with Otago University.
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