27/08/2026
Happy National Poetry Day!
Today seems like the perfect opportunity to celebrate the life and work of Riemke Ensing (1939-2026). Riemke moved to New Zealand from the Netherlands with her family at the age of 12, following the trauma of the Second World War. Her experience as an immigrant informed her work and she went from arriving with just a few phrases in English to graduating with an MA in English from the University of Auckland - Waipapa Taumata Rau. She then became a tutor and research fellow, all the while publishing poetry and being active in the arts and cultural life of Aotearoa, as well as peace activism.
This poem brings together two New Zealand emigrants - Katherine Mansfield and Frances Hodgkins. It’s dedicated to teacher and critic Eric McCormick, who was noted for his work on Hodgkins. The poem was published in Riemke’s 1993 collection ‘The K.M. File and Other Poems with Katherine Mansfield.’ Many of the poems in the collection were written during the centenary of Mansfield’s birth in 1988.
Riemke’s poem may be about an imagined still life by Hodgkins, inspired by Mansfield, as the items described don’t exactly match any of Hodgkins’ still lives publicly available to view. The still life pictured, ‘Roses and China’, is by Frances Hodgkins from around 1931. It’s held in the collection of the Salford Museum and Art Gallery.
To find more of Hodgkins work, visit the wonderful website www.completefrancishodgkins.com a project developed by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki that draws on Eric McCormick’s research and the many other Hodgkins researchers who followed.
