Cover image: Katharina Jaeger / Cover & Book design: William Bardebes(March 7) The Oceanic Feeling. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7. Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021. 72 pp.
- 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 (29/1/16-7/5/17)
- 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 (7/1-12/3/20)
- 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)
For my mother and father
Blurb:
Jack Ross’s latest collection combines poems about ‘families – and how to survive them’ (in John Cleese’s phrase) with darkly humorous reflections on Academia and various other aspects of modern life. It concludes with some translations from Boris Pasternak and Guillaume Apollinaire.
The book also includes a suite of drawings by Swiss-New Zealand Artist Katharina Jaeger, ably explicated in an Afterword by Art Writer Bronwyn Lloyd.'… picture yourself on a Gold Coast beach, the wind idly leafing through the pages of a much-annotated copy of Benjamin’s Arcades Project on your lap; as ‘Baudelaire’ flashes by in your peripheral vision, you disinterestedly observe a sleek conferential shark feeding – though far from frenziedly – on a smorgasbord of swimmers, whose names end with unstressed vowels and whose togs are at least a size too small. The water is the colour of an $8 bottle of rosé. I find reading Ross – to borrow his victims’ parlance – kind of like that.'- Robert McLean, Landfall Review Online
Out there it’s speed and money in here it’s moana time the lava-lava tethered round your hips the morning climb up to the laptop into cyberspace sometimes a furry cat curled up in her new armchair sometimes skateboarders outside on a street void as Open Homes can make it
(7/1-18/10/17)
Publications:
- 8 Poems by New Zealand Poets 2019. Designed by Tara McLeod. Auckland: The Pear Tree Press, 2019. [14-15].
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 9.
Notes:
- 'In a 1927 letter to Sigmund Freud, French writer Romain Rolland coined the term "the oceanic feeling" as a way of referring to that "sensation of ‘eternity’," of "being one with the external world as a whole," which underlies all religious belief (but does not necessarily depend on it). In his reply, Freud described this as a simple characterisation of the feeling an infant has before it learns there are any other people in the world.' - Works & Days: The Oceanic Feeling.
These works of fiction, which seem so full of hostility, are none of them really so badly intended … they still preserve, under a slight disguise, the child’s original affection for his parents. The faithlessness and ingratitude are only apparent.– Sigmund Freud, ‘Family Romances’ (1909)
Notes:
- The original quote reads as follows:
At about the period I have mentioned, then, the child’s imagination becomes engaged in the task of getting free from the parents of whom he now has such a low opinion and of replacing them by others, occupying, as a rule, a higher social station ...
If anyone is inclined to turn away in horror from this depravity of the childish heart or feels tempted, indeed, to dispute the possibility of such things, he should observe that these works of fiction, which seem so full of hostility, are none of them really so badly intended, and that they still preserve, under a slight disguise, the child’s original affection for his parents. The faithlessness and ingratitude are only apparent ...
Indeed the whole effort at replacing the real father by a superior one is only an expression of the child’s longing for the happy, vanished days when his father seemed to him the noblest and strongest of men and mother the dearest and loveliest of women. He is turning away from the father whom he knows to-day to the father in whom he believed in the earlier years of his childhood; and his phantasy is no more than the expression of a regret that those happy days have gone. ...- Sigmund Freud, Collected Papers 5, ed. James Strachey (New York: Basic Books, 1959), 74-78.
•
Bronwyn woke me at 6 am the tree-fellers are coming today the supermarket foreman James remembers my father skiting about his son in the Edinburgh pipe band we hear James across the fence sometimes cursing the idle forecourt hands Bronwyn went across to warn him the tree-fellers’ truck was far too wide blocking deliveries in and out Bronwyn came in to update me they’re moving in nearer to the fence a van roared by to prove it could The chainsaws started up above my last view as I left for work was of the tallest of our trees stripped of its branches standing bare just like my father at the end
(14/1-5/12/14)
Publications:
- Six Pack Sound #02, ed. Michele Leggott, Tim Page & Brian Flaherty (Auckland: nzepc, 2015) [http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/features/six-pack-sound/02/ross.asp.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 13.
- "Poetry Shelf celebrates new books: Jack Ross reads from The Oceanic Feeling.” [available at: NZ Poetry Shelf: a poetry page with reviews, interviews and other things, ed. Paula Green (20/5/21)].
