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[The Chartres Labyrinth]


Bibliography

This is a bibliographical site which I maintain for my own convenience, as a one-stop shop for recording new publications and reviews - mainly because it's much more convenient to copy information from here than to have to retype it every time I have to compile another cv or book-list.

Anyone else who wants to is welcome to use it in the same way. Having spent so much time trying to reconcile contradictory bibliographies of the authors I'm interested in, I think the value of a single, authorised list of publications is indisputable. It's not so much arrogance as good sense.

- Jack Ross

• Books:
  
  
  
  1. City of Strange Brunettes. ISBN 0-473-05446-9. Auckland: Pohutukawa Press, 1998.
  2. Nights with Giordano Bruno: A Novel. ISBN 0-9582225-0-9. Wellington: Bumper Books, 2000.
  3. Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8. Wellington: HeadworX, 2002.
  4. Monkey Miss Her Now & Everything a Teenage Girl Should Know. ISBN 0-476-00182-X. Auckland: Titus Books, 2004.
  5. Trouble in Mind. Titus Novella Series. ISBN 0-9582586-1-9. Auckland: Titus Books, 2005.
  6. The Imaginary Museum of Atlantis: A Novel. ISBN 0-9582586-8-6. Auckland: Titus Books, 2006.
  7. To Terezín: A Travelogue. Afterword by Martin Edmond. Social and Cultural Studies, 8. ISSN 1175-7132. Auckland: Massey University, 2007
  8. EMO: A Novel. ISBN 978-1-877441-07-3. Auckland: Titus Books, 2008.


• Chapbooks:
  
  
  
  1. Guillaume Apollinaire. Aubade. Translated by Jack Ross. Illustration by Mark Haddon. Edinburgh: Drummond Press, 1987.
  2. Killing Time. Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1997.
  3. Ezra Pound’s Fascist Cantos (72 & 73) together with Rimbaud’s “Poets at Seven Years Old.” Translated by Jack Ross. Auckland: Perdrix Press.
  4. A Town Like Parataxis. Photographs by Gabriel White. ISBN 0-473-07104-5. Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2000.
  5. The Perfect Storm. Video by Gabriel White. ISBN 0-473-07350-1. Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2000.
  6. The Britney Suite. Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001.
  7. A Bus Called Mr Nice Guy. ISBN 0-473-10526-8. Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2005.
  8. Love in Wartime. Wellington: Pania Press, 2007.
  9. Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere. ISBN 978-0-473-12397-0. Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2007.
  10. Minotaur. Translated by Jack Ross. Auckland: Pania Press, 2009.
  11. Je donne à mon espoir. Translated by Jack Ross. Auckland: Pania Press, 2009.
  12. The Return of the Vanishing New Zealander. ISBN 978-0-9864507-6-1. Dunedin: Kilmog Press, 2009.


• Edited - Books:
  
  
  
  1. [your name here:] Life Writing. Edited by Jack Ross. Introduction by Mary Paul. ISBN 0-473-09551-3. Massey University: School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2003.
  2. Golden Weather: North Shore Writers Past & Present. Poems edited by Jack Ross / Prose edited by Graeme Lay. ISBN 0-908561-96-2. Auckland: Cape Catley, 2004.
  3. Kendrick Smithyman, Campana to Montale: Versions from Italian. Edited by Jack Ross. ISBN 0-476-00382-2. Auckland: The Writers Group, 2004.
  4. Where Will Massey Take You? Life Writing 2. Edited by Jack Ross. ISBN 0-473-09551-3. Massey University: School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2005.
  5. Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance. Edited by Jack Ross. Poems selected by Jack Ross and Jan Kemp. ISBN 1-86940-367-3. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2006.
  6. Myth of the 21st Century: An Anthology of New Fiction. Edited by Tina Shaw & Jack Ross. ISBN 0-7900-1098-4. Auckland: Reed Publishing (NZ) Ltd, 2006.
  7. Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance. Edited by Jack Ross and Jan Kemp. ISBN 978 1 86940 395 9. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2007.
  8. Orange Roughy: Poems & Stories for Tazey. Edited by Bronwyn Lloyd & Jack Ross. ISBN 978-0-473-13179-1. Auckland: Pania Press, 2008.
  9. Home & Away: Life Writing 3. Edited by Kathryn Lee & Jack Ross. ISBN 978-0-473-13539-3. Massey University: School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2008.
  10. New New Zealand Poets in Performance. Edited by Jack Ross. Poems selected by Jack Ross and Jan Kemp. ISBN 978 1 86940 4093. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2008.


• Edited - Magazines, Workbooks &c. [36]
  
  
  
  1. The Pander 3-9. ISSN 1174-4030 (1998-1999)
  2. Spin 33, 36, 39, 42 & 45. ISSN 0113-8227 (1999-2003)
  3. brief 24-32. ISSN 1175-9313 (2002-2005)
  4. A brief index: 1995-2003 / 2003-2005. ISSN 1175-9313. Auckland: The Writers Group, 2003 / 2005.
  5. Landfall 214. ISBN 978 1 877372 93 3. (November 2007)
  6. Rowan McCormick, Writers of Passage. Edited by Jack Ross. Preface by Mary Paul, with an Afterword by Eleanor Rimoldi. Social and Cultural Studies, 9. ISSN 1175-7132. Auckland: Massey University, 2008.
  7. Poetry NZ 38. ISSN 0114-5770. (March 2009)


• Inclusions in Anthologies [17]


• Multimedia & Internet [39]


• Pamphlets [23]


• Poems [106]


• Short Stories [15]


• Articles [41]


• Reviews [93]





Chronology



• Papers [67]


• Readings [98]

[Classical Labyrinth]

The Return of the Vanishing New Zealander (2009)

Book design: Dean Havard

Front cover

The Return of the Vanishing New Zealander. ISBN 978-0-9864507-6-1. Dunedin: Kilmog Press, 2009. 20 pp.

