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'Everything is like life' — Mr Omer, David Copperfield
This epigraph hovers over The Complete Works as it does over all the astonishing experimental work of the New Zealand poet John Gallas. And by 'everything', he means everything. This collection has no Great Purpose, apart from exploring and expanding upon the contradictory Meanings of Life. In a pyrotechnic display of thirty-one-syllable sparkles, set off by accident and protracted by design, it lights up any corner of things done, thought, felt, seen, suffered and enjoyed. It is contagious: readers begin tankaing as soon as they close the book. A walk in the country will never be the same.
Here the writer, barely in control, stands back at a safe distance and watches, mostly with a smile. Here, the reader is the quarry. Contradictions abound, ideas morph, preferences and amusements change – no thoughtful guide is available, but none is needed: crazy and merry variety make this collection amenable to all, especially when all have not quite made up their minds about what on earth is going on. Warning: there are love poems lurking here.