Surrounded by his books, David Merritt sits on the bench by Rob Roy's. Buying us coffee, I sit down for a yarn and proceed to establish this unfortunate-looking man as a true role model, an intellectual who is kind and reasonable.
Merritt's work is astounding - a poet and artist in the traditional sense of both these words. His poetry; I can't help but go back later with a tenner for a few of his pieces. His art; the recycled book covers he uses are sustainably genius, cut and staple-bound with poetry glued in as he works on piece after piece while seated at the bench.
We chat about everything. At 52, Merritt was even active on the web development scene as it boomed in the 1980's. He actually started off as a student newspaper editor and politician in the mid-to-late 70's, but moved to Christchurch where he worked with Flying Nun Records after he "got the sex, drugs and rock n' roll bug". Five or six years later he went on to work as a tour manager for bands including The Herbs. But 'The Herbs were a fucking hard band to look after", and around 1985, after thinking "fuck this, I'm sick of looking after other people's creativity," he moved to Dunedin to do something he'd wanted to do for a long time: "become a Bohemian poet." Here he even did a stint as a guitarist for a noise band; it turns out he'd spent so much time stage-left watching performances that he'd somehow learned to play guitar. But then children started to arrive and his marriage fell through because he "was the wrong sex and the wrong colour all of a sudden".
Nowadays, when not hanging out in Dunedin and other New Zealand centers, he lives a humble and self-stocked country life in the central North Island, "sixty k[m's] from anywhere". He's a 1970's Land Rover enthusiast, too - his collection of 9 (down from 18) is his own kind of super-annuation plan.
Art Week was a small shift for Merritt. Parking one of his vintage Land Rovers in front of the OUSA lawn every day, he made and sold his poetry from a table by the bonnet. I daresay I hope people took notice; his poetry chalking around campus was only a small, but inspirational, taste of what David Merritt has to offer us all.
"You need to do what you like to do," he says. "There's no such thing as a rich poet."
Merritt's work is astounding - a poet and artist in the traditional sense of both these words. His poetry; I can't help but go back later with a tenner for a few of his pieces. His art; the recycled book covers he uses are sustainably genius, cut and staple-bound with poetry glued in as he works on piece after piece while seated at the bench.
We chat about everything. At 52, Merritt was even active on the web development scene as it boomed in the 1980's. He actually started off as a student newspaper editor and politician in the mid-to-late 70's, but moved to Christchurch where he worked with Flying Nun Records after he "got the sex, drugs and rock n' roll bug". Five or six years later he went on to work as a tour manager for bands including The Herbs. But 'The Herbs were a fucking hard band to look after", and around 1985, after thinking "fuck this, I'm sick of looking after other people's creativity," he moved to Dunedin to do something he'd wanted to do for a long time: "become a Bohemian poet." Here he even did a stint as a guitarist for a noise band; it turns out he'd spent so much time stage-left watching performances that he'd somehow learned to play guitar. But then children started to arrive and his marriage fell through because he "was the wrong sex and the wrong colour all of a sudden".
Nowadays, when not hanging out in Dunedin and other New Zealand centers, he lives a humble and self-stocked country life in the central North Island, "sixty k[m's] from anywhere". He's a 1970's Land Rover enthusiast, too - his collection of 9 (down from 18) is his own kind of super-annuation plan.
Art Week was a small shift for Merritt. Parking one of his vintage Land Rovers in front of the OUSA lawn every day, he made and sold his poetry from a table by the bonnet. I daresay I hope people took notice; his poetry chalking around campus was only a small, but inspirational, taste of what David Merritt has to offer us all.
"You need to do what you like to do," he says. "There's no such thing as a rich poet."
*thanks to Lucy Fulford for the first photo*
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