Blog Carnival #1: CROSSINGS
March 6, 2012
The poem ‘Rubesahl’ and an extract from the novel Unlevel Crossings by Michael O’Leary appears on the following blog Aotearoa Affair Blog Carnival with links:
Rebirth of Cool: 25th Anniversary Release of Michael O’Leary’s cricket novel Out of It
January 17, 2012
Michael O’Leary’s cult cricket novel Out of It has been re-released through HeadworX Publishers in Wellington hot on the heels of a new 2011 e-book edition from Me Books. Copies of the new paperback edition can be ordered direct from HeadworX, email: mpirie@xtra.co.nz See information and details on the book below:
New Book Information from HeadworX
Title: Out of It: A Novel Cricket Novel
Author: Michael O’Leary
Editor: Mark Pirie
Release: February 2012
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-473-20113-5
Extent: 64 pages
Category: NZ Fiction
Format: paperback
Publisher: HeadworX
About the Book
Michael O’Leary’s Out of It was first published in 1987.
Since then it has become aNew Zealand cult classic and is possibly the onlyNew Zealand literary cricket novel published here.
The novel conjures a surreal cricket game betweenNew Zealand and an invitation Out of It XI at Eden Park, Auckland, in dadaist and modernist prose in the Irish-Maori tradition.
This new 25th anniversary collector’s edition, edited by cricket poetry anthologist and poet Mark Pirie, adds amendments to the first edition along with appendices, including a full scorecard of the Out of It innings, notes, an interview with the author and a bibliography of New Zealand cricket fiction and poetry.
25 years on, Out of It, as Pirie writes in the foreword, ‘remains a highly imaginative, original and colourful read.’
Cover image: Iain Sharp after an illustration of W G Grace, 1895
‘If you are a collector of Bohemian cricket memorabilia, this book is for your shelf. It is certainly a boon to te kirikiti o Aotearoa…’– Rangi Faith
‘O’Leary has … the demeanour of a cricket umpire – when he says it’s out then it’s out. He can also lob an impressive ball down a pitch as he can play a riff à la Hendrix on any available instrument.’ – Gregory O’Brien
About the Editor
Mark Pirie is a New Zealand poet, editor, writer and publisher. In 2010, he edited the successful anthology of NZ cricket poetry A Tingling Catch (foreword by Don Neely) and currently writes its offshoot blog Tingling Catch.
Two poems by Michael O’Leary in broadsheet 8
January 17, 2012
Two poems by Michael O’Leary appear in broadsheet 8 (November 2011).
The first ‘From P.H. D. to PhD’ is a ballad relating the accomplishment of his recent PhD at Victoria University of Wellington’s Gender and Women Studies Dept.
The second poem ‘The Last 48 Seconds of Kurt Cobain: A Poemumentary’ was first published in Benedict Quilter’s Cobain tribute book Blue Eyed Son (Independent Women Records, Wellington, 2010).
Auckland release of “Fences Fall” CD
November 21, 2011
1981 Springbok Tour Commemoration: “It was 30 years ago today”.
September 3, 2011
Reflections on the effect of the 1981 Springbok Rugby Tour on the mentality of the Kiwi
After work the other night
I was feeling alright
It was pay day so I went down for a drink
To a pub I know right well
And I know the clientele
I thought “I’ll be welcome here tonight I think”
When I first walked in the door
My mate said “Have one more”
Even before a drink had passed my lips.
Another fellow, already frisky
Said, “I’ll get you a whiskey”
And came back with a brandy and some chips.
And so before too long
Conversation and song
Mixed together, with alcohol to lubricate the voice
Have a gin, and have a rum,
Have a beer, a wine, come, come,
It’s my turn now boys what’s your choice?
Soon I was better at talkin’
Than I’d ever been at walkin’
My legs were like my mind, that is not straight.
By now my head was swimmin’
And I was looking at all the women
Thinking, that one, no that one, no that one would be great.
I went out for a wee wee
And I thought, ‘I’m at the Kiwi’
No wonder everything here is so friendly and bright.
And I thought about the past
How often I’d spent my last
Penny here, long ago, every single night.
For when I was a student,
Ernest, right and prudent,
It was coming to this pub that turned me on my head
For I could have been a teacher,
Doctor, lawyer, even a preacher,
But I went to the Kiwi, so I’m a drunken poet and labourer instead
Memories are sad, enough of this!
I thought and finished off my piss.
Having done what’s done I must do what I must do.
As I stumbled to the bar
Which seemed five times as far
I bumped into ten or twenty boys in blue.
I thought, I’ve seen them before
Was it Gisborne, Hamilton or
No, it was just down the road at Eden Park.
And it’s not that long ago
Or is my memory just slow
To forget that cloud that hung over our country long and dark?
Well I tried to have a talk,
And I watched the blues baulk
When they said ‘The manager has asked you to leave.’
The ones who wielded batons
Are the same ones that we spat on
Aotearoa is such an easy place to grieve.
I think I shall not deign
To enter this hotel again
I was so drunk I didn’t want to cause a fuss
When I got outside it cleared my head
I forgot all that had been said
My main preoccupation was to catch a bus
MAI Review features Michael O’Leary’s poetry
July 30, 2011
Four of Michael O’Leary’s poems appeared in the poetry section of the first issue of MAI Review, edited by poet Vaughan Rapatahana.
Michael O’Leary’s tribute to David Mitchell
July 30, 2011
Michael O’Leary’s personal memoir on David Mitchell appeared on Beattie’s Book Blog, 29 June 2011.
An interview with Michael O’Leary about the republication of his 1987 novel Out of It as an e-book and his interest in cricket appears on Mark Pirie’s Tingling Catch blog.
I have recently completed a PhD in Gender and Women’s Studies at Victoria University of Wellington and I will graduate on the 18th of May 2011
My thesis is titled: ‘Social and Literary Constraints on Women Writers in New Zealand1945 to 1970’. It explores the reasons why so few NZ women writers attained literary prominence during the period from the end of WW2 up to the feminist movement of the 1970s. Among other things I explore the writing of Māori women and their particular difficulties with being published. My thesis was supervised by Dr. Alison Laurie and Associate Professor Prue Hyman.
Michael O’Leary’s painting ‘The Dark Lords of Pukerua’ depicting Alistair Campbell and Te Rauparaha at Kapiti featured in the recent Alistair Te Ariki Campbell Exhibition at Pataka Museum’s Bottle Creek Community Gallery in Porirua, April 14-May 1, 2011. A stanza from O’Leary’s poem ‘Meeting with Te Rauparaha’ (published in his 2005 HeadworX collection Make Love and War) is also incorporated in the bottom right of the painting.
Michael was invited by co-curators Mary Campbell and Peter Coates to do an artwork specially for the exhibition.
