Born in 1959, David Howard co-founded the literary journal Takahe (1989) and the Canterbury Poets Collective (1990) in his home town, Christchurch. He has collaborated with visual artists such as the photographer Fiona Pardington and the painter Kim Pieters; contributed to Art New Zealand; provided libretti for the composers Sofia Filyanima (Russia), Brina Jez (Slovenia), Marta Jirackova (Czech Republic), and Johanna Selleck (Australia). He was the editor of A Place To Go On From: the Collected Poems of Iain Lonie (Otago University Press, 2015). The writing of Rawaho: the Completed Poems has been supported by the Robert Burns Fellowship at Otago University (2013); the Otago Wallace Residency (2014); a UNESCO City of Literature Residency in Prague (2016); the Ursula Bethell Residency at Canterbury University (2016); the Writers' House Residency, Pazin, Croatia (2017); the Grimshaw Sargeson Residency (2018); and a UNESCO City of Literature Residency in Ulyanovsk (2019).