Robbie Burns: What cares he for the seagulls on his head?

But that heritage is also being upheld by a new wave of poets writing and performing in the city.

They’re well aware of those writers who came before them.

This year’s Otago University Robert Burns Fellow, Sue Wootton, says she can hear the voices of Dunedin’s famous poets when she walks by the Leith.

“I can hear Ruth Dallas talking about the Leith, and James K Baxter referencing it, and I can hear Hone Tuwhare or Janet Frame.”

Wootton says there are a number of reasons Dunedin has fostered so many poets. Its slower lifestyle and the environment lend themselves to words.

“But there is an intellectual aliveness here as well: an affinity with the arts and with creative processes.

“There’s a kind of current that runs through it that you can tap into as an artist but this city also allows you to be private.”

As well as working every day in an office provided by the English Department, Wootton has been reading her work in public.

Richard Reeve, who is editor of the Otago University Press, has been involved in organising performance poetry evenings in Dunedin since 1995.

He’s organised them at venues including the Robbie Burns Pub, the Crown Hotel, Arc Cafe, Fuel Cafe, and now at the Circadian Rhythm cafe in St Andrews Street.

Reeve, whose doctoral thesis was on New Zealand poetry, is interested in carrying on the public poetry tradition here.

It’s something poets including Baxter, Tuwhare, Dennis Glover and Cilla McQueen have done over the years.

The readings at Circadian Rhythm are among the best Reeve has been involved in.

“They are a really excellent example of a functional poetic collective.

“You always get a turnout and you always get something different and everyone’s engaged.”

This is part of the reason Reeve believes Dunedin is the “secret poetry capital of New Zealand”.

“I think Dunedin has got much more potential as a poetry town than anywhere else in the country.”

Wootton agrees, although she says the city doesn’t value its literary legacy as much as it should.

“Dunedin should be very proud of this literary heritage, and should support it to the hilt.

“It’s a point of difference and it’s a point of excellence.”

The poet, who abandoned a career in physiotherapy eight years ago to pursue writing, published her second book of poetry, Magnetic South, this year.

Her work will also be included in a book that celebrates the 50th anniversary of Robert Burns Fellowships.

Published by the Otago University Press, Nurse to the Imagination will include a wealth of New Zealand’s greatest writers, all of whom are past fellows.

It’ll connect the past to the present, emphasising Reeve’s belief that poetry is a living thing.

“Poetry is not simply a dead thing which should be read on the page, it’s actually a generative, live thing.

“It pays respect to past work, and it’s alive and well in Dunedin.”