•
I I noticed him late last year as I climbed the back stairs at work a beetle spindly legs upflung on the first flight down among the dustbunnies and detritus of a busy office in a while he was joined by a tiny dead centipede now every morning I say hello and pass the time of day illimitable spans of air above him his ship of eternity lofty as the sky II PETER d. 1976 SASHA d. 18.3.86 MISHA d. 23-2-90 PETYA LOVED AND HANDSOME NIKITA MUCH LOVED d. 30.9.93 MITYA BOLD & BEAUTIFUL d. 5.4.94 POUPOUSSE OUR LOVELY FRIEND d. 31.10.05 written on our back fence III At North Shore Memorial Park on Schnapper Rock Rd in Central Div Bronze 6 Block B Row H Plot 17 beside Grandma’s grave my sister’s ashes have been joined by my father’s wooden urn we haven’t yet ordered made the little plaque wishing him quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over
(26/6-12/8/15)
Publications:
- Broadcast on Can Poetry Save the Earth? A Public lecture with Prof. Bryan Walpert, Dr. Johanna Emeney & Jack Ross. Massey University podcast (31/5/18): [available at: Our Changing World].
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 14.
•
who still remembers your father’s anecdotes my mother’s failing memory having taken out the precious boon of parallel verification those last few witnesses are all you have my father and my uncle drilling like tin soldiers at Takapuna Grammar (says Kevin Ireland) my father standing in a garden yelling damn them all (my brother Ken) the schizophrenic boy I gave a lift to Milford once who knew him as the family GP and found such comfort in my father’s words it makes you want to run out screaming with an axe
(30/9-19/11/17)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 17.
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My eldest brother is flying up to Auckland for the weekend to see my mother Bronwyn is flying down to see her sister in Wellington on Friday coincidence? hardly Bronwyn’s younger brother arrives today last time we stayed with him I had a tantrum and wouldn’t sleep another night under his roof I read a thesis recently on placing far less stress on Oedipus the br/other was the term the author coined for his new theory Luke, I am your father! try your brother then the sparks will fly
(6/1/16-13/7/17)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 18.
•
brought in a rat or rather last night Bronwyn had her breakfast on the couch under which said rat was hiding not knowing why Sylvie kept jumping up on her it wasn’t till her sister came out and saw it that the truth became clear first they ran out hoping Sylvie would finish the work she had begun she didn’t the primeval horror of the rat led Bronwyn to open all the doors so Signor could make his exit her sister went around behind closing them so Sylvie could earn her keep finally they decided to drive from Paekakariki to Martinborough where their brother lives with Celia Celia who is fearless said she would deal with it if it was still there driving my mother in for an MRI suddenly sounds a bit like a rest cure
(16/1/16-7/5/17)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 19.
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but little specks of blood on the bedspread make me think she may have run into one of her twin nemeses last night Yellow a big green-collared glutton or Brindle a raccoon-tailed bully each of whom sneaks in the back door several times a day to eat her food she jumps out hisses at them but is only a little cat once or twice we’ve seen them ganging up on her unable to help her unless it’s in plain sight I suppose that’s it Zero is now the thing we most fear losing yet cannot safeguard threaten to crush with the sheer weight of our love
(18/1/16-22/10/17)
Publications:
- Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2020 [Issue #54]. Ed. Johanna Emeney. ISBN 978-0-9951229-3-2. Auckland: Massey University Press, 2020: 117-18.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 21.
- "Poetry Shelf celebrates new books: Jack Ross reads from The Oceanic Feeling.” [available at: NZ Poetry Shelf: a poetry page with reviews, interviews and other things, ed. Paula Green (20/5/21)].
- "Zero at the Bone." The Imaginary Museum (23/4/23)
- "The Zero Suite." Papyri (2/5/23)
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Yes, astronaut and cosmonaut – report, indeed! Warn, if you can, your half-waking, half-sleeping planet! Tell them, if you can … – Roy Thomas, Avengers #102 So how was Zero? oh she was fine did you have any trouble getting in? no no when we got home Zero’s dish was empty meat left unopened in the fridge the thunderstorm had driven her outside to cringe under the garden shed she had quite a lot to say when Bronwyn ran out crying and calling out her name it’s not that my mother neglected her task on purpose she’d written in her diary FEED THE CAT! it’s just that her mind now fills in blanks with certainties not doubts there was a slight pause before that “fine” all I know is our cat left alone in the storm my mother alone in the fog of her brain
(11-23/4/18)
Publications:
- Broadcast on Can Poetry Save the Earth? A Public lecture with Prof. Bryan Walpert, Dr. Johanna Emeney & Jack Ross. Massey University podcast (31/5/18): [available at: Our Changing World].
