John Tranter site - Contents page

Select the green button or the underlined link word to go to that section.
This page is about five printed pages long.

[2 printed pages]
The ‘front page’: an introduction and quick links to the rest of the site.

[»] A PDF file of the book The Floor of Heaven, a collection of four loosely-linked narrative poems.

‘A rattling good read’ — JOHN ASHBERY

‘The Floor of Heaven is a tour de force, a devious and profoundly subversive conjuring trick by a poet writing at the peak of his powers… the book pulses with a curious resonance… reminded me irresistibly of the best moments in Twin Peaks… a strange lyricism.’
— ANDREW RIEMER, Sydney Morning Herald

[»] A PDF file of the book Crying in Early Infancy — 100 Sonnets, Makar Press, St Lucia, 1977.

Story: [»] Roth [4 pages]

Experimental fiction:

[»] ‘Mr Rubenking's Breakdown’ — an essay about computer-assisted writing

Examples: [»] Carousel [8 pages] [»] Valéry’s Room [5 pages]

[»] Sample pages from Different Hands [15 pages]

[»] Why is modern poetry so difficult? [3 pages]

[»] Bruce Beaver, 1928–2004, an obituary [5 pages]

[»] Martin Johnston — originally published as the Introduction to Martin Johnston — Selected Poems and Prose, edited by John Tranter, University of Queensland Press. [20 pages].

[»] The Illusion of Authenticity: frauds, literary prizes and Janet Frame [2 pages]

[»] Four Diversions and a Prose-poem on the Road to a Poetics [7 pages]

[»] Three John Ashberys — an Introduction [6 pages]

[»] ‘The Left Hand of Capitalism’ (Jacket magazine and the Internet) [7 pp.]

[»] Profile: John Tranter, in Southerly magazine, 1981 [6 pages]

[»] Lost Things in the Garden of Type — on the history of type [8 pages]

[»] Thank God for the Bourgeoisie: Postmodernism and the teen daiquiri

[»] Question and Answer, Sydney Sun-Herald, June 1998 [2 pages]

[»] 100 pages of notes to the poems in the book Urban Myths: 210 Poems: New and Selected University of Queensland Press, 2006. 322 pages. ISBN-0-7022-3557-1, paperback.

Publisher’s cover blurb: Urban Myths: 210 Poems brings the best work to date from a poet considered one of the most original of his generation in Australia, together with a generous selection of new work. Smart, wry and very stylish, John Tranter’s poems investigate the vagaries of perception and the ability of language to converge life, imagination and art so that we arrive, unexpectedly, at the deepest human mysteries.

[»] Nine pages of notes to the poems in the book Trio. Salt Publishing (UK), September 2003. 162 pages. ISBN 1 876857 71 4 paperback. An omnibus collection of all the poems in three books published previously in Australia but long out of print:
    Red Movie (1972)
    Crying in Early Infancy — 100 Sonnets (1977)
    Dazed in the Ladies Lounge (1979).
The publisher, Salt Publications in Cambridge UK, has an Internet site.

Bibliographical details, ISBNs, cover images, excerpts from pertinent reviews, for over twenty books. Here is an abbreviated listing:

2002 — Borrowed Voices, Shoestring Press, 19 Devonshire Avenue, Beeston, Nottingham NG9 1BS, UK. Phone/ Fax (44) 0115 9251 827. November 2002. Twenty-four pages.

2000 — The Floor of Heaven, Arc Publications, U.K. (Nanholme Mill, Shaw Wood Road, Todmorden, Lancs. OL14 6DA), paperback, 116 pages.

2000 — Blackout, [pamphlet], Barque Press, Gonville and Caius College, Trinity Street, Cambridge England CB2 1TA, United Kingdom. Published in 2000. Saddle-stitched, twenty-four pages.

1998 — Late Night Radio, Polygon Press (University of Edinburgh Press), Edinburgh, 1998.

1997 — Gasoline Kisses, [pamphlet], Equipage, Jesus College, Cambridge UK, April 1997, paper, 40 pages.

1993 — At The Florida, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1993, perfect bound, paperback, with author’s notes, 99 pages.

1992 — The Floor of Heaven, HarperCollins/Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1993, paperback, 138 pages, (four long interlinked narrative poems).

1988 — Under Berlin, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1988, paperback, three printings by 1993 with different back jacket and half-title-page information, with author’s notes, 119 pages.

1986 — Gloria [signed limited edition pamphlet of 376 copies] (an early version of the first poem in The Floor of Heaven), privately published by Nicholas Pounder, bookseller, King’s Cross, December 1986, A4 sheets wire stapled near the spine, wrapper hand-coloured by the author and his daughter Kirsten, 11 pages.

