AustLit
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Contents
- The Typewriter, Considered as a Bee-Trap, (for Roseanne)i"is no doubt less than perfectly adapted", single work poetry (p. 7)
- Cyclops Song : 1 : Esprit de L'Escalieri"Good manners, sir, are an infernal machine,", single work poetry (p. 8)
- Cyclops Song : 2 : the Afterimagei"Always the ship's echo drifts over", single work poetry (p. 9)
- Cyclops Song : 3 : Goya's `Colossus'i"If my verses seem conventional", single work poetry (p. 10)
- Cyclops Song : 4 : the Homecomingi"Well, what was Odysseus good at? (1) making things (2) lying -", single work poetry (p. 11)
- Cyclops Song : 5 : Some Versions of Pastorali"He ate my cheese; he tried to steal my sheep.", single work poetry (p. 12)
- Cyclops Song : 6 : the Recidivisti"But just consider his subsequent career.", single work poetry (p. 13)
- Aristarchus and the Whalei"Let us, to pass the time as we cycle", single work poetry (p. 14)
- The Scattering Layeri"Rain walks all night across the greenhouse roof", single work poetry (p. 15)
- The Secret Wari"No one makes slide rules any more.", single work poetry (p. 16)
- Bonsaii"All day at the flower show, `valuing ideas less for their truth", single work poetry (p. 17)
- Windowsi"It won't do, referring this spring day", single work poetry (p. 18)
- Reading Moby-Dick Backwardsi"Balke's guinea's forged: the sun's Quito doubloon", single work poetry (p. 19)
- Annulai"Here everyone lives around holes:", single work poetry (p. 20-21)
- Bolas (Killarney, Clapham)i"Again lies inside the statue the rough lump", single work poetry (p. 22)
- The Brazen Headi"I made a jar past the ten thousand things", single work poetry (p. 23-24)
- Duende in Darlinghursti"If out of our quarrels with ourselves we make poetry, what", single work poetry (p. 25)
- In Transit : A Sonnet Square, sequence poetry (p. 25-38)
- Biographyi"About love and hate and boredom they were equally", single work poetry (p. 26)
- Hecate Countyi"`This faux pas may be on the nose' (SMH crossword)", single work poetry (p. 27)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Steps to Parnassus : Martin Johnston’s The Sea-Cucumber
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 66 no. 1 2021; (p. 60-76) 'Martin Johnston (1947-1990) left behind a slim oeuvre of remarkable poems, lauded for their wit and erudition. The son of the writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston, he spent most of his childhood in Europe, living for almost a decade on the island the of Hydra as part of an expatriate community of artists, which included the then little-heralded Leonard Cohen. He worked mainly as a critic through the 1970s, and in the '80s wrote subtitles for SBS Television. Johnston's life was also marked by tragedy. His mother's suicide in 1969 was followed by his father's death from tuberculosis the following year, and then his sister Shane's suicide four years later. These events haunt his writing. Johnston, who was an alcoholic for much of his adult life, died at the age of forty-two. During this time, he published an acclaimed experimental novel, Cicada Gambit (1984). He also published a book of modern Greek poetry in translation Ithaka (1973), and three books of poetry: Shadowmass (1971), The Sea-Cucumber (1978) and The Typewriter Considered as a Bee-Trap (1984). An elegant volume of Johnston's selected poems, Beautiful Objects (Ligature), edited and introduced by Nadia Wheatley, marked the thirtieth anniversary of his death in 2020, along with the launch of a memorial website. ' (Introduction)
-
Rereadings V : Martin Johnston: The Typewriter Considered as a Bee-Trap
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Poetry Review , no. 16 2021;
