Cold Hub Press ~ John Allison

In the near distance is everything

that calls us to the world and to ourselves

"The unexamined life is not worth living. ––Plato

These poems, written during this past year, are circumstantial evidence in that examination. They might be seen as efforts towards coherence; or as efforts towards existing in the incoherence.

Or as poems." ––John Allison

What reviewers said of A Place to Return To (Cold Hub Press, 2019) :

a set of new and unpublished poems powerful in their perception, insight and imagination ––Siobhan Harvey, NZ Herald

a very satisfying collection for both its lyricism and its intellectual heft     

––Nicholas Reid, The Listener

John Allison resides in Heathcote Valley near Christchurch. His previous book, A Place to Return To, was published by Cold Hub Press in mid-2019. Near Distance is his sixth collection of poetry.

climate change

this evening

I turn the garden hose upon

the boulders in the dry creek-bed

watching the water

making complex

commentaries on the situation

it hasn’t rained for five months

and the hills are tatty

it seems there is so much I have

no control over

grief for instance

and the things that politicians do

and never do

everywhere that really matters

but I can do this

just watering the creek

this evening

while the world burns

© John Allison 2020