Title: Whistling in the
Dark
Author: John
O’Connor
ISBN: 978-0-473-29151-8
Price: $25.00
Extent:
95 pages
Format:
148mmx210mm
Publication:
September 2014
Publisher:
HeadworX
Cover
image: Eion Stevens, ‘prisoner of conscience’, 1985
Whistling in the Dark
Whistling in the Dark comprises two approximately equal sections: (1) poems and (2) prose
poems; both sections were written between 1994 and 2012.
The poems cover a range of topics and
themes and include ‘Mother and Child’, the winning poem of the Poetry Society’s
International Poetry Competition, 2006. All poems have been previously
published in magazines, journals and anthologies.
The prose poems are, more accurately, a
combination of prose poems and hybrid forms of the prose poem. As such they
represent a departure from the standard prose poem as found in NZ and
international journals and magazines. Again, there is a range of topics and
themes and most of the pieces have been previously published in magazines,
journals and anthologies.
Whistling in the Dark is the 11th book of poems by John O’Connor.
About the Author
John O’Connor’s poetry has been widely
published and is represented in Essential New Zealand Poems (2000) and
other anthologies. His haiku have been internationally anthologized and translated into eight languages. In 1997
he received an Honorary Diploma, “for contribution to world haiku”, from the
Croatian Haiku Association and in 2001 a Museum of Haiku Literature Award,
Tokyo, for “best of issue” in Frogpond International, a special issue of Haiku
Society of America’s periodical, Frogpond, featuring haiku selected from
52 countries and language communities. In 2000 his fifth book of poems, A
Particular Context, was voted one of the best five books of New Zealand
poetry of the 1990s by members of the New Zealand Poetry Society. He was
co-winner of the Open Section of the NZPS International Poetry Competition in
1998 and outright winner of both the Open and the Haiku sections of the same
competition in 2006.
Sample Poem
Scene From a Lost Movie
1960/
small town in the West
the stranger has just ‘rode in’
his ’49 Caddie rusting
on the dusty street outside
a saloon called the Shining Cloud
*
he buys a good ole boy
a whisky for the talk
he never tires of /
a girl picks up a blue guitar
& sings his pain to sleep /
he doesn’t want to leave
her lyrics on the sawdust floor
*
when he rides out tomorrow
he says he’ll follow the wheat fields
& the rain
© John O’Connor 2014
1960/
small town in the West
the stranger has just ‘rode in’
his ’49 Caddie rusting
on the dusty street outside
a saloon called the Shining Cloud
*
he buys a good ole boy
a whisky for the talk
he never tires of /
a girl picks up a blue guitar
& sings his pain to sleep /
he doesn’t want to leave
her lyrics on the sawdust floor
*
when he rides out tomorrow
he says he’ll follow the wheat fields
& the rain
© John O’Connor 2014
Whistling in the
Dark distributed by
HeadworX
Email: mpirie@xtra.co.nz
4C/19 Cottleville
Tce
Thorndon
Wellington 6011
New Zealand
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