— Review of The Typewriter Considered as a Bee-Trap 1984 selected work poetry'Regular visitors to this site will know that these “Rereadings” are my excuse to look again at books which have meant a lot to me in the past but which, for one reason or another, I haven’t written about. I have long been wanting to revisit Martin Johnston’s last collection of poems, not because I feel that after thirty years it would be interesting to see whether his reputation has grown, plateaued or declined but because there are a number of very difficult poems in the book – especially those of the large, final sequence, “To the Innate Island” – that I might understand better if I could devote some serious time to them. Entirely coincidentally, 2020 saw the release of Johnston’s selected poems in a volume, Beautiful Objects, edited (with an excellent biographical introduction) by Nadia Wheatley, designed to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Johnston’s death. This volume, together with John Tranter’s Martin Johnston: Selected Poems and Prose, published in 1993, is a sign that readers of Australian poetry might be less prepared, in Johnston’s case, to let his memory slide into oblivion than they are in the case of other poets born after the war.' (Introduction)
-
In Transit : Migration and Memory in the Writings of Martin Johnston and Dimitris Tsaloumas
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 19 no. 1 2019;'In August 1964 Martin Johnston boarded the Ellinis in the port of Piraeus, destined for Sydney, Australia, bringing to an end his 14-year estrangement from the land of his birth. Johnston, who had lived abroad most of his life in England and Greece, would return as a literal migrant to his own country. It was a theme that would prove fecund and deeply allegorical for the then 17-year-old son of authors George Johnston and Charmian Clift, later manifesting in his poetic works such as In Transit: a sprawling 14-part paean to Johnston’s immutable sense of displacement.
'A little over a decade before, in 1952, Greek poet Dimitris Tsaloumas would complete the same metamorphic journey, fleeing his Dodecanese homeland and arriving in Melbourne, Australia where he would take up the uneasy mantle of Australia’s Hellenic poet in exile. Despite parabolic overtures of assimilation, paradoxical themes of longing and dislocation pockmark Tsaloumas’s vast canon, tethering an uneasy union between his two divergent worlds both ancient and contemporary; familiar and profoundly alien.
'This essay explores the lives and comparative themes of exile in the works of both Johnston and Tsaloumas—writers who both identified as Xenos, a Greek word that translates as both ‘guest’ and ‘stranger’—and investigates the often incorporeal, irredeemable and contradictory natures of nostalgia and belonging.' (Publication abstract)
-
Cyclops Songs : Contemporary Sonnets
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Five Bells , Spring vol. 17 no. 4 2010; (p. 125-128) -
Martin Johnston (1947-1990)
1992
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Scripsi , vol. 7 no. 3 1992; (p. 229-244) Journal of Poetics Research , March no. 4 2016;
-
Points of Entry
1986
single work
review
— Appears in: Island Magazine , Summer/Autumn no. 25/26 1986; (p. 118-120)
— Review of Outer Charting 1985 selected work poetry ; The Unborn Child Speaks to the Sea 1985 selected work poetry ; Universe Cat 1985 selected work poetry ; The Typewriter Considered as a Bee-Trap 1984 selected work poetry ; The Refinery 1985 selected work poetry ; Selective Affinities : New Poems 1985 selected work poetry -
Martin Johnston : Typewriter Gambits
1985
single work
review
— Appears in: Scripsi , August vol. 3 no. 2-3 1985; (p. 223-228)
— Review of The Typewriter Considered as a Bee-Trap 1984 selected work poetry -
Two Literate Poets : Fulfilment and a Jerky Start
1985
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December-January (1985-1986) no. 77 1985; (p. 41-42)
— Review of The Typewriter Considered as a Bee-Trap 1984 selected work poetry -
Vanished World
1985
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 29 June, 1985; (p. 16)
— Review of The Typewriter Considered as a Bee-Trap 1984 selected work poetry -
Rereadings V : Martin Johnston: The Typewriter Considered as a Bee-Trap
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Poetry Review , no. 16 2021;
