Cover image: Katharina Jaeger /
Cover design: William Bardebes
The Oceanic Feeling
Poems
by Jack Ross
Drawings
by Katharina Jaeger
Afterword
by Bronwyn Lloyd
ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7
Online Notes
Acknowledgments:
Warmest thanks to publishers (and designers) William Bardebes and Emma Smith, of Salt & Greyboy Press.
I’d also like to thank Katharina Jaeger for her generosity in allowing me to use some of the beautiful ink on paper drawings from her ‘Prunings’ sequence. Also Tony Bond for his fine photographs of these images.
I remain very much in debt to Bronwyn Lloyd, Thérèse Lloyd, Tracey Slaughter, and Michael Steven for valuable editorial advice, and Bronwyn in particular for her insightful afterword to the collection.
Many of the pieces included here have been previously published, some in different forms. Thanks again to the editors and publishers of all those anthologies, websites and journals for permission to reproduce them here. For further details, please check below:
Contents:
- The Oceanic Feeling (7/1-18/10/17)
Family Plot
- Lone pine (14/1-5/12/14)
- Family plot (26/6-12/8/15)
- When you’re the only one (30/9-19/11/17)
- Oh br/other! (6/1/16-13/7/17)
- This morning Sylvie (16/1/16-7/5/17)
- Zero is lying down today (18/1/16-22/10/17)
- What to do till the sentinels come (11-23/4/18)
- Rituals (9/1/16-7/5/17)
- My Uncle Tommy (15-23/4/18)
- 1942 (17/9-4/12/16)
- Very superstitious (4/1-21/8/16)
- Playing the long game (29/1-29/10/16)
- Are Kiwi women (30/1-29/10/16)
- Rather a shock (15/1/16-7/5/17)
- Family skeletons (10/1/16-7/5/17)
- Self-analysis (11/1/16-7/5/17)
- Checking into Facebook (31/1-5/12/16)
- A borrowed life (30/9-2/10/17)
- Psych 101 (7/1/16-4/1/17)
- What do you want? (8/9-13/10/18)
Ice Road Trucker
- Ice Road Trucker (7/2-30/3/15)
- Two Fords (17/7-12/8/15)
- Stranded Polar Bear (21/11-14/12/19)
- Indexing Poetry NZ (5/1-29/8/16)
- Turning at the doorstep (21/1/16-19/10/17)
- The perils of public art (8/1/16-7/5/17)
- Communications committee (14/1-4/12/16)
- Oral exam, 1990 (1/1-21/8/16)
- Everything ages too fast (27/1/16-7/5/17)
- Restructuring (20/2-12/3/20)
- Kissing the Blarney Stone (23/4-29/8/16)
- Skins, 1981 (22/2-14/4/19)
- Snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef (17-19/11/17)
- Mark (21/6-12/8/15)
- Reindeer games (27/12/17)
- The Mysterious Island (18-26/4/15)
- Antigone (29/5/14; 18/4-13/6/15)
- Shorts:
- Birds of Passage (12/11/14-7/2/15)
- Auckland Anthem (30/3-15/4/12)
- Hunting in Palmerston (after Su Shi) (6/9-17/10/13)
Translations
- On Early Trains (after Boris Pasternak) (26/1-7/2/15)
- Bangalore 2002 (after Boris Pasternak) (30/12/14-7/2/15)
- 1913 (after Apollinaire) (21/6-12/8/15)
Notes & Sources:
- The Oceanic Feeling (7/1-18/10/17)
Published:
8 Poems by New Zealand Poets 2019. Designed by Tara McLeod. Auckland: The Pear Tree Press, 2019. [14-15].
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- Lone pine (14/1-5/12/14)
Published:
Six Pack Sound #02. Compiled and edited by Michele Leggott, Tim Page and Brian Flaherty. Auckland: nzepc, 2015.
[Available here].
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- Family plot (26/6-12/8/15)
Published:
Our Changing World: Can Poetry Save the Earth? Public lecture with Prof. Bryan Walpert, Dr. Johanna Emeney & Jack Ross. Massey University podcast (31/5/18).
[Available here].
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- When you’re the only one (30/9-19/11/17)
- Oh br/other! (6/1/16-13/7/17)
- This morning Sylvie (16/1/16-7/5/17)
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- Zero is lying down today (18/1/16-22/10/17)
Published:
Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2020 [Issue #54]. Ed. Johanna Emeney. ISBN 978-0-9951229-3-2. Auckland: Massey University Press, 2020: 117-18.
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- What to do till the sentinels come (11-23/4/18)
Published:
Our Changing World: Can Poetry Save the Earth? Public lecture with Prof. Bryan Walpert, Dr. Johanna Emeney & Jack Ross. Massey University podcast (31/5/18).
