John Gallas Poetry

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

poem for March 2019

Meeting Ed Hillary

Aoraki's paper-crumpled peak

shoots its shadow after me.

Stapled to its glittering glacier with crampons,

hooked up to my fleshandblood with rope,

I meet Ed -

by a blue crevasse : its prehistoric

glassy crawl contends with his handshake -

hairy, warm, short, bright, brown and brave.

Then I'm cold.

(from 'Star City', published by Carcanet Press www.carcanet.co.uk)

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What's Afoot ? Top Ten

1. Won the 'Voices of Israel' Reuben Rose Competition with 'Death of a Ploughman' - see Facebook.

2. Look out for John Clare Society workshops with JG in Peterborough, coming up, - with a grand performance finale.

3. 'The Extasie - 50 love poems - now completed, and with Carcanet, awaiting a decision.

4. 'Here They Come ! 200 Loaded Tankas Delivering Goodness Fresh to Your Doorstep' (yup, a collection of 200 tankas, 5.7.5.7.7 syllables long) also completed. Bunches appearing in STAND and other magazines next year.

5. A sequence of little poems, 'The History of Mid Wales', written there, is due out in the forthcoming 'PN Review'.

6. 'Foggy Identities in Paterau' just out in 'The Friday Poem' (Luncheon Sausage Books NZ - see above.)

7. To complete the Year of 3 Books, 'Mad John's Walk' still available from Five Leaves (www.fiveleaves.co.uk) and '17 Pacific Poems' from Indigo Dreams (www.indigodreams.co.uk)

8. Won the National Association of Writers Group competition with 'At That Leicester Cafe', and the Earlyworks Poetry Competition.

9. The Blood Book, the tale of my ancestors from 10,000 BC to me, is now finished. To be published in NZ, 2019.

10. Go to STAND magazine's website (www.standmagazine.org) for 4 love poems, and, forthcoming, more translations of Joachim de Bellay and some nutritious Tankas.

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)

The Alphabet of Ugly Animals (Magpie Press)

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

The Little Sublime Comedy (Carcanet) now out

17 Very Pacific Poems (Indigo Dreams) now out

The Extasie ... here's hoping

Contacts

John Gallas Poetry www.johngallaspoetry.co.uk

Carcanet www.carcanet.co.uk

Carcanet blog www.carcanetblog.blogspot.co.uk

John Gallas Facebook

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

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 Society (fsacebook and 'contact us')

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