— Review of The Typewriter Considered as a Bee-Trap 1984 selected work poetry'Regular visitors to this site will know that these “Rereadings” are my excuse to look again at books which have meant a lot to me in the past but which, for one reason or another, I haven’t written about. I have long been wanting to revisit Martin Johnston’s last collection of poems, not because I feel that after thirty years it would be interesting to see whether his reputation has grown, plateaued or declined but because there are a number of very difficult poems in the book – especially those of the large, final sequence, “To the Innate Island” – that I might understand better if I could devote some serious time to them. Entirely coincidentally, 2020 saw the release of Johnston’s selected poems in a volume, Beautiful Objects, edited (with an excellent biographical introduction) by Nadia Wheatley, designed to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Johnston’s death. This volume, together with John Tranter’s Martin Johnston: Selected Poems and Prose, published in 1993, is a sign that readers of Australian poetry might be less prepared, in Johnston’s case, to let his memory slide into oblivion than they are in the case of other poets born after the war.' (Introduction)
-
Cyclops Songs : Contemporary Sonnets
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Five Bells , Spring vol. 17 no. 4 2010; (p. 125-128) -
Martin Johnston (1947-1990)
1992
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Scripsi , vol. 7 no. 3 1992; (p. 229-244) Journal of Poetics Research , March no. 4 2016; -
Exiled by Circumstance and Inclination : Martin Johnston 1947-1990
1990
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Editions , September no. 8-9 1990; (p. 9-10) Martin Johnston : Selected Poems and Prose 1993; (p. 273-276) -
In Transit : Migration and Memory in the Writings of Martin Johnston and Dimitris Tsaloumas
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 19 no. 1 2019;'In August 1964 Martin Johnston boarded the Ellinis in the port of Piraeus, destined for Sydney, Australia, bringing to an end his 14-year estrangement from the land of his birth. Johnston, who had lived abroad most of his life in England and Greece, would return as a literal migrant to his own country. It was a theme that would prove fecund and deeply allegorical for the then 17-year-old son of authors George Johnston and Charmian Clift, later manifesting in his poetic works such as In Transit: a sprawling 14-part paean to Johnston’s immutable sense of displacement.
'A little over a decade before, in 1952, Greek poet Dimitris Tsaloumas would complete the same metamorphic journey, fleeing his Dodecanese homeland and arriving in Melbourne, Australia where he would take up the uneasy mantle of Australia’s Hellenic poet in exile. Despite parabolic overtures of assimilation, paradoxical themes of longing and dislocation pockmark Tsaloumas’s vast canon, tethering an uneasy union between his two divergent worlds both ancient and contemporary; familiar and profoundly alien.
'This essay explores the lives and comparative themes of exile in the works of both Johnston and Tsaloumas—writers who both identified as Xenos, a Greek word that translates as both ‘guest’ and ‘stranger’—and investigates the often incorporeal, irredeemable and contradictory natures of nostalgia and belonging.' (Publication abstract)
-
Steps to Parnassus : Martin Johnston’s The Sea-Cucumber
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 66 no. 1 2021; (p. 60-76) 'Martin Johnston (1947-1990) left behind a slim oeuvre of remarkable poems, lauded for their wit and erudition. The son of the writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston, he spent most of his childhood in Europe, living for almost a decade on the island the of Hydra as part of an expatriate community of artists, which included the then little-heralded Leonard Cohen. He worked mainly as a critic through the 1970s, and in the '80s wrote subtitles for SBS Television. Johnston's life was also marked by tragedy. His mother's suicide in 1969 was followed by his father's death from tuberculosis the following year, and then his sister Shane's suicide four years later. These events haunt his writing. Johnston, who was an alcoholic for much of his adult life, died at the age of forty-two. During this time, he published an acclaimed experimental novel, Cicada Gambit (1984). He also published a book of modern Greek poetry in translation Ithaka (1973), and three books of poetry: Shadowmass (1971), The Sea-Cucumber (1978) and The Typewriter Considered as a Bee-Trap (1984). An elegant volume of Johnston's selected poems, Beautiful Objects (Ligature), edited and introduced by Nadia Wheatley, marked the thirtieth anniversary of his death in 2020, along with the launch of a memorial website. ' (Introduction)