[Available here].
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- Rituals (9/1/16-7/5/17)
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- My Uncle Tommy (15-23/4/18)
Published:
Paula Green: NZ Poetry Shelf: a poetry page with reviews, interviews and other things.
[Available here].
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- 1942 (17/9-4/12/16)
Published:
Dianne Firth, Poetry and Place: Catalogue for the Poetry and Place Exhibition, Belconnen Art Centre, 25 August – 17 September 2017. ISBN 978-1-74088-460-0. Canberra: University of Canberra, 2017: 10.
Harry Flockton Clarke: June feeding a wallaby (c.1939-40)
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- Very superstitious (4/1-21/8/16)
- Playing the long game (29/1-29/10/16)
•
- Are Kiwi women (30/1-29/10/16)
Published:
Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2020 [Issue #54]. Ed. Johanna Emeney. ISBN 978-0-9951229-3-2. Auckland: Massey University Press, 2020: 169.
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- Rather a shock (15/1/16-7/5/17)
Published:
Rather a shock. Poem by Jack Ross. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd. Auckland: Pania Press, 2017.
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- Family skeletons (10/1/16-7/5/17)
- Self-analysis (11/1/16-7/5/17)
- Checking into Facebook (31/1-5/12/16)
- A borrowed life (30/9-2/10/17)
- Psych 101 (7/1/16-4/1/17)
•
- What do you want? (8/9-13/10/18)
Published:
Paula Green: NZ Poetry Shelf: a poetry page with reviews, interviews and other things.
[Available here].
•
- Ice Road Trucker (7/2-30/3/15)
Published:
Ice Road Trucker. Poem by Jack Ross. Design by Daniel Fyles. Letterpress printed on Arnhem 1618 cotton-rag paper in Garamond type. Ashhurst: Fyles Web Design, 2015.
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- Two Fords (17/7-12/8/15)
Published:
Ron Riddell, ed. Forty Years of the Titirangi Poets. Auckland: Printable Reality, 2017. 106.
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- Stranded Polar Bear (21/11-14/12/19)
Published:
"The Terror." The Imaginary Museum (18/12/19).
[Available here].
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- Indexing Poetry NZ (5/1-29/8/16)
- Turning at the doorstep (21/1/16-19/10/17)
- The perils of public art (8/1/16-7/5/17)
- Communications committee (14/1-4/12/16)
- Oral exam, 1990 (1/1-21/8/16)
- Everything ages too fast (27/1/16-7/5/17)
- Restructuring (20/2-12/3/20)
•
- Kissing the Blarney Stone (23/4-29/8/16)
Published:
Manawatu Writers' Festival 2018: Poetry. Ed. Rachel Doré & Chris Gallavin. Feilding: Manawatu Writers' Festival, 2018. [10].
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- Skins, 1981 (22/2-14/4/19)
- Snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef (17-19/11/17)
- Mark (21/6-12/8/15)
- Reindeer games (27/12/17)
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- The Mysterious Island (18-26/4/15)
Published:
Percutio 9. Ed. Bill Direen (2015): 68.
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- Antigone (29/5/14; 18/4-13/6/15)
Published:
Percutio 9. Ed. Bill Direen (2015): 69.
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- Shorts:
- Birds of Passage (12/11/14-7/2/15)
- Auckland Anthem (30/3-15/4/12)
- Hunting in Palmerston (after Su Shi) (6/9-17/10/13)
•
- On Early Trains (after Boris Pasternak) (26/1-7/2/15)
Published:
Cordite Poetry Review 51: Transtasman (August 2015).
[Available here].
Boris Pasternak:
In the Wood
The meadows were blurred by a faintly mauve heat; in the wood the darkness of cathedrals swirled. What in the world remained for them to kiss? It was all theirs, like wax growing soft on their fingers.
There is a dream: you are not asleep, but merely dreaming that you long for sleep; that a person is dozing, and two black suns beating from beneath his eyelids are burning his lashes in his sleep.
The sun-rays flowed by, and iridescent beetles; the glass of dragon-flies skimmed over his cheeks. The wood was full of minute scintillations, as beneath the clock-maker’s tweezers.
It seemed he had fallen asleep to the tick of figures, while high above his head, in harsh amber, the hands of a strictly tested clock are shifted in the ether and set in accordance with the change of heat.
They adjust the clock, shake the pine-needles, scatter shadow, wear out, and pierce the darkness of the trunks which is raised up into the day’s fatigue, on to the clock’s blue dial.
It seemed that ancient happiness was sinking, that the wood was wrapped in the sunset of dreams. Happy people do not watch the clock, but this couple, it seemed, merely slept.
