Whale Years by Gregory O’Brien

Whale Years by Gregory O’Brien

Two poets on a headland, mid-survey
might pause suddenly and say
will this be your whale, or mine?

Wide-ranging poet Gregory O’Brien surveys the lyric heart of an ocean in memorable, musical, moving lines.

Between 2011 and 2014, poet and artist Gregory O’Brien found himself following the migratory routes of whales and seabirds across vast tracts of the South Pacific Ocean, resulting in work that O’Brien describes as ‘acts of devotion – a homage to a series of remarkable locations and to the natural histories of those places’. In three parts, this collection stretches across the Pacific, following whale-roads, weather balloons and sons at sea, charting historical explorations and recent disasters such as the grounding of the Rena, along with other Pacific realisms – the ‘Pacific trash vortex’, the wavering democracy of Tonga, the political history of Chile. These poems are an exploration of outlying islands, the ocean that lies between them, and the whale-species and sea birds found there. From Waihi looking east and Valparaiso looking west, O’Brien surveys the cultural heart and health of an ocean in memorable, musical, moving lines.

Gregory O’Brien is an independent writer, teacher, painter, literary critic and art curator. He has written many books of poetry, fiction, essays and commentary. Recent publications with Auckland University Press include Beauties of the Octagonal Pool (2012), A Micronaut in the Wide World: The Imaginative Life and Times of Graham Percy (2011) and the multi-award-winning introductions to artWelcome to the South Seas and Back and Beyond.

His many awards include the following:
Arts Foundation Laureate Award, 2012
Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement (Non-Fiction), November 2012
Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit 2013

© Scoop Media