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 22.
- "The Zero Suite." Papyri (2/5/23)
Notes:
- You can find the original splash panel from Avengers #102 (1972) at Papyri: Notes to The Oceanic Feeling.
•
every Saturday at 12 my mother comes across the road for lunch we never go the other way Tuesdays fortnightly she has her Bible group sometimes she visits Pak-’n’-Save with Leslie her tenant from further up the street she used to love the movies now can’t follow plots with flashbacks which is all of them she used to like to go for drives but now gets tired still tidies the flat but honestly there’s not much to be said except things can always get worse she’s not in pain (particularly) except from arthritis can move about quite easily we try to keep it light and cheerful don’t anticipate trouble said the specialist trail along behind we’re trailing yes something like that
(9/1/16-7/5/17)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 23.
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“In the end they had to put him in a home Tommy had grown too heavy for Dad to carry Dad worried about it till he went to visit tried to hug him Tommy didn’t know him was not aware of where they were it was my mother I was sorry for she thought she was to blame for having him my brother shared a room with him all night he’d rock inside his cot one winter he got sick and never spoke again no-one could visit us because of Tommy”
(15-23/4/18)
Publications:
- Paula Green: NZ Poetry Shelf [available at: https://nzpoetryshelf.com/2018/05/07/monday-poem-jack-rosss-my-uncle-tommy/].
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 24.
•
The picture is sepia-toned like the not-too-far-distant war the need to stay silent at mealtimes so her father can hear every radio news report the need to pose paramount in the stiff lines of this schoolgirl reaching out a tentative hand to the strangest of beasts in the latter stages of dementia my father removed her photos replacing them with snaps of his militaria I don’t think she understands what we see in this picture the meekness before authority the gentleness of the pose the dark fringe of trees in a faraway world where my mother has just been told to pretend to feed a wallaby
(17/9-4/12/16)
Publications:
- Dianne Firth, Poetry and Place: Catalogue for the Poetry and Place Exhibition, Belconnen Art Centre, 25 August – 17 September 2017 (Canberra: University of Canberra, 2017): 10.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 25.
Notes:
- You can find the original photograph of my mother, June Ross, at Papyri: Notes to The Oceanic Feeling.
•
Never say anything optimistic is (of course) the first of them as (for instance) it could be worse, it could be raining touching wood (tap forehead) count up the integers of any especially significant number (date – account number – pin) to make sure they add up to 7 9 or 3 (4 at a pinch but not 13) stormy weather outside = peace within it’s generally a good omen to catch someone on the first ring (if you have to call back it’ll take more than two or three tries and the answer’s bound to be unsatisfactory) don’t care too much for anything you own lest the destructive impulse overhear and swat you casually never start off the day with what you really want to be doing look bored conceal activity with indolence
(4/1-21/8/16)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 26.
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I’ve been wanting to do this since we first met ten years ago as we spend the morning stripping bookcases in my old office most striking discoveries so far a mummified weta and a series of pods where cockroaches have been breeding why would anybody ever want so many books? it’s quite insane author after author all their books in chronological order W. H. Auden Lord (& Robert) Byron Angela Carter travel fantasy sci fi occult it’ll make a nice guest space I don’t know that I’ll miss it much the cat is worried though where will she go?
(29/1/16-7/5/17)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 27.
•
too controlling? a question I’ve been asked a couple of times I guess it depends on what you’re looking for men are quite useless really looking at piles of laundry and ignoring them but turning a blind eye when you’re on top of things means less and less you need to be on top of we put up masking tape around the light switches to prevent the paint from spreading everywhere even so it has a way of going where it needs to go
(30/1-29/10/16)
Publications:
- Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2020 [Issue #54]. Ed. Johanna Emeney. ISBN 978-0-9951229-3-2. Auckland: Massey University Press, 2020: 169.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 28.
•
i.m. Alan Rickman (1947-2016) to think it’s been 25 years since Truly Madly Deeply 1991 my sister died or rather killed herself so hungry ghosts seemed documentary realism to me living by Lake Pupuke with its gigantic eels and those students next door who had to pump up the stereo to psych themselves into going out every evening 1991 an unhappy time as Rickman said roles win Oscars actors don’t that swing inscribed for Alice who used to play here that makes the other parents hold onto their kids so tight as though death were an infection they might pick up
(15/1/16-7/5/17)
Publications:
- Limited edition poster by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2017).