[1917]
[literal translation by Dmitri Obolensky]
- Dmitri Obolensky, ed. The Penguin Book of Russian Verse: With Plain Prose translations of Each Poem. 1962. Rev. ed. 1965. The Penguin Poets, D57. Ed. J. M. Cohen (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967): 332-33.
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- Bangalore 2002 (after Boris Pasternak) (30/12/14-7/2/15)
Published:
A Poetry Shelf for Paula Green. Ed. Helen Rickerby, Harry Ricketts & Anna Jackson (June 2015).
[Available here].
Boris Pasternak:
The Steppe
How wonderful were those sallies into the stillness! The boundless steppe is like a sea-scape. The feather-grass sighs, the ants rustle, and the mosquitoes’ whine drifts through the air.
The ricks have fallen into line with the clouds and fade into darkness, like one volcano on another. The boundless steppe has grown silent and damp; you sway, you drift, you are buffeted.
The mist has overtaken us and surrounds us like the sea, the burrs are trailing after the stockings, and it is wonderful to tramp the steppe like the sea-shore – you sway, you drift, you are buffeted.
Isn’t that a rick in the mist? Who can tell? Isn’t that our straw-rick? We are coming up to it. – Yes, it is. We’ve found it. That’s it all right. The rick and the mist and the steppe all around us.
And the Milky Way slants off towards Kerch’, like a road made dusty by cattle. If you go behind the houses it will take your breath away: wide open spaces on all sides.
The mist is soporific, the feather-grass is like honey. The feather-grass is strewn over the whole Milky Way. The mist will disperse, and the night will cover the rick and the steppe on all sides.
Shadowy midnight stands by the wayside, it has come right down on to the road and strewn it with stars, and you cannot cross the road to go beyond the fence without treading on the universe.
When did the stars grow so low, midnight sink so deep into the tall wild grass, and the drenched muslin, glowing and frightened, press closer, cling, and long for a denouement?
Let the steppe arbitrate and night judge between us. When, if not in the Beginning, did the mosquitoes whine, the ants crawl, and the burrs cling to the stockings?
Close them, my darling, or you’ll be blinded. The whole steppe is as before the Fall: bathed in peace, like a parachute, like a heaving vision!
[1917]
[literal translation by Dmitri Obolensky]
- Dmitri Obolensky, ed. The Penguin Book of Russian Verse: With Plain Prose translations of Each Poem. 1962. Rev. ed. 1965. The Penguin Poets, D57. Ed. J. M. Cohen (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967): 330-32.
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- 1913 (after Apollinaire) (21/6-12/8/15)
Published:
"1913: Apollinaire." The Imaginary Museum (23/4/17).
[Available here].
Guillaume Apollinaire:
“Je suis au bord de l’océan sur une plage.”
Je suis au bord de l’océan sur une plage
I am at the edge of the ocean on a beach
Fin d’été : je vois fuir les oiseaux de passage.
At summer’s end: I see the birds of passage fly.
Les flots en s’en allant ont laissé des lingots :
The receding waves have left ingots
Les méduses d’argent. Il passe des cargos
silver jellyfish. Freighters pass
Sur l’horizon lointain et je cherche ces rimes
On the far horizon and I look for rhymes
Tandis que le vent meurt dans le pins maritimes.
while the wind dies in the coastal pines.
Je pense à Villequier « arbres profonds et verts »
I think of Villequier « deep, dark trees »
La Seine non pareille aux spectacles divers
The Seine not equal to the diverse shows
L’Eglise des tombeaux et l’hôtel des pilotes
The church of tombs and the hotel of pilots
Où flotte le parfum des brunes matelotes.
where floats the perfume of brown stew
Les noirceurs de mon âme ont bien plus de saveur.
The darknesses of my soul have far more taste.
Et le soleil décline avec un air rêveur
And the sun goes down with a dreamy air
Une vague meurtrie a pâli sur le sable
A bruised wave has paled on the sand
Ainsi mon sang se brise en mon cœur misérable
So breaks my blood in my miserable heart
Y déposant auprès des souvenirs noyés
deposing next to my drowned memories
L’échouage vivant de mes amours choyés.
the living wreck of my cherished loves.
L’océan a jeté son manteau bleu de roi
The ocean has thrown off its blue kingly robe
Il est sauvage et nu maintenant dans l’effroi
It is wild and naked now in the terror
De ce qui vit. Mais lui défie à la tempête
Of that which lives. But he is challenged by the storm
Qui chante et chante et chante ainsi qu’un grande poète.
Which sings and sings and sings like a great poet.
[13/7/13]
[literal translation by Jack Ross]
- Guillaume Apollinaire. Oeuvres poétiques. Ed. Marcel Adéma & Michel Décaudin.
1956. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 121 (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1966): 734.
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[44 poems]
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