BARRY SOUTHAM lives in Auckland, New Zealand and has been writing and publishing for several decades. Currently he is the Auckland critic for NZ Theatre News magazine, having worked in all three disciplines of theatre as an actor, director, and playwright.His plays have been produced both nationally and internationally.His short stories and poems similiarly have been published in New Zealand and in many countries of the world, both in print and more recently,electronically in e magazines.
The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature in its entry on him included the following comment on his first book of poems "Lovers and Other People" after describing him as writing about alternative lifestyles of people outside the norms of society: ".. a series of vignette character or narrative skteches in direct, colloquial diction, their impact coming mainly from their(for the time) radical frankness on such subjects as sex and suicide."
The poems and stories on this site are a very small selection of more recent writings, though output has been smaller towards the end of the twentieth century due in part to his working in the demanding area of mental health.He is currently revising a novel about Auckland in the late 60s.
Email Gerrard Southam
(Web designer and Internet adviser)