Title page

Contents:

I ♥ NZ
NZ Golf (and English) Academy
Boi-Boi on Karaoke
Language School Picnic
Journey to the West
Index
Mysteries: A Christmas Poem
In the Days of The Lord of the Rings
A Question of Faith
Bonfire Gothic

Copyright page

Samples:

Kilmog Press

The Imaginary Museum

Back cover

Available:

Kilmog Press
Po Box 1562
Dunedin
New Zealand

RRP: $NZ35

Back dustjacket

Reviews & Comments:

1. Nga-Atawhainga Creagh, "Collector's Edition." School of Social and Cultural Studies, Massey University (4/11/09):
   

   
   Fans of Dr. Jack Ross, lecturer in Creative Writing at the Albany campus and author of three published novels, two books of short stories and several books of poems, will be delighted to know he has published a new chapbook of poems titled The Return of the Vanishing New Zealander. According to Jack, the limited edition collection works through the complexities of being a “'New Zealander' in an increasingly multi-cultural and polyglot country." He welcomes the changes in society, "whereas a lot of other people seem to see them as some kind of erosion of integrity and identity.”
   
   The book is rather special as it is Jack's first hardback, a rarity amongst New Zealand publishers. It can be bought from Parsons Bookshop on Wellesley St in Auckland city. Jack would like to make special mention that Parsons are an amazing supporter of the local arts scene, and stock virtually every New Zealand author and artist, maverick or mainstream: “Go in there and spend some money!” Alternatively, the book can be ordered directly from the publisher at Kilmog Press in Dunedin, whose website also features a sample poem.
   
   Congratulations Jack! And we will look forward to more published work in the future.

Je donne à mon espoir (2009)

Book design: Bronwyn Lloyd

Je donne à mon espoir. Auckland: Pania Press, 2009. 8 pp. [limited edition of 21 copies].

Contents:

Je donne à mon espoir (after Apollinaire)

Samples:

Mosehouse Studio

Available:

Pania Press
2/ 5 Hastings Rd
Mairangi Bay
North Shore City 0630
Auckland

RRP: $NZ25 (postage included within NZ)

•


Book design: Bronwyn Lloyd

(November 23, 2008) Je donne à mon espoir: A Translation from Apollinaire. Auckland: Pania Press, 2008. 8 pp. [gift edition].

Contents:

Je donne à mon espoir ...

Minotaur (2009)

Book design: Bronwyn Lloyd

Minotaur. Auckland: Pania Press, 2009. 4 pp. [limited edition of 21 copies]

Contents:

Minotaur (after Jorge Luis Borges]

Samples:

Pania Press

Available:

Pania Press
2/ 5 Hastings Rd
Mairangi Bay
North Shore City 0630
Auckland

RRP: $NZ75 (postage included within NZ)

•


Book design: Bronwyn Lloyd

(November 6) Minotaur: A Translation of "Laberinto," by Jorge Luis Borges. Auckland: Pania Press, 2008. 4 pp. [gift edition]

Contents:

Minotaur

Poetry NZ 38 (2009)

Cover design: Bill Wieben / Cover photgraphy: Nic Brown

Poetry New Zealand 38 (March 2009)
ISSN 0114-5770. 111 pp.

Contents:

Jack Ross / Editorial / 9

FEATURE

Jen Crawford / background / 10

– / from Pop Riveter / 11-26

POEMS

Johanna Aitchison / We Have Come to Collect Our Lives / 27

– / Sibling Rivalry / 28

Raewyn Alexander / ‘Men a mystery to me’ / 29

– / Beautiful liars and their gloss / 30

Rosetta Allan / Uncle / 31

Ruth Arnison / The bare facts / 32

Serie Barford / The Takata Effect / 33

Guy R. Beining / A knight without armorment / 34

Robert James Berry / Rasputin / 35

Iain Britton / Pania / 36

Tony Chad / Signature Brand / 37

Janet Charman / Wahine / 38

Jennifer Compton / – I Like That Clown / 39

– / The Pines / 40

Craig Cotter / rice balls for son / 41

Brett Cross / Prophet / 42

Shirley Deuchrass / Aestralata lessoni / 43

Grant Duncan / Conductress / 44

– / Crepusculum / 45

J. J. Fagan / Kumara Diggers / 46

Derek Fenton / A Tale of Two Heroes / 47

Sue Fitchett / Sweet & sour notes / 48

Janis Freegard / Magpie / 49

Michael Hall / Small town takeaway / 50

Alice Hooton / Café Black Cat / 51

– / Mrs Casy / 52

David Howard / On Bertolt Brecht’s Birthday / 53

– / You should have seen them go / 53

– / Come down / 54-55

Linda Hunter / Moon Creek / 56

Hayden Hyams / Rattle / 57

– / Waitakere / 58

Helen Jacobs / The White of Winter / 59

Sophia Johnson / These hills / 60

Mahdy Khaiyat / Nice / 61

Leonard Lambert / Curtain-call / 62

Noel Monahan / The Calf-Bearer / 63

Tim Nees / Buying Power / 64

Jenny O’Brien / Night / 65

John O’Connor / Five Haiku / 66

– / River Talk / 67

Jacqueline C. Ottaway / Tales out of School / 68

– / André Went to Christchurch / 69

Mark Pirie / The Park / 70-71

Kerry Popplewell / Konini School, 1910 / 72

– / Summer 1943 / 73

Lee Posna / An Address / 74

– / A degree in November Spring / 75

– / Blood in the mountain / 76

Richard Reeve / Inquisition / 77

– / Elegy / 78

– / Dawn / 79

Nicholas Reid / Homage to Diogenes / 80-81

Michael Sharkey / Young Woman with a Tea-Towel / 82

Michael Steven / On Francis Street / 83

– / Seventeen Seconds: Mahurangi Ridge / 84

– / The eel (after Montale) / 85-86

Ann Walker / Notes on a Day / 87

– / The day Lauris Edmond died / 88

Saint James Harris Wood / Cash Crow, Cash Crow / 89

– / Tumbleweed / 90-92

COMMENT

Lee Posna / Contemporary American Poetry / 93-100

REVIEWS

Richard Reeve/ Jack Ross & Jan Kemp, ed. NZ Poets in Performance, 3 vols (Auckland: AUP, 2006-8) / 101-6