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 29.
•
My father walked down to his surgery beside the house every evening at 7 pm which is when my sister would come down from her room to tell my mother how much she wanted to die when he came back around eight they’d shift into the dining room until he went to bed then go on till the wee hours one day my sister went out to the back yard to hang herself but just as she was throwing a rope across a branch she saw some people watching her from the parking lot next door and decided not to they might have intervened I’ve often wondered why She didn’t go back at night when nobody could see? maybe she was scared of the dark maybe she wasn’t so all-fired keen on hanging herself after all in the end it was pills she took
(10/1/16-7/5/17)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 30.
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After Freud’s father died over the next four years he sank into himself insight like this comes once in a lifetime The result was The Interpretation of Dreams It’s been four years now since my father died and I’m still trying hard to understand him ticking through his character traits bonhomie garrulity collecting / hoarding wondering if they came from his own father’s suicide when he was 12 his mother’s refusal to hang onto anything it’s not that I’m critical of him anything but simply concerned not to act out the same marionette dance
(11/1/16-7/5/17)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 31.
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this morning I find the question what is a spirit?and one reply what you expel when sneezingquite apposite to what I was reading last nightRushdie’s tired fantasy Rushdi children of Abu-Rusor the character Lili dreamed up by Einar in The Danish Girlbut pre-existent s/he claims Matthew McConaugheyin True Detective takes an opposing view the body is a machinewithout a ghost simply the illusion of individualityhe claims to detect in the eyes of each murder victima sense of relief what we call ‘Shakespeare’isn’t Shakespeare the theatrical entrepreneur retiring in mild prosperityto his home town But is anything (let alone anyone)more real? by any criteria one has to admitsomething more there than a phrase-cranking machinewhether there can be survival the facts of the illusion are so strongthey outweigh self-negation confirm the heavy burdenwe lay down
(31/1-5/12/16)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 32.
Notes:
- "On the Occasion of Wet Snow" was the title given to Part II of Dostoyevsky’s Zapiski iz podpol’ya [Notes from Underground] (1864) in Mirra Ginsburg’s 1974 translation.
•
I almost hit a man this morning with my car an elderly man about to walk down the low level the original line of the road now only used by those of us with driveways on it he looked distracted mildly shocked most people drive too fast myself included resentful at having to share with our dog-walking coffee-toting neighbours alert to dodge the crooked edges of the Art Centre mosaics in the asphalt I missed of course but drove most gingerly all day as if my life were now on loan from inquests funerals court cases loss of licence prison even killer not murderer presumably who knows?
(30/9-2/10/17)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 34.
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These acts of self-discovery that mean so little working out the person you thought disliked you is in fact disliked by you how does that help? it makes it more your fault you don’t get on might make it easier to pretend you do looking out on a bleak morning grey in the east the cat outside a headless dead rat for trophy sometimes one fails to see the glory
(7/1/16-4/1/17)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 36.
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said the librarian in Friendly Feilding to come in from the cold was my reply we’re closing an hour early for a function the function I’d driven down for I walked away he’s crying but he doesn’t know why he’s crying said my sister to the primer one teacher who wanted to know why I guess I do too I guess I do I was small and afraid of a brand-new place so many people but what remains is kindness my sister trying to help unavailingly
(8/9-13/10/18)
Publications:
- Paula Green: NZ Poetry Shelf [available at: https://nzpoetryshelf.com/2019/04/15/poetry-shelf-monday-poem-jack-rosss-what-do-you-want/].
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 37.
- "Poetry Shelf celebrates new books: Jack Ross reads from The Oceanic Feeling.” [available at: NZ Poetry Shelf: a poetry page with reviews, interviews and other things, ed. Paula Green (20/5/21)].
•
Ice Road Trucker
You learn the road really fast… or you end up dead.– Jack Jessee (2009)
Notes:
- Jack Jessee is one of the participants in US / Canadian TV Reality show Ice Road Truckers (2007-2017). The original quote can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Road_Truckers_(season_3).
•
The engine cut out halfway down the off-ramp just as the lights turned green ease up onto the shoulder now put on your hazard lights said Bronwyn we went for help she left me at the service station when I got back to the car a cop was there a bus had clipped a ute just down the street I needed that like a hole in the head he said the towie was a wiry older guy who hoisted up the car quite effortlessly as we bounced around the cockpit of his truck I thought now I know how it feels to drive a big rig across the ice-fields my alter ego CB in hand can of Jim Beam between the legs horizon pewter-grey
(7/2-30/3/15)
Publications:
- Limited edition poster by Daniel Fyles (Ashhurst: Fyles Web Design, 2015).
