John Gallas Poetry

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

(Spinoff)

Poem for April 2024

a sound track

(from 'Fork Flats')

folks round Nui Woods say thereabouts

the sun sets like a buzzsaw through the trees

ripping scarlet skelfs & golden gouts

across the fields as far as Handy Leas

whilst in his little sawmill Porto Sled

cuts the woodrounds for the track to town

amidst the sparks & lanterns of his shed

& whistles softly as the sun goes down

*

WHAT'S AFOOT?

THE MAKER'S TOP TEN

1. Publication date CARCANET new book OCTOBER 2024: re-designed and re-named - 'Billy 'Nibs' Buckshot: The Complete Works' - his (my?) 200 tankas. Alter ego or cunning discovery? ...

2. Just completed the translation Hans Davidsohn (Jakob van Hoddis) poems. Around 50 in all, tellingly short (mostly). The poet was murdered in Belzec in 1942, aged 55 ('Hoddis' an anagram of 'Davidsohn').

3. Just won the Wells Festival Poetry Prize with 'horsebreezes': a very welcome £1000. And a 2nd prize in the Welsh Cambrian Mountain Poetry competition, along with a Bounremouth Festival 'place in the anthology, 'A Line in the Sand').

4. Producing, for each forthcoming issue of PNReview, a small set of 5 translations of short poems by writers from all places and periods: called MONDO DE KVAR ANGULOJ ('World of 4 Corners' in Esperanto) : 'Arboj' (Trees) , 'Macino' (Machines), 'Dormo' (Sleep) in PNReview 274-6, just delivered the proofs for 'Melankolio'.

5. Have delivered whole text of my translation of Reinhard Sorge's (1892-1916) 'After the End: Posthumous Poems' to SLG Press, Oxford. Publication to be sometime in 2024.

6. Co-editing, with Vaughan Rapatahana, a volume of Aotearoa/NZ ex-pat poets/poetry. We are under way, sorting funding, poets etc. Any links, contacts etc gratefully accepted.

7. Two new collections now out in SLG Oxford's series of 'Contemplative Poetry'. My translations of poems by Gabriela Mistral (first Latin American writer to win the Nobel Literature Prize, 1945) and 'Touchpapers', a volume of short-poem translations from around the world. Books available from www.slgpress.co.uk

8. A fab & wonderful review in the Times Literary Supplement of my & bro's 'Petrus Borel: Rhapsodies 1831' translation/book (Carcanet) - 'rivals the original' and 'a reliquary of gems'. Available to read online, or buy September 30th 2022 TLS.

9. Work in Progress: 'Fork Flats', a group of 35 poems that, upon reading, build up into a picture of an 'otherwise' society, a kind of jigsaw-puzzle for the reader: and some translating of Boris Vian poems, fresh, jazzy, informal and cool ...

10. 'The Extasie', 64 love poems, now out, with its wonderful cover - and contents, of course. Available to buy at all good bookshops, or order from Amazon and/or www.carcanet.co.uk

***** it is ...

A SUNDAY TIMES SUMMER READ RECOMMENDATION (see also Financial Times Literary Supplement) and a fab review from 'coffeetime' ('love poetry at its best') - read at https://coffee-time-reviews.com/2021/11/19/why-the-extasie-is-love-poetry-at-its-best/

Complete Book List - we have reached over 30 struth ...

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

* The Poems of Reinhard Sorge (SLG due out 2023/4)

* The Alphabet of Ugly Animals (Cerasus Press) - due out 2024

* Billy 'Nibs' Buckshot: The Complete Works (Carcanet) - due out October 2024

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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