Jack Ross / Books & Magazines in brief / 107-8:

• Coral Atkinson & David Gregory, ed. Land very Fertile: Banks Peninsula in Poetry & Prose (Christchurch: CUP, 2008)
• Stu Bagby, ed. Just Another Fantastic Anthology: Auckland in Poetry (Auckland: Antediluvian Press, 2008)
• Helen Bascand, into the vanishing point (Wellington: Steele Roberts, 2007)
• Michael Harlow, The Tram Conductor’s Blue Cap (Auckland: AUP, 2009)
• John O’Connor, Parts of the Moon: Selected Haiku & Senryu, 1988-2007 (Teneriffe, Queensland: Post Pressed, 2007)
• Takahe 64 (Winter 2008)

CONTRIBUTOR NOTES / 109-11

Samples:

Poetry New Zealand

Reviews & Comments:

New NZ Poets in Performance (2008)

Cover image: Sara Hughes / Cover design: Christine Hansen /
Text design: Katrina Duncan

New New Zealand Poets in Performance. Edited by Jack Ross. Poems selected by Jack Ross and Jan Kemp. ISBN 978 1 86940 4093. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2008. xiv + 146 pp.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Anne Kennedy (b. 1959)
I was a feminist in the eighties
Cat Tales
Whenua (2)
Biography / Selected Bibliography

David Howard (b. 1959)
Talking Sideways
Social Studies
On the Eighth Day
Biography / Selected Bibliography

John Newton (b. 1959)
Lunch
Ferret trap
Inland
Opening the Book
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Serie (Cherie) Barford (b. 1960)
Plea to the Spanish Lady
God is near the Equator
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Jenny Bornholdt (b. 1960)
Rodnie and her bicycles
Bus stop
Weather
Then Murray came
Please, pay attention
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Jenny Powell-Chalmers (b. 1960)
Carnival of Chocolate
Linda
Lunch Box
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Gregory O’Brien (b. 1961)
Epithalamium, Wellington
It will be better then
Solomon singing
from Great Lake
There is only one
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Chris Price (b. 1962)
Ghastlily
The Origins of Science
Keeping ravens
Biography / Selected Bibliography

John Pule (b. 1962)
from Restless People
Ka hola
He
Liogi
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Jack Ross (b. 1962)
Except Once
A Woman Named Intrepid
Idyll
Disorder and Early Sorrow
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Andrew Johnston (b. 1963)
How to Talk
How to Walk
Les Baillessats
The Present
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Glenn Colquhoun (b. 1964)
from Whakapapa
She asked me if she took one pill for her heart …
Lost property
On the death of my grandmother
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Lynda Chanwai-Earle (b. 1965)
Details from a personal journal
Gasp
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Sonja Yelich (b. 1965)
narrow neck from the boat ramp
1YA
writing desk
whangaparaoa – on the sundeck
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Tusiata Avia (b. 1966)
My Dog
My First Time in Samoa
Wild Dogs Under My Skirt
Biography / Selected Bibliography

James Brown (b. 1966)
Loneliness
Soup From a Stone
The Crewe Cres Kids
The Day I Stopped Writing Poetry
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Anna Jackson (b. 1967)
The hen of tiredness
Takahe
On the road with Rose
In a minute
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Sarah Quigley (b. 1967)
New York Four
Restless
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Robert Sullivan (b. 1967)
Waka 46
V Honda Waka
Waka 70 i Matakitaki
Waka 62 A narrator’s note
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Emma Neale (b. 1969)
Spoken For
Jane Coleridge
You’re Telling Me
Confessional Poem
Caroline Helstone
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Kate Camp (b. 1972)
Postcard
Documentaries
Backroads
Water of the Sweet Life
Guests
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Tracey Slaughter (b. 1972)
anatomy of dancing with your future wife
biography day
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Nick Ascroft (b. 1973)
The Badder & the Better
All of the Other Ascrofts Are Dead
Cheap Present
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Kapka Kassabova (b. 1973)
Preparation for the big emptiness
One morning like a sleeper
My life in two parts
A city of pierced amphorae
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Thérèse Lloyd (b. 1974)
Forecast
One Hundred Hours
Scorpion Daughter
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Mark Pirie (b. 1974)
Good Looks
Making a Point
Progress
The Third Form
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Olivia Macassey (b. 1975)
Outhwaite Park
Outer Suburb
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Richard Reeve (b. 1976)
Dark Unloading: A Villanelle
Ranfurly
Victory Beach
Biography / Selected Bibliography

Track List

Variant Readings

Bibliography

Samples:

Aotearoa NZ Poetry Sound Archive

The Imaginary Museum

Available:

Auckland University Press
The University Of Auckland
1-11 Short St.
Private Bag 92019
Auckland
New Zealand
aup@auckland.ac.nz
http://www.auckland.ac.nz/aup/

RRP: $NZ 45.00

Reviews & Comments:

1. AUP, "New New Zealand Poets in Performance." forthcoming (24/6/08):
   

   
   The third in the Poets in Performance series, this book collects the work of a new generation of poets - from Anne Kennedy to Glenn Colquhoun, Jenny Bornholdt to Robert Sullivan - who came to prominence in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. These poets are notable for their variety, their distinctive voices and their fresh approaches to poetic form and subject. As in Classic and Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance, Ross and Kemp have selected and presented on two CDs material from the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive, completed in 2004. There are more than two hours of poets reading their own work and the accompanying book prints the texts of the poems as they have been read. Selected bibliographies and short biographies for each poet and an appendix of variant readings are also included.



2. Jennifer Little, "Poetry CDs an alternative to Talkback Radio." Massey News (16/7/08):
   

   
   Compact disc recordings in a new anthology of New Zealand's hottest new poets promise to engage a wide audience, including those who are not “poetry fiends”, says one of its co-editors Massey English lecturer Dr Jack Ross ...
   
   “A lot of people might want to try listening to the poems while they're in the car driving to work," Dr Ross says. "Instead of talkback radio, why not open up to some new ideas with a poem?”
   
