# Dennis List

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{{Short description|New Zealand writer}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Use New Zealand English|date=August 2015}}
'''Dennis List''' (1946 – 9 November 2007) was a New Zealand poet, editor and novelist.

List was born in Wellington to a professional family whose name was originally Liszt but grew up in [Rotorua](/source/Rotorua). He became a student at [Victoria University of Wellington](/source/Victoria_University_of_Wellington) in 1964 and quickly gained prominence as a writer and editor. His work appeared in ''Argot'', ''Experiment'', ''Frogslegs'', ''Salient'', ''Poetry Broadsheet'', ''NZ University Arts Festival Yearbook'', ''Poetry New Zealand'' and other literary magazines.

His first book of poems, ''A Kitset of 26 Poems'', appeared in London in 1972. It was followed by ''Pathways into the Brain'' (1973) and ''Falling Off Chairs'' (1996), both published in New Zealand.  He featured in ''The Young New Zealand Poets'' (1973). His poetry is prominently represented in the anthology ''Big Smoke: New Zealand Poems 1960-1975'' (2000).  In 2000, nine of his poems were printed in the Alsop Review, an online poetry magazine in the United States.

In 1965, List became a co-editor (with his flatmates [Blair Peach](/source/Death_of_Blair_Peach) and David Rutherford) of the ''Argot'' magazine, which had a leading role as an experimental literary magazine. He later edited and largely wrote the first two ''New Zealand Whole Earth Catalogues''.

In 1979, List and his family migrated to Australia, where he became head of [market research](/source/Marketing_research) for the [ABC](/source/Australian_Broadcasting_Corporation), operating out of Adelaide. He took redundancy from the ABC in 1998 and became a freelance marketing guru, making several trips to [Southeast Asia](/source/Southeast_Asia) and [Africa](/source/Africa) for the Swedish Aid organisation and published major marketing guides.

He took up a [South Australia](/source/South_Australia)n government scholarship to do a PhD at the [University of South Australia](/source/University_of_South_Australia), which he completed in 2006.  He was made head of the market research department at the [University of Adelaide](/source/University_of_Adelaide), having already established an international reputation in [Futures Studies](/source/Futurology).

In the latter part of his life, List worked on a dozen novels, six completed.  His first comic fantasy novel ''The Return of the Triboldies'' was published serially in the Victoria University student newspaper [Salient](/source/Salient_(magazine)) in 1968 and reprinted in 1996.  He completed three novels in a series, with each one set in a different Australian state and New Zealand:  ''Midnight Deli'' (1993), ''Gone: No Address'' (1994) and ''Cloud of Universal Light'' (1999–2006) as well as two other novels, ''Dromeworld'' (1997) and ''Lear on Limbo'' (1997–2006).

Dennis List died in Adelaide on 9 November 2007.

==References==
*[Niel Wright](/source/Niel_Wright), "Dennis List: An Appreciation".  ''Ka mate ka ora A New Zealand Journal of Poetry and Poetics'', Issue 5, March 2008 [http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/kmko/05/ka_mate05_wright.asp]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:List, Dennis}}
Category:1946 births
Category:2007 deaths
Category:20th-century New Zealand poets
Category:20th-century New Zealand male writers
Category:New Zealand male poets
Category:University of South Australia alumni
Category:New Zealand publishers (people)
Category:Writers from Wellington City
Category:20th-century New Zealand novelists
Category:21st-century New Zealand novelists
Category:21st-century New Zealand poets
Category:Victoria University of Wellington alumni
Category:Academic staff of the University of Adelaide
Category:New Zealand emigrants to Australia
Category:New Zealand male novelists
Category:21st-century New Zealand male writers

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Dennis List](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_List) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_List?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.
