John Gallas Poetry

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

(Spinoff)

Poem for December 2024

this is a tanka from

'Billy 'Nibs' Buckshot: The Complete Works'

198 tankas published this month by Carcanet

Buy the book at the Carcanet website * www.carcanet.co.uk

or, for an excellent overseas postage rate, (eg. Aotearoa/NZ)

try Blackwell's Books * www.blackwells.co.uk

*

Tanka No.183

Tweet tweet

Colin, who made thee?

Dost thou know who made thee? O

most probably not.

Did She who made the Wombat

make thee? Almost certainly.

*

WHAT'S AFOOT?

THE MAKER'S TOP TEN

1. 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

2. Won the 'Black in White' Poetry Prize for a small poem called 'The Girl from Niue'. Competition book to be published: Prize-money going towards revamping my iTunes/iPod walking music - thank you!

3. PNReview No.277 now out: with 'Mondo de Melankolio' - my translations of short poems from Iceland, Brazil, Japan, Indonesia and Jewish/Germany. The 4th in an ongoing series. Just completed the proofs for no.5 set, MONDO DE BIRDOJ.

4. Check out the Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project: a little blog about my biking round South Holland ... called 'South Holland Shush' (ie. deserted roads) - see South Holland Shush – Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project

5. Busy co-editing, with Vaughan Rapatahana, a volume of Aotearoa/NZ ex-pat poets/poetry to be called 'Te Pūrere'/'The Flight'. We have a final collection, with thanks to the many expat Aotearoa/NZ poets who have responded, and are juggling up an Introduction. Permissions and biogs now being sought and sorted.

6. Just completed the translation of all available Hans Davidsohn (Jakob van Hoddis) poems. Around 50 in all, tellingly short (mostly). The poet was murdered in Belzec in 1942, aged 55 ('vanHoddis' a sensible safety-first anagram of 'Davidsohn').

7. 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 Bournemouth Festival 'place in the anthology' ('A Line in the Sand'), a 3rd prize in the Oxford 'Taste' Poetry Competition, and a 'Top Ten' in the New Writers' 2024 Competition.

8. My translation of Reinhard Sorge's (1892-1916) complete poems has just come out from SLG Press, Oxford. www.slgpress.co.uk for contact/orders/buying.

9. 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 at the TLS website.

10. Work in Progress: 'Fork Flats', a group of 46 poems that, upon reading, build up into a picture of an 'otherwise' society, a kind of jigsaw-puzzle for the reader: some translating of Boris Vian poems, fresh, jazzy, informal and cool: and some tentative explorations of a New Style via poems thought-up/written during this year's fab stay at Stiwdio Maelor (Corris, Wales).

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

* The Alphabet of Ugly Animals (Cerasus Press) - due out 2024/5

* Te Pūrere (The Flight): 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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