   The book follows Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance and Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance and brings together 28 young to mid-career poets, including Anne Kennedy, Jenny Bornholdt, Glenn Colquhoun and Andrew Johnston, to celebrate “the rich jangle of clashing ideas, voices, genders that combine to make a living culture”, Dr Ross says in his introduction.



3. Peter Dornauf, "Tuning into Mid-career Poets." Waikato Times (2/8/08):
   

   
   This volume and CDs, along with the other two companions, will make a very useful, worthwhile addition to secondary and tertiary libraries as well as to the libraries of individual dedicated followers of lyrical fashion.



4. "New New Zealand Poets in Performance." Unity Books Spring Newsletter (20/8/08):
   

   
   A companion to classy, bestselling anthologies Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance and Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance, this new collection features 28 young and mid-career poets notable for variety, freshness, IQ and distinctiveness and presents material from the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive (includes 2 CDs).



5. Pat White, "A Delight for Poetry Lovers." Wairarapa Times (20/8/08):
   

   
   This volume brings to a close the most thorough survey of New Zealand poetry ever undertaken. Three volumes have been published with material gleaned from a comprehensive ctalogue of poets reading their work which has been stored as the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive ...
   
   The volume is attractively printed, with an easily used layout, all work is referenced and accompanied by biographical notes. Any reader of poetry will find this sequence of publications an essential reference, quite apart form a very satisfying access point to much that is best in New Zealand poets writing at their best.
   
   Without a doubt the monumental task Kemp and Ross set themselves must have grown to something more than they imagined possible. Now however, the results speak for themselves. We have a very valuable progress report on the state of poetry, for the delight of this country's poetry lovers, and the use of its students. as editors Kemp and Ross deserve the nation's thanks for a task completed well.



6. Margaret Christensen, "New New Zealand Poets in Performance." Wairarapa Times-Age (23/8/08):
   

   
   Editors Ross and Kemp here continue the excellent selections they have made, along with archival CDs, in the past few years. ... All together the collections mine work which gives an overview in both sight and
   sound of the topography of poetry in this country.
   ...
   All of the poets included have quite impressive track records of publication in this country and overseas. They have won many awards, which are handily documented at the end of each poet's selection - which is very useful for students of our literature, both now and later.
   ...
   Crises have obviously occurred in these lives but the reader can only guess at the triggering circumstances. That does not necessarily mean that the reader is left bewildered, just aware.



7. "New New Zealand Poets in Performance." Art News reviews (Spring 08) (27/8/08):
   

   
   There's no doubt that hearing poetry read aloud is a much more physical, dynamic and dramatic experience that brings the rhythm, tone and rhyme of the medium to the fore. In this multi-media publication, which includes two CDs of poets in performance mostly taken from the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive, established in 2004 by poet Jan Kemp, the reader has the best of both worlds. the third in a series of 'New Zealand Poets in performance', this features the voices of 28 of New Zealand's young to mid-career poets, including Kate Camp, Anne Kennedy, Gregory O'Brien and James Brown, whose quirky, irreverent poem about seeing Elvis "just walking across the quad in no particular hurry" is a gem. Two hours of poets reading their work, accompanied by the text of each poem, makes this a treat for poetry lovers.



8. Trevor Reeves, "New New Zealand Poets in Performance." Southern Ocean Review (2008):
   

   
   164 pages of anthology again (third time) of the poets in performance, with two nice cd's to play with the actual poets reading their work. This time there are some South Island poets in there, including Richard Reeve who is making a big name for himself as an establishment poet. Also Jenny Powell-Chalmers writing about Dunedin (good on her) with 'Carnival of Chocolate'. Ideal for reading aloud, and she does read well. Even trivia like “Lunch Box' sounds good read. Nick Ascroft is in there too. New Zealand is bountifully supplied with bright new poets making their mark now. When you have nothing much to write about, you can make even the most mundane sound brilliantly exciting, as in 'The Badder & the Better'. I liked Anne Kennedy's poem: 'I was a feminist in the eighties', ending: “Then a lion came prowling out of the jungle / and ate the feminist all up”. David Howard writes competently and his work sounds good read out, quite entertaining in fact. James Brown is good…. entertaining stuff, especially 'Loneliness', about Elvis Presley. Unpretentious, funny, great. A full book of very competent practitioners of the poetic arts, and nice to listen to, too.



9. Sam Finnemore, "Books: New New Zealand Poets in Performance." Craccum 16 (2008):
   

   
   As with the last two instalments, Jack Ross and Jan Kemp have chosen smartly from the 2004 Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Archive, and there's so much to enjoy here: highlights include Robert Sullivan's remarkable 'Star Waka' poems; Anna Jackson's breathy delivery of razor sharp verse; John Pule, Tusiata Avia and James Brown. It's a useful chance to reassess certain poets too; Glenn Colquhoun, who I'd never particularly rated on the page since Playing God, comes across notably well both in the book and on CD.
   
   Both the book and the recordings come across as distinctly fresh and modern, and the editors have clearly achieved their goal; of creating a clear identity for each volume of the Poets in Performance trilogy. The combination of book and CD is effective as ever; iPod users can sift the audio around usefully while keeping the original discs safely nested inside the book itself, for this is going to be a book worth taking care of. New New Zealand Poets in Performance makes a solid end to Ross and Kemp's series, a smart package well-chosen from a huge range of material and likely to have enduring value as a poetic snapshot of the now. Highly recommended.



10. Richard Reeve, "Review of Jack Ross and Jan Kemp (eds), Classic, Contemporary and New New Zealand Poets in Performance (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2006-8)." Poetry NZ 38 (2009): 101-6.
    

    
    Ross and Kemp’s editorial selection is eclectic, pragmatic and personal, with gems in all three books. ...
    
