Cold Hub Press – John Gallas

out of print

‘O Will,’ (I mewed whilst he unstrung my partlet

to suck upon my first nipple) ‘this be

a Play in Five Acts ?’

‘Marry,’ he replied, gaspynge as a man on a pipe,

‘tis but a prologue to a prologue,

and all will be brief.’

Indeed, by the mallow candle we were about it

as long as a jig.

(Fucking Poets Vol I, poem 2: William Shakespeare)

© John Gallas

FUCKING POETS, writes John Gallas, is a collection of 30 Close Encounters with English poets that was conceived on the banks of the Thames and born after labour in Coalville, Leicestershire. Following Hardy’s dictum that the sex life of a character is vital to an understanding of what makes them tick, the poems provide a fleshily possible encounter with writers from Eadbert (a ‘Beowulf’ poet) to Thom Gunn, with (a selection) Arnold, Brooke, Flecker, Duck, Housman, Owen, Noyes, Crashaw, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Gower, Layamon, Chatterton, Shelley, Skelton, Spenser and Haggard between. Each written by an Orlando-type partner, who traverses Time and Space (and Sex) from (undoubtedly) New Zealand to be There, the poems are a rhapsody of humour, researched detail, surrealism, language-concoction, merry obscenity and philosophical rudeness. A short introduction, written by the anonymous but certainly irresistible penperson is here attached.

All the encounters described here are real : though they seem incredible. I have recounted them in poems of my own

maykynge not to gain Opinion, but to allow the Reader intimacy with Angels.

In each case, I determined to do whatever the Poet asked of me : I would be, so to speak, the possible World he entered.

And though this World begin in a cloud of unknowynge, I sought to hold gentle questions with Each to allow the Lights

of Knowledge to disperse it.

I fear that there will be questions upon my virtue. I assure the Reader that this was only a labour of love : and while

I was a Determined Woman, and could be a Boy, I should have found it hard to be a Man.

My evidence is the collection of centuries. I seek only to add to the scholarship of poets and, concomitantly, the body

of knowledge. It is a commonplace that artistic creation and the urge to love are in their preparation, achievement

and denoument wholly alike.

Though I have not shirked from Detail, I am sure there are no particular descriptions of equipment here unless

they are wholly justified by their relevance to the Work. La sirs, all the working parts of a Poet are interesting.

I commend this Book of Experience to the reader in the hope that I have laid bare ingredients of the creative process

unachievable in the guesswork of strangers. I seek no character at all for myself. 

Read on, and enjoy this rare glimpse into the Private Poet, brought to you by the fearless but scholar-conscientious Cold Hub Press, of Governors Bay, Lyttelton.

*“He’s a wise and learned man, all right.” – Bill Manhire

Fucking Poets Vols I, II, III

John Gallas

Vol I     ISBN: 978-0-473-18983-9

Vol II    ISBN: 978-0-473-18984-6

Vol III   ISBN: 978-0-473-18985-3

Softcover chapbooks, 32pp each