John Newton

Guest writer

John Newton is a poet, and the author of The Double Rainbow: James K Baxter, Ngati Hau and the Jerusalem Commune (2009) and his acclaimed study Hard Frost: Structures of Feeling in New Zealand Literature (2017). John was born in Blenheim in 1959.

A portrait of James Keir Baxter. Photo courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library, New Zealand

James K Baxter, rapist

All week this week the Spinoff Review of Books revisits the great poet James K Baxter. Today: John Newton reviews a new book of Baxter's letters, in which he calmly reveals he raped his wife.

By John Newton | 14th February, 2019