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 42.
- Deborah Walker. “World Poetry Day: Massey University – Johanna Emeney, Bryan Walpert & Jack Ross read.” [available at: YouTubeNZ (21/3/21)].
Notes:
- The reference is to US / Canadian TV Reality show Ice Road Truckers (2007-2017) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Road_Truckers].
- Charles Olsen, " Palabras prestadas #117." Available at: http://libropalabrasprestadas.blogspot.com/2017/05/palabras-prestadas-117.html (5/5/2017).
Camionero sobre hielo
El motor se detuvo
a medio bajada por la rampa de salida
justo cuando cambió el semáforo a verde
para con cuidado en el arcén
y enciende
la luces de emergencia
decía Bronwyn
fuimos a buscar ayuda
me dejó en la estación de servicio
cuando llegué al coche
había un policía
un autobús había golpeado un vehículo utilitario
calle abajo
Necesitaba esto como un tiro en la cabeza
decía
el de la grúa era un viejo fibroso
que levantó el coche
sin esfuerzo
mientras dábamos saltos
en la cabina de su camión
pensé
ya sé qué se siente
al conducir un gran camión
sobre los campos de hielo
mi álter ego
radio frequencia en mano
abierta la botella de Jim Beam
entre las piernas
el horizonte gris de peltre
- (Traducción del poema "Ice Road Trucker" de Jack Ross – traducido por Charles Olsen)
•
Jack Ross ha publicado varios libros de poesía, entre ellos City of Strange Brunettes (1998), Chantal's Book (2002), To Terezín (2007), Celanie (2012) y A Clearer View of the Hinterland (2014), además de cuatro novelas y dos libros de relatos cortos. Es director y editor de la revista Poetry NZ, y ha editado diversas revistas literarias y antologías. Tiene un doctorado en Inglés y Literatura Comparativa de la Universidad de Edimburgo y actualmente es Catedrático en Escritura Creativa en Massey University.
mairangibay.blogspot.co.nz
New Zealand Book Council – Jack Ross
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When my car-before-last was totalled I was forced to leave her my little blue Laser by the motorway exit couldn’t get time off to clean out the cockpit arrived at the depot to find all my stuff on the floor but then came red Piers PR 9216 till yesterday when after ten years of service he was towed away and even then cold in the garage he managed to cough up a spark after ten minutes of trying and drive me around the block just one more time
(17/7-12/8/15)
Publications:
- Ron Riddell, ed. Forty Years of the Titirangi Poets (Auckland: Printable Reality, 2017): 106.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 43.
•
The ripples imply a boat’s passed by or something larger like a whale the islet’s small and artificial looking like the bear enduring exile Augustus sent his family to islands small enough to terrify even the young willing to die until you realise it’s a fake that bear was never there even his shadow clouds and drift ice carefully placed to make the point that lying is okay when the legend becomes fact print the legend said John Ford by saying it he showed he didn’t mean it
(21/11-14/12/19)
Publications:
- The Imaginary Museum (18/12/19) [https://mairangibay.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-terror.html].
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 44.
Notes:
- Further information about this story can be found in Jim Steele's article "Polar-Bear-Gate: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Lies" (15/12/17) [http://landscapesandcycles.net/polar-bear-gate-a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-lies.html].
•
Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam [They gave up all to serve the public thing] It does make you wonder sometimes what’s the point? so many names so many earnest strivers some who’ve ‘gone on before’ some not but here they all are buried in the back issues of a mad old periodical speaking truth to power the titles alone make you want to look them up What shall we tell Li Bo? Oracle Bones I suppose the truth of the matter is in the performance those eager scrawls sent off with such trepidation to whoever happened to be in the hot seat that day and then acceptance or – that other thing leafing through to your poem oh I didn’t notice you were in the same issue one can’t help feeling this isn’t quite it not that I’m any fan of ranting on street corners or bellowing clichés through megaphones we are just a couple of islands in the middle of the world’s largest ocean and yet potentially one likes to imagine a ‘For the Union Dead’ the drained faces of negro schoolchildren rise like balloons the ditch is nearer
(5/1-29/8/16)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 46.
Notes:
- The reference is to Robert Lowell's 1964 poem "For the Union Dead."
