John Gallas Poetry

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

(Spinoff)

Poem for December 2025

Cablecars

Shigeji Tsuboi (1897-1975) Japan

(translated by JG with huge help from I.K.Forster,

first puboished in PNReview 2025).

Far fardown, under a beetling crag,

a quick, pinched river, startling blue, busies on.

Far farabove, in the unmargined sky,

the cabelcars move along in quiet order.

The heavy wire, invisible with air,

conducts with patient power

its hushed, believing loads

across the gap of Time. I think,

unsnapped so far, I too hold something

that goes on, and seems to work.

***

WHAT'S AFOOT?

The Maker's Top Ten

1. Just won the Regional (Midlands) Aurora Writing Prize 2025 with a poem called 'warm weasels at Amar el Husn'. Delighted and honoured. (See my facebook page).

2. '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

3. Battle of Britain long poem read/performed at RAF Cosford's Battle of Britain Weekend to commemorate NZ pilots' part. 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.287 coming out soon: with 'Mondo de Bonan Ridon' ('World of a Good Laugh') - my translations of short, merry, rude 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 10 poems, alternating strict rhyme and metre mini-ballads with expansive anything-goeses.

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)

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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