    As a unit, New Zealand Poets in Peformance does give a sense of the voice enshrined of different epochs and cultures and, importantly, the volumes illustrate continuity (as distinct from ‘progress’, which in poetry is no longer a permissible concept) in the passage from Brasch and Curnow to Olivia Macassey and Mark Pirie, with the artform surviving all critical prescriptions from all times, cheating attempts to pin it down. Hearing poets reading their work often changes one’s impression of the text. In several cases, what at first glance seem to be bad poems on the page are transformed by a poet’s voice into powerful, acutely realised poetic moments, while other poems that impress at first reading come across as flat and uninspired when delivered by the author. This exemplifies the enigma of what constitutes ‘voice’ in poetry: some well-loved, celebrated poets are dry performers of their work, yet few would say they don’t have a voice. To the editors’ lasting credit, their compilation presents many such faces of poetry, with surprises that warrant returning to again and again to savour. That, in the end, is the most anyone can ask for.
    



11. Helen Dennis, "Review of Chris Orsman, The Lakes of Mars (AUP, 2008); Sam Sampson, everything talks (AUP, 2008); Bob Orr, Calypso (AUP, 2008); Sonja Yelich Get Some (AUP, 2008); New New Zealand Poets in Performance, ed. Jack Ross & Jan Kemp (AUP, 2008); Richard Reeve, In Continents (AUP, 2008); Leonard Lambert, Skywire (Steele Roberts, 2008)." The Warwick Review (March 2009): 61-72 [66-67]:
    

    
    [Jack Ross & Jan Kemp (eds), New New Zealand Poets in Performance (Auckland University Press, 2008), ISBN 978-1-86940-409-3, 146 pp, NZ$44.95 (pb)]
    
    ... Both [Sonja] Yelich and Richard Reeve are featured in the compendious collection of New New Zealand Poets in Performance. The debate continues in poetry circles as to the necessity and point of poets performing their own work, with some declaring that if the poem works properly on the page, i.e. if the poet's craft is up to the job, then performance is totally unnecessary. On the other hand, others believe that the poetic text is somewhat like a musical score waiting to be interpreted and performed by the poet, who is thus both "composer" and "instrumentalist". I tend towards the latter view, depending on the type of poetry. Certainly New New Zealand Poets in Performance is a delightful introduction to a wide diversity of new New Zealand poetic voices, and given the differences between received English pronunciation in the UK and kiwi English, it is extremely useful to have the poets' own voices interpreting their works on two CDs here. Twenty-eight young and mid-career poets are represented, so it is impossible to give many name checks; but listen to the cumulative humour of the first poem, "I was a Feminist in the eighties" by Anne Kennedy, and I swear you'll be hooked!

EMO (2008)

Cover image: Emma Smith, "have I been pardoned yet?" (detail)

The R.E.M. [Random Excess Memory] Trilogy, 3:

EMO. A Novel by Jack Ross. ISBN 978-1-877441-07-3. Auckland: Titus Books, 2008. [vi] + 258 pp.

Contents:

EVA AVE

1. Eva Android
2. Dear E.
3. Family Album
4. February 6, 1935
5. The Cat
6. February 11, 1935
7. Strange Meeting
8. The Contract
9. February 15, 1935
10. First Night
11. Arrival
12. February 18, 1935
13. Searching
14. Work
15. March 11, 1935
16. The Vivisectionist
17. 1001 Nights
18. March 16, 1935
19. Beauty and the Beast
20. Dogs
21. Night Visit
22. April 1, 1935
23. Together Forever
24. The Excursion
25. April 29, 1935
26. Madness
27. The Hotel
28. May 10, 1935
29. Murder
30. But his hands were around my throat
31. Ten Days that Shook the World
32. The Trial
33. May 28, 1935
34. Last Day of a Condemned Man

MOONS OF MARS

1. Marlow
2. Welcome to my World
3. The Invitation
4. Welcome to my World (2)
5. Hysterical Blindness
6. Welcome to my World (3)
7. Luce
8. Dinner
9. Burmese Days
10. The Bargain
11. Backstory
12. Somnambulism
13. Chantage
14. The Investigation
15. Trois filles de leur mère
16. Club D
17. Glam Metal Detectives
18. Night Journey
19. Outside
20. Trilogies
21. Rumble Edge Line
22. Trilogies (2)
23. Life on Mars
24. Trilogies (3)
25. Hydrogen
26. King Candaules
27. Free Love
28. Helium
29. Confessions
30. Marriage
31. High
32. Terminus
33. The Great Stone Face
34. Doubts
35. Iris
36. Iris Recognition
37. Iris Out

OVID IN OTHERWORLD

1. Ovidius Naso
2. Tristia 3.2
3. Video-consult
4. The Undead
5. Tristia 3.3
6. Blood-drive
7. Exul Ludens
8. Tristia 3.8
9. Drip-feed
10. Blinding
11. Tristia 3.10
12. Truth-telling
13. ovid v. divo
14. Tristia 3.12
15. Witch-finding
16. roma amor
17. Tristia 3.13
18. Hypno-slave
19. Ovids 3
20. Tristia 5.7
21. Fever-dreams
22. Ovid in the Third Reich
23. Tristia 5.10
24. Head-hunter
25. Six Memos for the Next Millennium
26. Tristia 5.12
27. Title-story
28. Lost Books of the Fasti
29. Epistulae 1.2
30. Poetry-reading
31. Sleep Threshold – Hypnagogia
32. Epistulae 4.7
33. Face-saving
34. Ovid Misunderstood
35. Epistulae 4.10
36. Scene-stealing
37. Suetonius: “Divus Augustus”
38. Epistulae 4.14
39. Fasti V: 421-44
40. Dream-catcher

Palimpsest Texts:

SCHEHERAZADE'S WEB:
The 1001 Nights and Comparative Literature

Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Malory and Scheherazade: A Study in Narrative Method
Chapter 2 - Europe, Christianity and the Crusades in the 1001 Nights
Chapter 3 - Voyage en Orient: The Victorian Traveller and the Arabian Nights
Chapter 4 - Parodies of the Nights in Nineteenth-century Literature
Chapter 5 - The Poetics of Stasis: Twentieth-century Readings of the Nights
Works Cited
Bibliography
Chronology
Concordance

JACK'S METAMORPHOSES:
Collage-Poems & Sequences (1997-2007)

