Allen Curnow, poet and dramatist, dead

One of New Zealand's best-known poets and dramatists has died.

Allen Curnow, died of a heart attack in Auckland last night, aged 90.

Curnow was born in Timaru, and worked as a journalist at newspapers in Christchurch during the 1930s and early 1940s.

After a stint at the News Chronicle in London, he returned to New Zealand where he was a member of the English Department at Auckland University from 1951 until his retirement in 1976.

Curnow wrote 20 volumes of poetry between 1933 and 2001, as well as several plays.

His first book was Valley of Decision published in 1933, when he was only 22, and his first play, The Axe: A Verse Tragedy, followed in 1949.

He edited the groundbreaking A Book of New Zealand Verse from 1923 to 1945 and The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse in 1960.

His honours included a Companion of the British Empire in 1986, the Order of New Zealand in 1990, seven New Zealand Book Awards for Poetry between 1958 and 2001, the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1989, a fellowship at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Washington DC and a Fulbright Grant in 1961, a Katherine Mansfield Fellowship in 1983, and the AW Reed Lifetime Achievement Award last year.

His most recent book, The Bells of St Babel's, won the poetry section of this year's Montana Book Awards.

Allen Curnow is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter from an earlier marriage.

- NZPA