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y separately published work icon The Sea-Cucumber selected work   poetry  
  • Author:agent Martin Johnston http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/johnston-martin
Issue Details: First known date: 1978... 1978 The Sea-Cucumber
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Notes

  • Dedication: This book is for Nadia

  • Epigraph: [lengthy quote from The Golden Bough]

Contents

* Contents derived from the St Lucia, Indooroopilly - St Lucia area, Brisbane - North West, Brisbane, Queensland,:University of Queensland Press , 1978 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
The Sea-Cucumberi"We'd all had a bit too much that night when you brought out your painting,", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 1-2)
Mazurka for Buzzing Fly (Grand Master Akiba Rubinstein Speaks)i"The spectacles perched on my brain", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 3-4)
Gradus Ad Parnassumi"Over a tabasco sandwich, with black coffee", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 5-8)
Poem Resumed after Its Interruption When in Draft Form by the Death of Igor Stravinskyi"bubbled over the caulked side", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 9-13)
Letter to Sylvia Plath (i.m. C.C.)i"Impacted fans of dawn unfold", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 14-15)
Fault Linei"One might be happier if they were less banal", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 16)
The Blood Aquariumi"Pan Apolek's scarf whirls the horizon inward,", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 17-35)
Critical Notes on Marcel Prousti"Rain slaps the bridge and the sea tilts. Water gathers", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 36)
Moriarty at Reichenbachi"I squat here under the falls waiting", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 37)
Cavei"Sharp mornings on railway stations", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 38-39)
Uncertain Sonnets : 1 : (Airport)i"Her arms are gravelled at the undertow", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 40)
Uncertain Sonnets (for Julie), Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 40-44)
Uncertain Sonnets : 2 : (the Decisions)i"Not to be human but an emerald", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 41)
Uncertain Sonnets : 3 : (Vernal Equinox)i"Polychromatic springtime's gay cadenza", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 42)
Uncertain Sonnets : 4 : (for George Seferis)i"Delicate veined pale green sepals arching in nightfall's turquoise quiver", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 43)
Uncertain Sonnets : 5 : Directions for Dreamfishingi"First you must blow a bottle round your sleep", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 44)
Quantumi"The art photographer alone", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 45-46)
Spinozai"Spinoza scratched a core of light", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 47)
Sequestrumi"There's a special sort of madness in the colours", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 48)
That Mine Own Precipicei"this morning I seem to have woken up", Martin Johnston , single work poetry (p. 49)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Steps to Parnassus : Martin Johnston’s The Sea-Cucumber Aidan Coleman , 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)
 
In Transit : Migration and Memory in the Writings of Martin Johnston and Dimitris Tsaloumas Julian Tompkin , 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)

A Quick Graph : On Martin Johnston Paragraphs from an Unwritten Letter to John Tranter Brian Kim Stefans , 2000 single work prose
— Appears in: Jacket , April no. 11 2000;
The New Mannerism Christopher Pollnitz , 1993 single work review
— Appears in: Martin Johnston : Selected Poems and Prose 1993; (p. 278-282)

— Review of The Sea-Cucumber Martin Johnston , 1978 selected work poetry
Poems of Subtle Perception and Ruthless Intellect John Tranter , 1993 single work review
— Appears in: Martin Johnston : Selected Poems and Prose 1993; (p. 276-278)

— Review of The Sea-Cucumber Martin Johnston , 1978 selected work poetry
The New Mannerism Christopher Pollnitz , 1978 single work review
— Appears in: Southerly , September vol. 38 no. 3 1978; (p. 342-357)

— Review of At Last No Reply Graeme Curtis , 1977 selected work poetry ; Icelandic Solitaries Alan Gould , 1978 selected work poetry ; Shakti Rae Desmond Jones , 1977 selected work poetry ; Round Trip Miles Little , 1977 selected work poetry ; The Departure Kevin Hart , 1978 selected work poetry ; Crying in Early Infancy : 100 sonnets John Tranter , 1977 sequence poetry ; Hovering Narcissus : Poems Laurence Collinson , 1977 selected work poetry ; The Sea-Cucumber Martin Johnston , 1978 selected work poetry ; West of the Cunderang 1977 selected work poetry ; Vita Australis Didier Coste , 1977 selected work poetry
Poetic Images Bright and Not-So-Bright Geoffrey Dutton , 1978 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 6 June vol. 99 no. 5111 1978; (p. 61-62)

— Review of Icelandic Solitaries Alan Gould , 1978 selected work poetry ; The Sea-Cucumber Martin Johnston , 1978 selected work poetry ; The Departure Kevin Hart , 1978 selected work poetry ; Thrusting into Darkness Robert Clark , 1978 selected work poetry ; Product : Later Verses Robert D. FitzGerald , 1977 selected work poetry ; Friendly Street Poetry Reader No.2 1978 anthology poetry
Poems of Subtle Perception and Ruthless Intellect John Tranter , 1978 single work review
— Appears in: The National Times , 26 August 1978; (p. 42)

— Review of The Sea-Cucumber Martin Johnston , 1978 selected work poetry
Reality Transformed by Art Rae Desmond Jones , 1980 single work review
— Appears in: Makar , June vol. 14 no. 2 1980; (p. 59-61)

— Review of The Sea-Cucumber Martin Johnston , 1978 selected work poetry
Poems of Subtle Perception and Ruthless Intellect John Tranter , 1993 single work review
— Appears in: Martin Johnston : Selected Poems and Prose 1993; (p. 276-278)

— Review of The Sea-Cucumber Martin Johnston , 1978 selected work poetry
Martin Johnston (1947-1990) Gig Ryan , 1992 single work criticism
— Appears in: Scripsi , vol. 7 no. 3 1992; (p. 229-244) Journal of Poetics Research , March no. 4 2016;
Writer's New Gambit Pays Off 1984 single work criticism biography
Exiled by Circumstance and Inclination : Martin Johnston 1947-1990 Martin Duwell , 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)
A Quick Graph : On Martin Johnston Paragraphs from an Unwritten Letter to John Tranter Brian Kim Stefans , 2000 single work prose
— Appears in: Jacket , April no. 11 2000;
In Transit : Migration and Memory in the Writings of Martin Johnston and Dimitris Tsaloumas Julian Tompkin , 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)

Last amended 16 Oct 2017 12:26:31
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