•
to add more explanations to the name-dropping profusion of the long evening my best friend a very good friend we used to hang out all the time what is this compulsion to talk continuously? not to let a tick pass without your mouth moving? can you really imagine anyone cares? two hours without drawing a breath I know I’m doing all the talking well if you know then shut up ask a question for once in your life listen to the silence hear what it’s got to tell you things about age and death
(21/1/16-19/10/17)
Publications:
- Spin 28 (1997): 42.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 48.
•
The piece was sold with every possible precaution what height to hang it at what temperature not in direct sunlight solemnly agreed the next ones in saw a bolt of old tapa stuck to their new wall they tore it down and folded it and then gave it away you don’t fold tapa cloth perhaps with months or years of careful restoration something can be done but those plaintive emails which go around from time to time has anyone seen the Don Peebles? what about the McCahon? that old grate belching steam the giant chicken wing do have this virtue they are quite difficult to steal
(8/1/16-7/5/17)
Publications:
- Spin 28 (1997): 42.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 49.
•
One of the major
bones of contention
was what colour
the graduation hood
should be
we had a whole range
cerise
nut-brown
electric blue
but most had
alas been preempted
by other degrees and schools
at length
after eighteen months
we got a quote
of ten thousand dollars
enough for the bolts of cloth
to be bought and woven
especially
(not counting
the fur trim)
and at that point
I moved we stick
to the existing colours
and never discuss the matter again
once more
without the sarcasm
replied the Chair
(14/1-4/12/16)
Publications:
- Spin 28 (1997): 42.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 50.
•
Can a mountain be a character?
I couldn’t answer then
nor can I now
but think about it still
sometimes
can a mountain be
a character?
I suppose it depends
on how you define a ‘mountain’
or a ‘character’
and the fact
that all the numbers
add up to nine
is hardly proof
I deserved to pass
that day
What’s the equivalent of
‘It’s only dangerous
when the drums stop?’
Those are nice boots
Señor
perhaps
(1/1-21/8/16)
Publications:
- Spin 28 (1997): 42.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 51.
•
on our campus the bright red 30 signs have faded to ochre the plaster pediments been kicked to shit round the base of the Study Centre and as you breast the roundabout you can glimpse the majestic vista of the rubbish skips from infancy to senility without a period of maturity as some English smart-arse said of the US of A Trump Gothic our ‘Tuscan hilltop village’ design with the closed off balconies no-one can jump off but most of the lights still work and broken chairs are generally collected after six months or so and we each have our little bolthole in the wall
(27/1/16-7/5/17)
Publications:
- Spin 28 (1997): 42.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 52.
•
It seems to have taken them less than half an hour to establish a trade route from the shut front door to Zero’s plate of food with three meat chunks left on it those small brown ants there must have been hundreds of them was it the rain that day? the forty rainless days before that? we sucked them up with the vacuum put poison down the news of redundancies relocation fees tell us what we thought we were doing these twenty years building a campus was little more than pissing in the wind we might as well have just stayed home instead
(7/1-12/3/20)
Publications:
- Spin 28 (1997): 42.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 53.
•
for Michael Dean The excuse was it was early we were nearly the first into the castle that day the stone was not yet glistening with spit so I thought why not? one had to lean back and kiss it upside down (an improvement on the earlier method where they hung people over the battlements by both feet) but what I remember is the eloquence with which you denounced me as we drove away I was all the fools in the world for mashing my lips in all those germs it seemed in fact to have had the reverse effect of shutting me up and jamming you on send but I’ve never regretted it since though perhaps you may?
(23/4-29/8/16)
Publications:
- Manawatu Writers' Festival 2018: Poetry. Ed. Rachel Doré & Chris Gallavin. Feilding: Manawatu Writers' Festival, 2018. [10].
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 54.
•
From the cave to the cave climbing down underground to sit among the barrels of the bar somewhere below the void of Queen’s Arcade owing a beer to the older Post Office employee who finally vetoed further talk of paying it back asking the cute older woman out for ice-cream getting upset when initial agreement turned into a weary brush-off forgetting the name of my last year’s workmate Christine for Pauline Tony! a sun-burnt streak of biltong full of rabidly expressed opinions where is he? where’s the goat? seeing him last at my farewell do what are you doing here? we came to see you I went there to see them I guess or not so much to process second mortgages in the Post Office Savings Bank workers stroll around the debris dust rises something has gone wrong
(22/2-14/4/19)
Publications:
- Spin 28 (1997): 42.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 55.
