Poet Michael Giacon To Undress In Slow Motion – At Last

His first volume of poetry, undressing in slow motion, has septuagenarian Michael Giacon undressing at the turn of each page in a dishevelment of past, present and beyond.

In undressing in slow motion, we travel with Giacon as he negotiates death, life and love while reconciling his deep Pākehā-Italian Catholic roots with his emerging selves and communities.

The work explores a range of styles, including Giacon’s signature greyscale, where possible alternatives and different meanings offer us several dialogues at the same time. Giacon presents a sensitive undressing of self, sexuality, relationships and nature.

Poet Siobhan Harvey says: “This stunning first collection abounds with love and loss; the delights of pet ownership and swimming; and the sustenance provided by writing.

“Throughout, Giacon reminds us of the profundities found in small moments, and the delicate understanding offered by life's major events.”

Giacon has been writing, performing and publishing since the 1970s. In 2015 he completed an MA in creative writing/poetry at AUT and the following year won the Kathleen Grattan Prize for a Sequence of Poems with Argento in No Man Land.

Judge Gus Simonovic said he “found the natural flow and richness of the emotional landscape in the poems seductive.”

Giacon’s work has been published in a wide range of journals and anthologies including Out Here: An Anthology of Takatāpui and LGBTQIA+ Writers from Aotearoa (AUP, 2021); the Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook in 2021, 2023 and 2024; and numerous editions of a fine line, the quarterly magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society.

In choosing Giacon to be the Featured Poet of Summer 2020-21 in a fine line, editor Ivy Alvarez said that his poems “bestride delicacy and muscularity in surprising ways.”

Bringing his decades of arts community organising experience to bear, over the past six years Giacon has participated in Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day events in association with Auckland Libraries as guest reader, MC, and curator.

Giacon is also a stalwart supporter of other queer poets. He has been on the Board of the Samesame but Different LGBTQI+ Writers’ Festival since 2017, where he has organised and MC-ed the annual Poetry Speakeasy and open mic events. He also administrates the Peter Wells Short Fiction Contest, which awards cash prizes to queer writers in Aotearoa.

undressing in slow motion will be launched in Tāmaki Makaurau in late May, and in Te Whanganui-a-Tara in June. It will be available from selected bookshops from May 2024. 

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