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Resistance Is FutileJohn Gallas
Imprint: Carcanet Poetry
Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback (96 pages) (Pub. Apr 1999) 9781857544046 Out of Stock
I pedalled mad out sssss across the beach
like Skoblikova sliced on speed: I hit the highest tide in umpteen years disguised like fog and bogged amidst the milky hush... from 'Brancaster Sands in the Fog'
Resistance is Futile opens in Mongolia with a poem called 'Yoghurt'. It is spring in Ulan Bator and Hoo Gerjan is seeking legal advice over a stolen car. This is the first of twelve weird narratives separated by brief, lyric moments: stories of Samuel Beckett's telephone, a bet on God's fondness, Fyodor the Crow, murder and revenge in the New Zealand goldfields, a little Italian anarchist assassin, a Christmas message from the Vatican received through an iron, and so on.
Gallas keeps finding new ways of telling stories in poetry. His characters endure and survive the wild short-circuitings of language and plot. The most anarchic fact of all is that these things really happen.
Praise for John Gallas
'Gallas's restless imagination and exuberant vocabulary bounce us through a variety of locations, moods, landscapes and seasons, from the bush-clad South Island of New Zealand to some distinctly unpredictable spots in the English Midlands.'
Fleur Adcock 'So many places! John Gallas vagabonds his way through the wide, wide world, and is just about the most audacious poet I know. These are the poems Wordsworth would have written if he'd grown up in New Zealand, been a bit more mischievous, and got around England on a bicycle.' Bill Manhire 'John Gallas is not merely a lyric master, but a master of meaning... The Extasie is a collection that I feel I will be coming back to frequently, not just to recapture the enjoyment I had when first reading it, but also to fully bathe in the complex understanding of love in all its forms, rendered so skilfully in poems that reward a second reading with subtle epiphanies.' Ed Bedford, Coffee Time Reviews 'This is a book for contemplative reading to enjoy all its richness and subtleties. Quietly thought provoking and intelligent, these are poems that celebrate the messiness of life.' - Mary Mulholland, The Alchemy Spoon 'An enticing and timely collection of translations.' - The Guardian |
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