Jeanne Bernhardt (born 1961) is a contemporary New Zealand writer, known for her daring experimental poetry and prose, who has travelled extensively, working both in New Zealand and overseas.
Life
She attended the University of New South Wales in Sydney majoring in art theory and installation.
She has spent her life travelling and living throughout New Zealand, Australia the South Pacific and the United States.
To support her writing she has had a variety of work including, working on a fishing boat in Alaska, caretaker of cattle ranch in New Mexico, farmer, working with street kids in Australia, librarian, labourer, and drug counsellor. Tim Jones, An Interview with Jeanne Bernhardt, Books in the Trees blog, 2 November 2008.
She has lived more recently in Central Otago in South Island of New Zealand.
Literary output
She started out end of the 1970s and in the Dunedin poetry scene and appeared on Dunedin Poets (1983) sound recordingDunedin poets, 1983, edited by Kai Jensen, Dunedin, N.Z. : Airmail, 1983. Contributors: Side 1. Brian Turner, Sue Heap, Bill Sewell, John Gibb, Christodoulos Moisa, Marion Jones. Side 2. Michael Gilchrist, Jeanne Bernhardt, Rob Allan, Joanna Paul, John Dickson, Kai Jensen., and began publishing in the 1990s with Dereliction (1996), the experimental multi media art and words book Vorare Lacuna (1996) David Eggleton, “Breath Mantras”, Review of Vorare Lacuna, Art New Zealand, Winter 1997. Jenny Powell-Chalmers, Review of Vorare Lacuna, JAAM 7, May 1997. and the short fiction debut baby, is this wonderland? (1999). Andrew Tait, Review of baby, is this wonderland? , Critic, 27 September 1999, p. 26. Chris Gilman, Review of baby, is this wonderland? , JAAM 12, October 1999. Laurence Jenkins, Review of baby, is this wonderland? , New Zealand Books, August 2000, vol. 10, no. 3, page 11.
City Voice wrote of baby, is this wonderland? : “'Drawing on junkie king Bill Burroughs and with shades of Kathy Acker, Bernhardt's subject and style are a well-travelled literary path but with her intense insight and assured rhythms she creates work and a beauty in squalor that is all her own.” Adam Shelton, “Appetite for disaffection”, Review of baby, is this wonderland? , City Voice, 4 March 1999, p. 10.
In 1998, she was included in the Generation X anthology, The NeXt Wave, edited by Mark Pirie.Mark Pirie ed. New Zealand Writing: The NeXt Wave, Otago University Press, Dunedin, New Zealand, 1998.
Bernhardt’s poetry and prose has been published in journals like Black Mail Press, Spec, Poetry NZ, Takahē, JAAM, Etisoppo, Poetry Aotearoa, broadsheet, Otago Daily Times, the Earl of Seacliff Winter Readings anthologies and The Press (Christchurch).
She published the poetry book The Snow Poems/your self of lost ground (2002) Owen Bullock, Review of The Snow Poems/your self of lost ground, JAAM, October 2003. Rob Egan, Review of The Snow Poems/your self of lost ground, Glottis 7, 2002, pp. 152-154. Terry Locke, Review of The Snow Poems/your self of lost ground, English in Aotearoa, June 2002, No. 46, pp. 77-81, 84., after she left New Zealand for the United States.
In 2004, she was included in the anthology JAAM 21 “Greatest Hits”, edited by Mark Pirie and Michael O'LearyMark Pirie and Michael O'Leary, JAAM 21: "Greatest Hits": An Anthology of Writing 1984-2004, HeadworX/ESAW/JAAM, 2004., as well as Mark Pirie's selection of recent New Zealand poetry for papertiger: new world poetry (Australia)Mark Pirie ed. '50 Poems by 50 Poets: Recent New Zealand Poetry' in B. R. Dionysius and Paul Hardacre eds. papertiger: new world poetry 04, papertiger media, Queensland, Australia. ISSN: 1445-1980. CD-ROM.. She published a mini series booklet The Deaf Man’s Chorus (poetry, 2006).
David Eggleton wrote of The Deaf Man’s Chorus: “Jeanne C. Bernhardt, by contrast in The Deaf Man’s Chorus (Number 7) offers a musical minimalism, a distilled language that reminds you of raindrops dripping from fern fronds, with delicate phrases about mutability and fragility. Her poems, pared-down, spare to the point of elusiveness, seem like explorations of fragmented identity. Out of isolation they emerge as small gestures of communication: “I dug a garden / gathered books to me like children.”David Eggleton, “Let’s Get Small: the ESAW Mini-Series”, in Mark Pirie ed. The Earl is in… 25 Years of the Earl of Seacliff: A to Z, Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, Paekakariki, New Zealand, 2009, p. 69.
In 2008 her poem ‘Not as it was’ was selected for a sound recording by The Pioneers recorded in Oslo, Norway and featuring poems set to music by New Zealand poets such as Bill Manhire and James K. Baxter.The Pioneers (Angeline Conaghan, Ben Brewer, David Leahy), Faversham, U.K.: Seethrewmusic, 2008 [Compact Disc].
She returned to New Zealand to publish a series of books: Wood (short prose), 26 Poems and Fast Down Turk (a novel), these were with Dean Havard’s hand-printed Kilmog Press in Dunedin.
She was the featured poet in broadsheet 22, November 2018.broadsheet: new new zealand poetry That same year, Tangerine Press published Bernhardt’s hand-bound limited edition Silver City and Two More (short stories) in the UK.Jeanne Bernhardt, Silver City and Two More, Tangerine Press, UK, 2018.
In 2021, HeadworX/The Night Press published The Narrator (short story).Jeanne Bernhardt, The Narrator, The Night Press/HeadworX, Wellington, New Zealand, 2021.
Awards and recognition In 1997, she was awarded the Louis Johnson New Writer’s Bursary from Creative New Zealand.The scholarship is funded by interest from a gift of $50,000 in 1989 from the Louis Johnson Estate and by Creative New Zealand. It supports published writers or presented playwrights, at an early stage in their career, to work on an approved project.
In 2016, she was awarded the Earl of Seacliff Poetry Prize.Mark Pirie ed., The Earl of Seacliff Poetry Prize: An Anthology of the Winners, Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, Paekakariki, New Zealand, 2020.
Bibliography Dereliction (Yello, 1996) Vorare Lacuna (self-published, 1996) baby, is this wonderland? (HeadworX Publishers, Wellington, New Zealand, 1999) The Snow Poems/your self of lost ground (HeadworX Publishers, Wellington, New Zealand, 2002) The Deaf Man’s Chorus (Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, Paekakariki, New Zealand, 2006) Two Poems (The Night Press, Wellington, New Zealand, 2007) Fast Down Turk (Kilmog Press, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2008) Wood (Kilmog Press, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2009) 26 Poems (Kilmog Press, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2009) Silver City and Two More (Tangerine Press, UK, 2018) The Narrator (The Night Press/HeadworX, Wellington, New Zealand, 2021)
References
External links Profile on HeadworX Publishers website Silver City and Two More at Tangerine Press Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive Listing of Jeanne Bernhardt's works at WorldCat Listing of Jeanne Bernhardt's works at online catalogue of the National Library of New Zealand