John Gallas Poetry

'the greatest New Zealand poet

no one has ever heard of'

(Spinoff)

Poem for October 2026

Acrobat

by Jean Lorrain (1855-1906)

translated by me.

Saturday Circus:

bench on bench, sweaty row on row,

greedy eyes pop near, so near, to catch The Tightrope,

where Ganymede the Dancer levades and piaffs

in a white castsuit sewn with pink-tipp’d scarlet lilies – the crowd,

stinky, ugly, dogs’-dinnered and loud,

pant at the close, close air ... while ... fixing the slavering itchers

with a cold, contemptuous eye, simpered and slow ...

Gany the Acrobat stops the show ...

and stares, milk-white and blank,

from the bang-pinned redhead to the sheen-macassar slick ...

ah, and of whom awatch here is he not

the lover, the fortunate rival – or what?

Tra-la, tra-la, he turns to one and all,

his fine, gymnastic junk on show,

to a storm of cheers, row on row on row on row.

            *

WHAT'S AFOOT?

The Maker's Top Ten

1. My 'translated version' of Carmen Bernos de Gasztold's 'Prayers from the Ark' (animal-voiced delights ... by a Nun) is to be published by SLG Oxford. A wonderful artist is busy doing pictures to go with the text. A must-buy for Christmas!

2. The whole of my translation of Hans Davidsohn's 'Italy' - a splendidly wry look at 'Tourism' from a German Jew (1887-1942: sadly murdered near Sobibor) to be published in the next STAND (see 'contacts' below). Proofs done.

3. A very happy 3rd prize in the Mills Archive Trust competition with a poem about ... a mill! ('Wragsea Mill'). Respect to their work.

4. Have a look at the website 'Form in Formless Times' - www.formalverse.com - Robin Helwig-Larsen's website of 'memorable' poetry with form: my sonnets and translations consistently here, much to my pleasure.

5. Work in progress 1&2: 1: completed 'Verhaeren 50' - translations of the Belgian/Flanders Nobel Prize winning poet. Any publishers interested? 2: completed (with huge help) translating 564 of Basho's 1012 haiku.

6. Work in progess 3: 'The Italiad' - a history of Italy in 84 chronological poems. NOT a history of Italian poetry - which left me free to include the fascinating 'lesser' poets and poems. Nearly done.

7. '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

8. 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

9. And a wonderful review of the above '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. The website you are looking at has now been re-themed: longer lines of poetry now unbroken! and the colours deeeeeep. Enjoy!

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)

The Steadfast Throne of Three (SLG 2025)

Prayers out o' the Ark (to be published by SLG, 2026/7).

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

Form in Formless Times www.formalverse.com

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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