John Gallas Poetry

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Mmm ...:
"If you die for someone, make sure they are sick for you" - Persian proverb

Emma Goldman

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

Poem for October 2021

The Night my Great-Great-Aunt invented the Anarchist Hop

The poem’s done, they said she said, and now

we’ll take it out. They sang it in the car.

They went to town. I guess she meant somehow

to put her words to use. They found a bar,

Goldblatt’s Dine & Dance in Saskatoon,

and balancing her beer my distant Aunt

took certain steps across the cold saloon

to thwart her crinolines and disenchant

the thoughtless hoofers at their Turkey Trot :

despite King Kurrant’s Boogie Band to go

anyhow, or where, in time or not,

around the moonlit clapboard floor. Bravo

and thanks for that unruly, small upset,

from one who has not quite found the rhythm of her own heart yet.

What's Afoot? Top 10

1. 'The Extasie', 64 love poems, now out, with its wonderful cover (and contents!). Available to buy at all good bookshops, or order from Amazon and/or www.carcanet.co.uk A SUNDAY TIMES SUMMER READ RECOMMENDATION (see also Financial Times Literary Supplement).

2. 'Amado Nervo: Poems of Faith & Doubt' (my translations) just out from SLG Press, Oxford. You can order from orders@slgpress.co.uk : there will be 6 or 7 volumes in this set of Contemplative Poetry, including 'Anglo-Saxon', 'Middle English', 'Marian Poems', 'Women & God'. Others to be confirmed.

3. A timely 100Euro prize at the Ballybunion Arts Fest.

4. 'The Short Afters of Noah Claypole', my only prose (novel) now being printed at Anchorprint for Gerolstein Press release very soon.

5. Just written the Blurb for forthcoming Carcanet Classics vol. of my and bro's translation of Petrus Borel's 'Rhapsodies 1838'. Due out 2022.

6. 'Aotearoa/Angleland', a selection of 30/30 tankas to be published by New Walk Editions. Probably December.

7. 'Meet the Author' is now on the Carcanet blog : https://carcanetblog.blogspot.com/2021/04/john-gallas-extasie.html

8. 'The Gnawing Flood', a book of 28 anti-colonial poem-prints now out from brave and exciting Cerasus Publishing. Order @ The Gnawing Flood: Amazon.co.uk: Gallas, John: 9798592286063: Books

9. John Rylands Library Manchester Online Exhibition : the creative process of a John Gallas poem, 'Somewhere down Hurdletree Gate' - visit @ https://medium.com/special-collections/the-creative-process-of-poet-john-gallas-a01301497c92

10. Completed : a set of online workshops called 'Write Like a Saxon' for the Sutton Hoo Saxonship Project (www.saxonship.org). JOIN IN - and meanwhile sponsor a rivet at the website address! This wonderful project is also about to exhibit a CGI film of the ship in action accompanied by a reading of my Saxonship Poem no.10, 'On the Water'. Poems 11 and 12 on the way.

Complete Book List - we have reached 24 !

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