Metamorphoses I: Chaos
Jack’s Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses II: The Crow
Evenings in the Blackout
Metamorphoses III: Semele
Dieting. I’m Hungry too
Metamorphoses IV: Daughters of Minyas
In the Cave of Henry James
Metamorphoses V: Arethusa
The Britney Suite
Metamorphoses VI: Marsyas
Ancestral Voices
Metamorphoses VII: Theseus
Anamorphoses
Metamorphoses VIII: Icarus
Love in Wartime
Metamorphoses IX: Iolaus
Postcards
Metamorphoses X: Pygmalion
Servants of the Wankh
Metamorphoses XI: Midas
Suburban Apocalypse
Metamorphoses XII: Rumour
Days Under Water
Metamorphoses XIII: Glaucus
Citizens of the People’s Republic of Freaktown
Metamorphoses XIV: Pomona
Muses
Metamorphoses XV: Hippolytus
Papyri
Notes on Sources

Publius Ovidius Naso:
TRISTIA, EPISTULAE EX PONTO & IBIS

Tristia
Book I
Book II
Book III
Book IV
Book V

Epistulae ex Ponto
Book I
Book II
Book III
Book IV

Ibis

Online Texts:

EVA AVE

Moons of Mars

Ovid in Otherworld

Scheherazade's Web

Tristia, Epistulae & Ibis

Samples:

Jack's Metamorphoses

Papyri

The Britney Suite

The Cat

Available:

Titus Books
PO Box 102
Waimauku
West Auckland
New Zealand
titus@snap.net.nz
http:/titus.books.online.fr/

RRP: $NZ 44.95 (+ $2 postage & packing)

Cover design: Brett Cross

Reviews & Comments:

1. Jen Crawford, "Jack Ross's EMO: Launch speech at Alleluya cafe, Thursday 19th June." blue acres (24/6/08):
   

   
   ... this is a book which isn’t satisfied with being self-contained. It reaches beyond its own covers, beyond its author, inviting you into one of the great endangered pleasures of literature – which is the sense of its endlessness, the way one book can open another book for you, like a friend giving you a private gift; perhaps the key to a room you can now share – a room, of course, which would have many other doors.



2. Scott Hamilton, "Independent's Night." Scoop Review of Books (24/6/08):
   

   
   Like its predecessors, Nights with Giordano Bruno and The Imaginary Museum of Atlantis, Ross’ EMO is a sprawling, delightfully bewildering work. Ross sets several stories in motion, as he moves between Mars, Nazi Germany, and the dream-like version of Auckland’s North Shore that recurs almost obsessively in his writing. At the heart of EMO is the tale of a recently blinded writer and his servant, a very human android named Eva. The embittered writer tries to impose his will upon Eva, but she subtly resists his whims. The story of Eva and her faltering master has the simple power of a fable, and Ross finds parallels for it in the Arabian Nights, as well as in the relationship between Hitler and his secretary-cum-wife, Eva Braun ...
   
   Ross is a lapidarian scholar, fluent in half a dozen languages, but he is also a passionate fan of America’s Next Top Model, and his writing has always refused to distinguish between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture. The very look of EMO mocks the conventions of both literature and academic scholarship - texts are artfully layered on its outsize pages, alongside photographs, cartoons, and cryptic diagrams. Ross’ prose is full of dirty jokes, as well as learned asides and sad observations. EMO could keep you busy for years on a desert island, but it can also entertain you during that hour between the end of Shortland St and the beginning of Desperate Housewives.



3. Bill Direen, "Review of EMO." Percutio 3 (2009): 82.
   

   
   My review copy measured in at 17.4 x 24.7 x 2.1 cm which, knowing Jack a little, might represent some mystical dimension of an alchemical age. The first impression is dramatic. Here we have a book uncharacteristically (for both the author and for Titus Books) large and boldly striking (with its blood-red sketch of a weary child's face); it also invites a biplanar approach. It is at once strident and muted. ... The impression is of a private studio, reflection of the writer's mind, scattered with his influences and cuttings which have appealed to him over the years, which have formed him.

[Jen Crawford]

Complete Essay:
[reprinted by permission]

Jen Crawford. "Jack Ross's EMO." blue acres (24/6/08):

Many of you already know Jack Ross as a friend, as a teacher, as a prolific poet and fiction writer, an editor, critic, translator, publisher, blogger, and as a warm advocate for some of the more under-explored reaches of New Zealand literature. (I think the relevant epithet that turns up in EMO is “the Sheriff of Freaktown”). A number of us know that we’ve directly benefited from his work in those roles; I could say we all owe him something, because we’re recipients of the literature to which he so generously contributes his energies and talents – and without his work mapping and making that literature it would be considerably narrower.

Having said that, at first thought it seemed a little bit of a daunting prospect to introduce this book, EMO. There’s a passage in EMO where Jack describes one of his source texts, The Thousand and One Nights, as more of ‘a literature than a unified work’ – and this is also true of EMO itself. It’s more a library than a book. The book is one of a trilogy, the Random Excess Memory trilogy – yet it stands alone. Within EMO is another trilogy – the books of Eva, Mars and Ovid – or Earth, Mars and Otherworld – EMO. Behind this internal trilogy, ghosting through its pages is another set of texts – palimpsest texts – that include translations of Ovid and Sappho and Paul Celan, a comparative reading of the Thousand and One Nights, collections of Jack’s original poetry, and so on. One can also read these texts on a series of linked websites, which (as websites do), lead us on to other websites, just as the books within EMO lead us to other books, both internal and external to its pages.

In other words, this is a book which isn’t satisfied with being self-contained. It reaches beyond its own covers, beyond its author, inviting you into one of the great endangered pleasures of literature – which is the sense of its endlessness, the way one book can open another book for you, like a friend giving you a private gift; perhaps the key to a room you can now share – a room, of course, which would have many other doors.

So EMO, with its layered texts, gives us a visual realisation of the narrative manifold that is, to my knowledge, entirely unique (and I should just offer kudos at this point to both Jack and to Titus Press that this is so well realised: there’s no visual strain in reading this, which is quite a technical feat – there’s a lot of love and care gone into its production). The awareness of historical and characterological tensions that are created by these palimpsests is extraordinary. But I’m wary of making the book sound like something it’s not – it’s not a comfortable intellectual rehearsal of post-structuralist concepts.

