In The Dark Lord Of Savaiki Alistair Te Ariki Campbell presents the best of his early and middle period poems, as well as his latest collections, Gallipoli and Other Poems, Maori Battalion, and an autobiographical poem in letters, Poets In Our Youth. Few New Zealand poets have treated the natural world with greater sensitivity, while his personal lyrics and love poems have a music and a depth of feeling that set them apart.
Campbell is in the enviable position of being a New Zealand and Cook Island poet, enabling him to draw on imagery, folklore, history and mythology from both sources with powerful effect. By a happy chance he was appointed Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) while this book was in production.