John Gallas Poetry

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

(Spinoff)

Poem for October 2025

This poem is from 'The Alphabet of Ugly Animals'

The Aye-Aye is classified as ENDANGERED (UCN Red List)

A is for Aye-Aye

The Madagascar sun goes down.

The Human Beans go back to Town.

When moonlight paints the Baobubs

I scamper up to get my Grubs.

I tap the bark : tap here, tap there,

Tap up, tap down, tap everywhere,

To find a crunchy Specimin –

And then I poke my finger in.

Now nuffink’s got a Poke like mine,

Cos I got Nature’s Top Design :

In it goes and out they come.

Then I eats ‘em – yum yum yum.

And when the sun comes up again

I hide away. I don’t like Men.

They got this Dumb Idea that I

Will point at ‘em, and then they’ll Die.

The Human Beans come back from town

To chop my grubsy forest down.

We are not many now. I keep

My finger folded up, and sleep.

                        *

WHAT'S AFOOT?

The Maker's Top Ten

1. 'Te Pūrere' (The Exodus), a huge collection of EnZed expatriate poets/poems, edited by Vaughan Rapatahana and me, now published/out from Cold Hub Press NZ. Order from their website www.coldhubpress.co.nz

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

3. Battle of Britain long poem read/performed at RAF Cosford's Battle of Britain Weekend. Recorded for future use. Thanks to all.

4. The World Premiere of 'Brilliant Breasts & Ugly Animals', Beverley Festival (New Paths Music) with band. Music by David Knotts, narrated by Me. (September 27th). Again, thanks to all: band, composer, conductor, audience & organisers.

5. 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

6. 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.

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

8. 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

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:

* 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

                                                             *

You are visitor number 180196