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Billy 'Nibs' Buckshot: The Complete Works

John Gallas

Categories: 21st Century, Humour, Language, New Zealand
Imprint: Carcanet Poetry
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Available as:
Paperback (128 pages)
(Due Oct 2024)
9781800174436
£12.99 £11.69
  • Description
  • Author
  • Reviews
  • This collection of 200 tankas has no Great Purpose, apart from explaining the Meaning of Life. In an firework-display of 31-syllable sparkles, probably set off by accident, it lights up any corner of things done, thought, felt, seen, suffered & enjoyed that it pleases. The writer, barely in control, stands back at a safe distance & watches, mostly with a smile as contradictions abound, ideas morph, and preferences and amusements change.
    John Gallas was born in New Zealand in 1950. He came to England in the 1970s to study Old Icelandic at Oxford and has since lived and worked in York, Liverpool, Upholland, Little Ness, Rothwell, Bursa, Leicester, Diyarbakir, Coalville and Markfield, as a bottlewasher, archaeologist, and teacher. His books are published ... read more
    Praise for John Gallas '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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