Janet Frame's memorial includes unpublished work

Her own story touched a nation as dearly as the words she wrote.

Janet Frame was remembered on Saturday as much for her mastery of the written word as she was for her ability to achieve in the face of adversity.

At a national memorial, more than 1000 people at the Dunedin Town Hall were told New Zealand had lost its most distinguished writer.

Dunedin Mayor Sukhi Turner succinctly stated: "Janet Frame is an icon of New Zealand, her legacy etched deeply into our culture and our identity".

The commemoration of Frame's life and works was a delicate balance of speech, dance, song and poetry, including a previously unpublished work recorded by the author herself.

It was as if Frame were present, and writer and longtime friend C.K. Stead joked that if she were sitting in the audience, it would have been a typically unexpected twist, penned in her own style.

Stead said Frame was a genius, breaking literary convention. "She does terrible things to fiction - unforgivable things ... What is remarkable about Janet Frame is her control of language."

Frame's biographer, historian Michael King, alluded to the impact the writer had had on ordinary New Zealanders. "Something extraordinary happened two weeks ago.

"A writer died and it seemed as if the whole country held its breath and let out a collective sigh."

People felt they had lost something of themselves because they related to tragic circumstances in Frame's own life that she overcame, he said.

But her story and works reached far beyond New Zealand's shores. Frame's niece, Pamela Gordon, was overwhelmed with the sympathy shown to the family "from family, friends, and strangers ... from New Zealand and overseas".

Prime Minister Helen Clark said the life of Frame was "a New Zealand story and a very human story impossible not to empathise with".

"She was quite simply a great New Zealander."

Unpublished poem, recorded by Janet Frame and played at the service:

Friends far away die,

Friends measured always in blocks of distance, cement of love between.

Pools to tears and ocean spray

How vast the Pacific.

How heavy the unmiracled distance to walk upon.

A slowly sinking dream, a memory undersea,

Untouched now, Sue, by storm, easy to reach, an angel moment away,

Hostess of memories in your long green gown, your small blue slippers.

Lying on the white sofa in the room I once knew, the tall plants behind you.

I remember I watered them and found some were fake and I shrugged thinking that's part of life.

To feed the falseness, the artificial.

But no, you fed only truth, you cut down every growing pretence with one cool glance.

We rid home with you.

We knew, as people say, where we stood.

Your beloved John of the real skin and uncopied eyes was anxious for you in true anxiety.

Well you will visit me in moments, you will be perplexed yet wise as usual.

Perhaps we will drink wonton soup.

I promise you no food will hurt you now.

- NZPA