Nurse to the imagination

by Lawrence Jones

"Part of a university's proper business is to act as nurse to the arts, or, more exactly, to the imagination as it expresses itself in the arts and sciences. Imagination may flourish anywhere. But it should flourish as a matter of course in the university, for it is only through imaginative thinking that society grows, materially and intellectually" asserted Charles Brasch, one of the founders of the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago. From iconic writers like Janet Frame, James K. Baxter and Owen Marshall to effervescent newcomers such as Jo Randerson, Alison Wong and Sue...