What I haven’t mentioned yet is that ‘Eva’, the protagonist of the first book, is an android clone of Eva Braun; that the middle book is a post-Sadean detective story set on Mars, that in the third book Ovid hallucinates his exile in Auckland and his vampiric enslavement at the hands of a succubus nurse.

So it’s a very moving book.

I’m quite serious about that. Jack quotes Borges writing about The Thousand and One Nights – ‘keep reading as the day declines and Scheherazade will tell you your own story’. For all the weird schlock-genre fun that EMO allows us to indulge in, it is very much about our own stories. It’s the most outlandish fiction, and the most unsettling fiction, because it won’t quite sit down and be fiction. Or it might be more accurate to say that it won’t quite sit down and let its readers – or its writer – be real. So however much I appreciate Jack Ross’s contributions to literature, I’m no longer entirely convinced that he’s not actually a three-dimensional simulacrum of a fictional Reno private eye. Having read the fragments of Eva Braun’s diary, which Jack includes here, and having read the heartbreaking letters of Eva Android to her lost sister, Eva Braun, I’m pretty sure I know some other members of the Eva clone-clan – in fact they are disturbingly familiar.

One comes away with a deep consciousness and a deep wariness of the way that people become stories and that stories recur: Beauty and the Beast; Scheherezade and Shahryar, the wives of Bluebeard, Eva and Adolf. But Eva, however quietly, insists: she is a clanswoman, not a clone. This is one of the great beauties of this book and of Jack’s work in general. Among the stories are so many of the generic horrors, generic pleasures, generic loves we live and dream – but the generic is never blindly presented as ‘the way things are’ – nor is it dismissed as meaningless repetition. The power of its unities is openly encountered; the insistent delicate variety of its individual manifestations, and of its metamorphoses, is uncovered.

So this is a serious book. It’s a book that suggests our stories – those we return to over and over, those we read in the dead of night, those we hide under the bed – especially those we hide under the bed – are not incidental. They’re not accidents, they’re not outdated, and they’re certainly not irrelevant to the more ‘serious’ matters of our human condition here and now. I want to read you a short passage from the Mars section, where two clinicians contemplate how to interpret a patient’s story:

“It was useful to get the whole story out of her, but all it can do now is confirm that she’s been living in a fantasy world for quite some time, and that parts of it still seem quite real to her.”

“Observe and treat accordingly then?”

“You’ve got it. I was like you once, you know. Keen to take up the cudgels for each new patient – trusting their stories, hunting down the corrupt officials and cops who’d victimised them. It doesn’t make you any friends, for one thing. Nor does it really help your patients, longterm. The trouble is their stories just aren’t plausible, in the final analysis. Either you believe we live on a knife-edge of sanity in a world of seething bestial indulgence and mass-murder, or else you accept that a few wounded souls have difficulties with the stress of modern life ...”

Eva Braun’s presence in this book doesn’t really allow us to accept the second alternative as all there is to it. How we handle the possibility of the first alternative is, of course, a perennial problem. But EMO reminds us – shocks us – into a new consciousness that we are not without means, not without tools, not without a language for understanding and engaging with the full substance of our world, if we choose to acknowledge it. Because we have our stories, and our stories are talking to us.

[Titus Book launch (l9/6/08)]

Home & Away (2008)

Cover photograph & design: Kathryn Lee

Home & Away: Life Writing 3. Edited by Kathryn Lee & Jack Ross. ISBN 978-0-473-13539-3. Massey University: School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2008. ii + 156 pp.

Contents:

Kathryn Lee
Preface: Writer's Block

Jack Ross
Xmas

Hayley Baines
Changes
Rules and Taboos
Seven

Bianca Burger
Home

Rebekah Chambers
Nobody Knows
Nothing but Silence
Never Again
Like You
You Were There
Melting
Tiny Black Curls
Your Face
Remember?

Bruce Craig
“Beautiful Little Dolls,” the Policeman said …

Jane Gardiner
Gardening with Granny
24 June 1977

Rhiannon Horrell
Travelling in the Footsteps of Janet White …

Emma Jeffrey
A Bus Full of Pirates

Rachel Koch
Getting Lost in Costa Rica

Kathryn Lee
Culture Shock 101: Day One in Hsin Chu

Dana Maton
Goodbye
The McGintys
Relations

Tania Menzies
Trouble in Tirau

Lisa Simpson
My German Grandfather
Goodbye

Sophie Smith
Rules and Taboos

Gregory Wood
Into the Mist: Searching for the Lost Huia

Available:

Leanne Menzies
School Adminstrator
School of Social and Cultural Studies
Massey University
Private Bay 102 904
North Shore Mail Centre
Auckland

RRP: $NZ 10 (+ $2 postage & packing)

Reviews & Comments:

1. Jennifer Little. "New books reveal bold approach to writing life.” Massey News. [6/6/08]
   

   
   Contributor and co-editor Kathryn Lee says the publication is a testament to the courage of students who overcame fear and the inclination to procrastinate when faced with the blank page.
   
   “The lesson that I learned from this class [life writing] was a very simple one but one that needed to be learned. Stop worrying and start writing,” Ms Lee says in her preface.
   
   Home and Away co-editor, writer and English lecturer Dr Jack Ross says the diverse backgrounds of the contributors produced a huge variety of “amazing” stories.
   
   “Showcasing and polishing these pieces for others to read and learn from has been a great pleasure for me.”

Orange Roughy (2008)

Cover image: Graham Fletcher

Orange Roughy: Poems & Stories for Tazey. ISBN 978-0-473-13179-1. Edited by Bronwyn Lloyd & Jack Ross. Auckland: Pania Press, 2008. [ii] + 74 pp.