•
It soon became apparent that trying to reach the boat through a cloud of flailing kids bumping into each other would be futile in the extreme so I turned boldly having spat in my facemask as advised to face the terrors of the deep which mainly consisted of lumps of coral and multi-coloured fish drifting around with inexplicable calm considering all that racket the climax came later back on board when my newly purchased straw hat blew into the drink and was promptly rescued by some sun-bronzed he-men in a zodiac
(17-19/11/17)
Publications:
- Spin 28 (1997): 42.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 57.
•
a large ungainly teenager used to treat me to drinks at the cinema bar he liked to show off said he’d almost cried when he saw the new state-of-the-art seats at the Botany Park Hoyts I went there so often that all of them knew me the manager too one day he was chatting with us when he noticed that Mark hadn’t charged me don’t ever do that again he said as he walked away
(21/6-12/8/15)
Publications:
- Spin 28 (1997): 42.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 58.
•
Your animal totem Tonight our homestay student
is the snake was followed by 2 men
like him you have the power in a white van
to captivate with your they said some sexual things
mysterious gaze to her
you are a part she ran away
of the great mysteries of life later another Asian
mystical consumed with clear English
by passion curious approached her
hardheaded courageous from behind
enigmatic talented at and said crude things
cultivating secrecy she crossed the street
sensual though not carnal this happened around 9pm tonight
(27/12/17)
Publications:
- Spin 28 (1997): 42.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 59.
•
The sign saying had an epiphany
GRASS C3 ‘I didn’t know places
presumably like this
distinguishes it even existed!’
from well
GRASS B3 they don’t
on the other side just before being
of the runway electrocuted
nice to know by a live mike
if we forget the murderer might as well
it’s there have been labelled
mist ‘M’
flocks off so is that
the mountaintops the distinction?
or should I say Nominalism
‘clouds’ and Realism?
‘drift off’ things that fall into
‘the hills’? their names
in Murder and those that veer
She Wrote away from them?
for instance like the rock-well
the scruffy rocker in L’île mystérieuse
ending up in Nemo
Cabot Cove and Nautilus
lurking underneath?
(18-26/4/15)
Publications:
- Percutio 9 (2015): 68.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 60.
Notes:
- The references are to Jules Verne's 1875 novel L'Île mystérieuse [The Mysterious Island], as well as the 1996 episode "Murder in Tempo" from the long-running American TV series Murder, She Wrote (1984-1996), starring Angela Lansbury .
•
Tomb, bridal-chamber, eternal prison in the caverned rock, whither go to find mine own? – R. C. Jebb When I woke up in the melancholy city everything was the colour of rainall of the garish primaries of the previous eveningobscured by the pitter-patter of dreadThe books I was reading dissolved into pulp those volumes oflapidary thoughts intangible as fog as that happinessoh so elusive what’s new you sayOnce in Tasmania at an old colonial prison I walked into one of the cellsthere was no-one around so I closed the door just to feel what it was likeI lasted two seconds people go mad they sayImagine a room a white room no doorsno chairs too narrow to sit downtoo low to stand upmy marriage bed
(29/5/14; 18/4-13/6/15)
Publications:
- Percutio 9 (2015): 69.
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 61.
Notes:
- The quotation is from R. C. Jebb’s 1888 English prose translation of Sophocles' Antigone.
•
Shorts:
Stuck in a wheelchair
the i-phone
makes you equal
Sparrows in the departure lounge
girl yawns
into her screen
(12/11/14-7/2/15)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 63.
•
lackadaisical Asian girl blocks you as you hurry to the traffic lights
(30/3-15/4/12)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 63.
•
after Su Shi The tiger leaps at movement in the bed or anywhere else for that matter Where’s your effing Tiger? at the Contact Course Vituperation in a good cause no doubt or just to sound big? I hope sincerely meant
(6/9-17/10/13)
Publications:
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 63.
Notes:
- This poem is indebted to the rhymed translation of Su Shi's "Hunting at Mizhou" (with facing Chinese original) provided by Xu Yuan Zhong in his Golden Treasury of Chinese Lyrics (Beijing: Peking University Press, 1990), 193.
•
Translations
What has never been properly recognized is the absolute value of the margin itself. … When shall that true poet arise who, disdaining the trivialities of text, shall give the world a book of verse consisting entirely of margin?– Kenneth Grahame, “Marginalia” (1892)
Notes:
- Kenneth Grahame. Pagan Papers. 1893 (London: John Lane The Bodley Head Limited, 1898), #.
