A new collection of letters from one of New Zealand’s most significant poets, James K Baxter, that includes a blunt admission of marital rape is causing shockwaves through the literary community.

Baxter died in Auckland in 1972 but remains one of New Zealand’s literary giants. He achieved international attention in the late 1950s after Oxford University Press published his poetry collection, In Fires Of No Return.

He has been a controversial figure for decades, and a new collection of Baxter’s letters, published in January by Victoria University Press, includes a reference to rape, in which Baxter confides to a friend that he raped his wife, Jacquie Sturm, after she expressed low interest in sex.

Sturm was a pioneering and acclaimed writer of poetry and short stories, and one of the first Māori women in the country to gain a university education.

New Zealanders have reacted with dismay to the revelations, describing them as “awful”, “terrible” and “shocking”. John Newton, who reviewed the collection of letters for the Spinoff website, said it is no longer possible to discuss Baxter “without addressing the ways that he thinks and writes about women”.

“Baxter is not for everyone. Among the oddities of his treatment by literary critics is that his representation of women has, to this point, gone virtually unchallenged,” wrote Newton in his review.

Baxter’s letter referencing the rape of Jacquie Sturm in 1960 reads: “Sex relations with wife resumed. This at least gives some common ground to stand on to clear up difficulties. Achieved by rape.”

“From a very clear knowledge no other way could break down J’s reservations & that she was gradually shoving herself round the bend. She seems ten times happier in herself. But it looks as if each new act will have to repeat the rape pattern.”

Professor Paul Millar is a Baxter scholar and the head of humanities and creative arts at Canterbury university. He is also a personal friend of the late Sturm, who appointed him her literary executor.

Millar says he hopes the letters do not turn Sturm into a “victim” in readers’ minds, as her marriage to Baxter lasted only a quarter of her life and she was a literary and cultural powerhouse in her own right.

“Leaving apart how appalling this letter is – a betrayal on so many levels from the brutal act described, the lack of shame in the description, and the profound betrayal of trust – its publicity is once again putting Jacquie in a subordinate position to Baxter, a bit player in his narrative,” said Millar.

“I admire both John Weir’s and John Baxter’s honesty in releasing Baxter’s letters warts and all – but Jacquie deserves much more than to be remembered as Baxter’s victim … despite everything she endured, she emerged victorious. If people really want to know Jacquie they should seek our her writing, not Baxter’s.”

Mark Williams is an emeritus professor of New Zealand literature at Victoria University. Williams said the rape admission “came as a surprise”, but was consistent with what he already knew of Baxter.

“He observed his own adulteries objectively as part of the fallen human condition. This even extended to marital rape. I’m not sure if he was simply a phoney, as some have observed. He was genuinely religious. The problem is that his religious faith allowed him to regard his sexual failings – small and great – at a quizzical remove.”

Sturm’s great-grandson Jack McDonald said the admission of rape had sickened him and Baxter’s legacy should be critically re-examined in light of the revelations.

“The letters confirm Baxter as a deeply sexist and patriarchal figure, which can now no longer be ignored or brushed off in deference to his reputation or his literature,” wrote McDonald, in a memoir piece for the Spinoff website.

“Rape is rape. It wasn’t acceptable then, or now.”



