Beauties of the Octagonal Pool
Published on 1. November 2013
129 pages
978-1-77558-510-7 (ISBN)
Description
Making unexpected connections, this book collects poems written from a variety of times, locations, and experiences-from the water frontage of Fiji, Fiordland, and the Mediterranean to the built history of Moscow and Berlin. Filled with a thoughtful musicality, a shambling romance, and a sense of humor, these witty and imaginative poems tell stories that range from a mechanical rat on Raoul Island to a black negligee and an ice-cream vendor in Moscow, and from a mayor and the Mistral in France to a new musical sound in New Zealand. Engaging and lively, this compilation highlights the persistent self-consciousness about the relationship between language and the world.
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O'Brien Gregory
Beauties of the Octagonal Pool
Book
02/2012
Auckland University Press
€16.00
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Content
- Cover
- Dedication
- Contents
- 1. Beauties of the octagonal pool
- The lake of first girlfriends
- Whangaparoa, 1975
- Pencil
- Ceiling fan, Villefranche
- A consort of flower parts
- Line
- Love poem
- Ode to fashion
- The camera is a small room
- 2. The sea of where it was we went
- A guide to the frogs of Fiji
- A rattling window, Sigatoka
- Coral
- A swim, mid-ocean, upon reaching the Tropic of Capricorn
- A naval exercise (for two hands)
- The mechanical rat of Raoul Island
- An artist's guide to the layers of an ocean
- A mule, Raoul Island
- Rangitahua
- Ode to Futuna Chapel
- 3. Breaksea Girl
- Richard Henry in Fiordland
- Wet Jacket Arm
- A shift in the wind
- The Ailing Wife
- 4. Red square, black square
- Guests of the Rossiya Hotel!
- Woman sleeping in an art gallery
- Outside Lenin's tomb
- Words sung by a Russian soprano
- Rublyov
- Black square
- 5. Little Oneroa
- Little Oneroa
- Sprig
- A fall of ice on Mt Maunganui, 11 May 2009
- A small ode to faith
- The Surfers' Mass
- The non-singing seats
- Silver gelatin print, Russell, Bay of Islands
- 6. Among trees
- On hearing, at the Oceanographic Museum, Monaco, the outcome of the New Zealand elections, November 2008
- Marseilles Fish Market
- Octopus
- Among trees
- The mayor of Sault contemplates the Mistral
- Rue Obscure
- Reading Italian poetry at Waihi Beach
- Geography of Northern Italy
- Lamp
- Ode to thought
- 7. Romantic voyage
- Solidarity with the anchovy
- A moa-proof garden, Onehunga
- Letter to Louise St John . . .
- Dylan Thomas (b. 2003), Coolmore Stud, New South Wales
- Three elegies
- Romantic Voyage
- 8. The invisible fathers
- The invisible fathers
- Afternote
- Afternote
- Copyright
