Richard von Sturmer

Richard von Sturmer (born 1957) is an artist, poet, playwright, film-maker, and musician from New Zealand.^[1][2][3] He was born in Devonport, North Auckland.^[4]

His poetry and prose has appeared in journals such as The New Zealand Listener, brief, Landfall, Sport, and Zen Bow.^[5]

In music, von Sturmer fronted New Zealand punk/art band The Plague, continued with The Humanimals,^[6] Avant Garage,^[4] and wrote the lyrics for Blam Blam Blam's anti-Robert Muldoon song "There Is No Depression In New Zealand",^[2][7][8] which has been described as a 'classic alternative national anthem.'^[9] The Plague are particularly known for their 1979 performance at the Nambassa festival, where four members (including von Sturmer) appeared naked apart from body paint.^[10]

Richard von Sturmer is a Zen Buddhist, who gave up eating meat when he was 16.^[2] He studied for ten years at the Rochester Zen Center in New York.^[8]

Von Sturmer is married to Sensei Amala Wrightson (previously Charlotte Wrightson),^[11] with whom he co-founded the Auckland Zen Centre.^[2][12]

From 2014, von Sturmer has worked with film-maker Gabriel White as the duo The Floral Clocks, with von Sturmer writing lyrics which White set to music.^[13] These songs were released as an album Desert Fire, mostly performed by White alone.^[14] A second album, A Beautiful Shade of Blue was released in 2017, and their third Gas Giant was released in 2019.^[15]

He was a finalist for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for Slender Volumes.^[16]