Contents:

Thérèse Lloyd / Orange Roughy

Martin Edmond / The View from Number Four

Bernadette Hall / Four Poems:

Jacaranda
A Very Short Story About Flying
In Vitro
St Declan’s Stone

Michele Leggott / Three Poems:

haukapua
te rau aroha
tapu te ranga

Bronwyn Lloyd / Two Stories:

Some Traditions
It goes like this Gordon

Thérèse Lloyd / Four Poems:

Takaka
Makara
The Eternals
We’re All Here Alive

Bill Manhire / The Secret Wife

Emma Neale / Confessional Poem

Susannah Poole / The Movie House

Tessa Rain / Three Songs:

Dargaville Museum
Dirt Poems
Town for You

Richard Reeve / Four Poems:

Sally’s Dream
The Baptism of Guthrum
Doubtful
Ode to Joy

Jack Ross / Out Being Alienated

Tracey Slaughter / How To Leave Your Family

Michael Steven / Three Poems:

Sainthood
Clerk
Event(s)

Damien Wilkins / Vancouver

Michele Leggott / from hello and goodbye

Graham Fletcher / 9 Pageworks

Samples:

Pania Press

The Imaginary Museum

Reviews & Comments:

1. Damien Wilkins. Email correspondence. (c. 12/07):
   

   
   "Better than a sausage sizzle in front of the Warehouse."



2. Raewyn Alexander. Magazine (2008):
   

   
   The book, Orange Roughy, named after one of Lloyd's poems, is beautifully produced as a limited edition with a hand-painted cover. The stories and poems would intrigue many people. My editor bought three copies, with two for presents later on in the year. They're already in their own decorated envelope and well worth the $25-.

Landfall 214 (2007)

Cover illustration: Emma Smith

Landfall 214: "Open House" (November 2007). ISBN 978 1 877372 93 3. 208 pp.

Contents:

Jack Ross / Editorial: Rules of Engagement

Tracey Slaughter / consent

Amy Brown / Siamang

Tourettes / The Orphanage for Lost Pets

Jennifer Compton / Broken House

Kim McBreen / I’m Alright

Keith Westwater / Now on at a court/house near you

Katherine Liddy / Two poems

Breton Dukes / The Herd

Gabriel White / Tongdo Fantasia

Jen Crawford / Three poems

Thérèse Lloyd / Three poems

Olivia Macassey / Three poems

Martin Edmond / from White City: The Autobiography of Ernest Lalor Malley

Sarah Jane Barnett / The Drop Distance

Elizabeth Smither / A way of teaching history

Kirsten Warner / Homeboy

Ouyang Yu / The Axis of Exiles: Writing and Teaching between China, Australia and New Zealand

Claire Talbot / Hitlerjunge Quex

Stephen Turner / Make-over Culture and the New Zealand Dream of Home

Stu Bagby / Two poems

Tony Beyer / Autumn in Jerusalem

Scott Hamilton / Mr Chick

Hamish Dewe / Landscape Paintings Always Lie

Paul Millar / Walking with Rush

Michael Steven / Two poems

Richard von Sturmer / Dreaming with words

Robert James Berry / Scheherazade

Sally Ann McIntyre / Two poems

Emma Smith / Kabuki Rain

Bronwyn Lloyd / Sink or Swim

Leonard Lambert / Mystery Channel

Mary Macpherson / The Costume

Michael Harlow / Two poems

Sarah Broom / Monochrome

Andrew Slattery / Lithographone

Ted Jenner / A Miller’s Chaff: Malawi 2004-2007

David Howard / Two poems

Brett Cross / the alchemist’s notebook

Latika Vasil / Sleep

Raewyn Alexander / I feel a garage sale arriving

THE LANDFALL REVIEW

POETRY

Sarah Broom / Conversation and Trickery Dickery - Jessica Le Bas: Incognito & Richard Taylor: Conversation with a Stone

Siobhan Harvey / To the Moon and Sun, and Back - Scott Hamilton: To the Moon, in Seven Easy Stages & Andrew Johnston: Sol

Tracey Slaughter / How the Raptures Slip - Janet Charman: Cold Snack & Will Christie: Luce Cannon

Jack Ross / The Need to Gather Stones - Fiona Farrell: The Pop-up Book of Invasions & Geoff Cochrane: 84-484

FICTION

Jen Crawford / Possibilities at Play - Bill Direen: Song of the Brakeman & Jack Ross: The Imaginary Museum of Atlantis

CULTURAL COMMENTARY

Scott Hamilton / A Book with No Class - Jane Stafford & Mark Williams: Maoriland

Jack Ross / At the Revival Meeting - Martin Edmond: Waimarino County and Other Excursions

Laurence Simmons / On Reading On Reading - Lydia Wevers: On Reading

Contributor Notes

Matthew Kelly / Gag Time Funnies

Samples:

The Imaginary Museum

Reviews & Comments:

1. Richard Reeve. "Landfall - forthcoming issue." Otago University Press. (21/9/07).
   

   
   After a number of themed issues, Landfall opens up in a general issue, presenting new voices in poetry and fiction alongside more established writers. Prose writing includes Ted Jenner on Malawi, Stephen Turner on cultural plagiarism and the New Zealand dream of home, Bronwyn Lloyd on doppelgänger suicide, and Ouyang Yu on ‘the axis of exiles’.



2. Lynn Freeman. "The Bookshelf: Landfall - Open House." Radio NZ National: Arts on Sunday. (2/12/07) [five minute downloadable interview with Jack Ross, available online for four weeks from the date of broadcast].
   

   
   JR: "My own feeling is that much more emotional, much more challenging, much more extreme work is becoming more common ..."



3. Linda Herrick. "Christmas Crackers - Landfall 214: Open House." Weekend Herald: Canvas (8/12/07): 16.
   

   
   Guest editor Ross has compiled a diverse range of stories, poems, photos, essays and book reviews which, when you start to read them, are actually a bit creepy. Keith Westwater's poem Now on a court/house near you is an all too familiar three-part inter-generational horror story of domestic violence and child abuse. It's like reading a crime report in the paper. "Tourettes" poem The Orphanage for Lost Pets is about "the stars of last Christmas" who've been dumped by their owners. None of that this Christmas (or any time of year).