Notes:
- Jack Jessee is one of the participants in US / Canadian Reality TV show Ice Road Truckers (2007-2017). The original quote can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Road_Truckers_(season_3).
•
after Boris Pasternak Fields fade to mauve in the heat through the window villagers stroll what is there to kiss everything you see melts to soft wax you dream not asleep dreaming of being asleep there is someone sleeping here two black suns scorching their lashes through their eyelids sun-beams catch iridescent insects the glass of dragon-flies the second- class carriage full of comings and goings like a clockmaker’s kit you seem to be sleeping in a vice of numbers high above in amber the hands of a clock dividing the air noting fluctuations in heat get up from your seat adjust the clock lean out scatter the shadows pierce the fug of the day register yourself on its blue dome your home your happiness sinking down past the wreck of your dreams happy people never help the clock these two slept in its beams
(26/1-7/2/15)
Publications:
- Cordite Poetry Review 51: Transtasman (August 2015) [http://cordite.org.au/poetry/transtasman/on-early-trains/].
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 66.
Notes:
- Based on Dmitri Obolensky's literal version of Boris Pasternak's "In the Wood" (1917), from The Penguin Book of Russian Verse: With Plain Prose translations of Each Poem. Ed. Dmitri Obolensky. 1962. Rev. ed. 1965. The Penguin Poets, D57. Ed. J. M. Cohen (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967): 332-33.
•
after Boris Pasternak Wonderful that road to the open horizon wide as the sea importunate beggars traffic snarls mosquitoes floating by skyscrapers line up with clouds fade to black like a volcano the street has grown damp you sway drift stub your toe the crowd choppy like waves James Dean punks jostle us you sway drift stub your toe wonderful to walk the streets like this isn’t that our mall in the distance? how can you tell? isn’t that the theatre? getting there yes found it at last crowds and people and drama all here and the Milky Way slants towards Chennai like a cow-wallow and if you look behind the mall it will astonish you lying bare naked in the dark Meera is fluent in English loves Wodehouse and Wilde raised a theosophist proud and dignified the youngsters jostle her and she stops and withers them with a look all India in her tiny grandeur then and up we go treading on the universe when did the stars descend midnight sink through the mirror glass? let the city arbitrate and night judge between us When did the mosquitoes stop whining cars brushing off the beggars? close your eyes you’ll go blind in the beginning we fell Meera is blazing in the darkness like a parachute terrible beautiful
(30/12/14-7/2/15)
Publications:
- A Poetry Shelf for Paula Green, ed. Helen Rickerby, Harry Ricketts & Anna Jackson (June 2015) [https://happybirthdaypaulagreen.wordpress.com/about/bangalore-2002/].
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 67.
Notes:
- Based on Dmitri Obolensky's literal version of Boris Pasternak's "The Steppe" (1917), from The Penguin Book of Russian Verse: With Plain Prose translations of Each Poem. Ed. Dmitri Obolensky. 1962. Rev. ed. 1965. The Penguin Poets, D57. Ed. J. M. Cohen (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967): 330-32.
•
after Apollinaire Sea’s edge summer’s end gulls fly waves leave behind glass blobs of jellyfish ships pass on the horizon wind dies in the pines sun sinks behind the islands foam bruises the sand the sea darkens to purple you fool naked alone shout your fear into the storm
(21/6-12/8/15)
Publications:
- The Imaginary Museum (23/4/17) [http://mairangibay.blogspot.co.nz/2017/04/1913-apollinaire.html].
- The Oceanic Feeling. Poems by Jack Ross. Drawings by Katharina Jaeger. Afterword by Bronwyn Lloyd. ISBN 978-0-473-55801-7 (Auckland: Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021): 69.
- "Poetry Shelf celebrates new books: Jack Ross reads from The Oceanic Feeling.” [available at: NZ Poetry Shelf: a poetry page with reviews, interviews and other things, ed. Paula Green (20/5/21)].
Notes:
- Adapted from Guillaume Apollinaire's "Je suis au bord de l’océan sur une plage" (1913), Oeuvres poétiques. Ed. Marcel Adéma & Michel Décaudin. 1956. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 121 (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1966): 734.
•
Sources & Acknowledgments
[http://ovidius-naso.blogspot.com/2018/05/notes-to-oceanic-feeling-2020.html]
•
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