John Gallas Poetry

'the greatest New Zealand poet no one has ever heard of'

(Spinoff)

Poem for September 2025

this poem is from '17 Paper Resurrections', published by Dempsey & Windle  

Sir Meurig   

d. 1350 Dolgellau

Sir Meurig came to Dolgellau. At Union Street he was took

by a fear of the crossroads, which are called Porth Canol,

Upper Smithfield, Owen’s Court and Feurig’s Lane,

and fell from his jade with a clang.

Sir Meurig raised his visor with a little scream.

Still it rained, with a general vacancy.

Here, Nob, says Sir Meurig, We might stand

till turned to stone, for I am tired.

Sir Meurig did  not leave Dolgellau.

The road out proved too steep. The nag lost its shoes and its heart.

The knight rusted to dormancy.

He may be seen, cap-a-pie, flat out

in St. Mary’s Church on a window-seat too small for Nob

under an orange light of lozenged oaks and wheat,

wrongly labelled Ynyr Fynchon of Nannau.

                                                *

WHAT'S AFOOT?

The Maker's Top Ten

1. Won the Slipstream Poetry Competition 2025 with a poem called 'John Clare: Attack of the Inscape'. Delighted and honoured.

2. Commission 1: a long (15 min performance) poem for the RAF Battle of Britain celebrations at Cosford on 20-21st September, in honour of the Aotearoa/EnZed fighter pilots who took such a telling part. Research (thanks Coalville Library) done, 1st draft written.

3. Commission 2: to work with composer David Knotts (as we did on the Magna Carta piece, 'Toads on a Tapestry') to make a performance piece - poems plus music - for the Beverley Festival also in September (prob the last week of). We've chosen a selection of poems from my 'Alphabet of Ugly Animals'. A brilliant project. Completed pieces of music now coming in regularly!

4. New publication: CARCANET now out: 'Billy 'Nibs' Buckshot: The Complete Works' - my (his?) 198 tankas. See above: bookshops, order from www.carcanet.co.uk, or, for great overseas postage rate, Blackwell's Books www.blackwells.co.uk

5. Won the Bozart's NatureWatch Prize (Tallis Section) with a small poem about rising sealevels in Vanuatu. The prize is for the poem to be set to music-for-choir. See their website for beautifully presented prize-winning poems.

6. PNReview No.283 due out: with 'Mondo de Ecstera Spaco' - my translations of short 'Outer Space' poems from around the world.

7. Check out the Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project: a little blog about my biking round South Holland ... called 'South Holland Shush' - & soon a Lincolnshire Folk Tales Reimagined book of the project with 3 of my poems, plus some booklaunch-readings to come in Boston & Nottingham - see South Holland Shush – Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project

8. Have all but completed, with Vaughan Rapatahana, a volume of Aotearoa/NZ ex-pat, 'otherwheres' poets/poetry to be called 'Te Pūrere'/'The Exodus'. Many thanks to all (57) the expat Aotearoa/NZ poets who have contributed.

9. A wonderful review of 'Billy Nibs' in the introduction to 'Best NZ Poems 2024': 'Absurdly good' - buy, and read on ... find it at https://www.bestnewzealandpoems.org.nz/

10. Work in Progress:

* 'The Alphabet of Ugly Animals' Intro and Endpiece for the Beverley Festival Prom.

* A Spring Saxonship poem (www.saxonship.org) - sponsor a rivet!

*up and coming Romanian translations courtesy of Cris Constantinescu.

* Battle of Britain EnZed/Aotearoa pilots' contribution celebration poem.

* My 'Uncollected Poems' - a huge task - to sort for Carcanet (www.carcanet.co.uk)

* a completely new project, '10X10' - ten sets of ten little formal poems, each set with its own subject, the content of each poem, in contrast to the strict form, being fluid/reader-led. Enjoying this greatly. 3 sets done.

Complete Book List

Practical Anarchy (Carcanet)

Flying Carpets Over Filbert Street (Carcanet)

Grrrrr (Carcanet)

Resistance is Futile (Carcanet)

The Ballad of Robin Hood and the Deer (Agraphia Press), pictures by Clifford Harper

The Ballad of Santo Caserio (Agraphia Press), pictures by Clifford Harper

The Song Atlas (Carcanet)

Star City (Carcanet)

The Book with Twelve Tales (Carcanet)

Fucking Poets (3 vols) (Cold Hub Press NZ)

40 Lies (Carcanet) pictures by Sarah Kirby

Fresh Air & The Story of Molecule (Carcanet)

52 Euros (Carcanet)

Pacifictions (Cold Hub Press NZ)

Mad John's Walk (Five Leaves : Occasional Pamphlets) January 2017

The Little Sublime Comedy (Carcanet) 2018

17 Very Pacific Poems (Indigo Dreams) 2019

The Blood Book (Gerolstein Press)

The Gnawing Flood (Cerasus Publishing) 2021

The Extasie (Carcanet) 2021

Amado Nervo: Poems of Faith & Doubt (SLG Press, Oxford) 2021

Aotearoa/Angleland: 30+30 tankas (New Walk Editions) 2021

Petrus Borel 'Rhapsodies', translated from the French by John & Kurt Gallas (Carcanet Classics)

The High Roof of Heaven (Anglo-Saxon poems transl. JG) (SLG Press, Oxford) 2022

Where Grace Grows Ever Green (Middle English poems transl.ed JG) SLG Press, Oxford) 2022

17 Paper Resurrections (from graveyards in mid-Wales: picture-poems) (Dempsey & Windle 2022)

Drops in the Sea of Time: Poetry of Woman & God (SLG Press, Oxford 2022)

Fly Not Too High: Holy Sonnets of Gabrielle de Coignard & Vittoria Colonna (SLG 2022)

This Far Place: poems of Gabriela Mistral (SLG 2023)

Touchpapers (SLG 2023) Contemplative Poetry series No.11 (SLG 2023)

The Poems of Reinhard Sorge (SLG 2024)

Billy 'Nibs' Buckshot: The Complete Works (Carcanet) - October/.November 2024

* Te Pūrere (The Exodus: an anthology of expat Aotearoa/NZ poets/poems. 2025 (Cold Hub NZ)

Contacts

John Gallas Poetry www.johngallaspoetry.co.uk

Carcanet Press www.carcanet.co.uk

Carcanet blog www.carcanetblog.blogspot.co.uk

John Gallas Facebook

Cold Hub Press (NZ) www.coldhubpress.co.nz

New Walk Editions www.newwalkmagazine.com

Five Leaves publishing/bookshop (Mad John's Walk) www.fiveleaves.co.uk

Agraphia / Clifford Harper www.agraphia.co.uk

YouTube (Paterau Sonnent / The Blobfish Sings Under the Sea)

STAND Magazine www.standmagazine.org

Indigo Dreams publishing www.indigodreams.co.uk

Spinoff (NZ) www.thespinoff.co.nz

The John Clare Project www.brookes.ac.uk/the-meeting

The Sutton Hoo Ship Build (Sponsor that Rivet) www.saxonship.org

SLG Press (Series of Contemplative Poetry) www.slgpress.co.uk

Dempsey & Windle, publishers of '17 Paper Resurrections' www.dempseyandwindle.com

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