MISTER HAMILTON - new poetry collection from John Dickson

Mister Hamilton by John Dickson
Auckland University Press, $24.99

Mister Hamilton is John Dickson’s first collection of poetry in eighteen years.

 

For many years I lived in Southland.

In fact, I am from Southland.
Some people say my speech is slow
I say it’s deliberate, just.
And my soul runs dark
like Southland’s slow intestinal rivers
laden with manuka dust.
And my detachment from anything plain.

 

Descended from a mix of Irish, Scots and English ancestors, John Dickson was born in 1944 at Milton, South Otago. He attended Southland Boys’ High School and the University of Otago. John worked at The Bill Robertson Library in Dunedin for many years, and was Burns Fellow at the University of Otago in 1988.
He is the author of the poetry collections what happened on the way to Oamaru (1986) and sleeper (Auckland University Press, 1998), as well as an audio CD Plain Song (2009). In 2000, John Dickson was the Writer-in-Residence at the University of Waikato. Since 2007, he has worked as a kitchen hand and as an undertaker.