1982 — Selected Poems, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1983, section sewn, 176 pages. Includes 10 previously uncollected poems.

1979 — Dazed in the Ladies Lounge, Island Press, Sydney, 1979, section sewn, paperback, 63 pages.

1977 — Crying in Early Infancy — 100 Sonnets, Makar Press, St Lucia, 1977, section sewn, hardback and paperback, 63 pages total.

1976 — The Alphabet Murders (notes from a work in progress), Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1976, saddle-stitched, 33 pp (as part of the series ‘Poets of the Month’, with other booklets by James McAuley, Geoffrey Lehmann, John Forbes, Thomas Shapcott and Simon Bronsky, and later collected in a compendium hardback volume).

1974 — The Blast Area (Gargoyle Poets number 13, a series published by Makar Magazine, care of the English Department, The University of Queensland, St Lucia Queensland 3067), Makar Press, St Lucia, 1974, saddle-stitched, 36 pages.

1973 — Red Movie and other poems, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1973, casebound, wrapper, 37 pages.

1970 — Parallax, South Head Press, Sydney, 1970 (published as Poetry Australia magazine, number 33, June 1970 — incorrectly shown on the half-title page as the June 1968 number), paperback, section-sewn, 63 pages.
Different Hands, Folio/ Fremantle Arts Centre Press, PO Box 158, North Fremantle WA 6159, Australia. Published in 1998. Eighty pages.

(anthology) 1979 — The New Australian Poetry, Makar Press, St Lucia, 1979, reprinted with corrections 1980, section sewn, casebound and paperback, 330 pages.

(anthology) 1989 — The Tin Wash Dish — Poems from Today’s Australians, (selected by John Tranter from entries in the poetry section of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation / Australian Bicentennial Authority Literary Awards competition held in 1988), ABC Enterprises, Crow’s Nest, 1989, perfect bound, 136 pages.

(anthology) 1993 — The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry (co-edited with Philip Mead), Penguin Australia, Ringwood, 1993, paperback, 373 pages.

(editor) 1993 — Martin Johnston — Selected Poems and Prose, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1993, paperback, 390 + xxvi pp.

Off-site: [»] New Zealand poet Andrew Johnson’s detailed review of a number of books up to 1993, titled ‘Surviving Desire:The Poetry of John Tranter’, first published in Landfall 187, Autumn 1994, reprinted on Andrew’s site at http://andrewjohnston.org/tranter.htm

Off-site: [»] B.A. Honours thesis, 1993, by Ted Nielsen: ‘Developments in Australian postmodernist poetry: a study of the poetry of John Tranter and John Forbes’.
Note: Not part of this site; it is instead available in PDF format at
http://www.magicdog.com/poems/hons/index.html
To view the file you will need to use the free Acrobat PDF Reader; it can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html.

[»] Katherine Furgol: Dwelling on The Floor of Heaven: An Analysis of John Tranter’s Verse Novel. (B.A. Thesis for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2006.)

[»] Graham Foust review of Late Night Radio (1998), in Verse magazine (combined issue Vol 15 No 3 and Vol 16 No 1), 1999

[»] Christopher Pollnitz review of The Floor of Heaven (1992), in the Weekend Australian, October 3, 1992

[»] Andrew Riemer review of The Floor of Heaven (1992), in the Sydney Morning Herald, September 19, 1992

[»] Andrew Taylor ‘Resisting the Mad Professor: Narrative and Metaphor in the Poetry of John Tranter’, 1990

[»] Kate Lilley ‘Tranter's Plots’ — review of books up to Under Berlin (1988), in Australian Literary Studies, volume 14 number 1, May 1989

[»] Christopher Pollnitz review of Under Berlin (1988), in Scripsi, Ormond College, Melbourne University, volume 6, number 1

[»] John Forbes review of Selected Poems (1982), in Meanjin magazine number 2, 1983

[»] Martin Duwell review of Selected Poems (1982), in the Australian Weekend Magazine 11-12 September 1982

[»] David Brooks review of Dazed in the Ladies Lounge (1979), in the Canberra Times, 26 December 1981

[»] Gary Catalano review of Crying in Early Infancy (1977), in Contempa magazine Series 2, number 6

[»] Swamp Riddles, by Robert Adamson. This piece was originally published in New Poetry volume 22 number 4 (undated: 1974). [8pp]

[»] Notes on some recent Australian Poetry; being a survey review of six books and nine poetry magazines, published in New Poetry magazine in 1974. [15pp]

[»] Tactics, by Jennifer Maiden; Wild Honey, by Paul Kavanagh; Creekwater Journal, by Robert Gray: Paperback Poets Series 2, University of Queensland Press, $3.50 and $1.50 (paper). First published in The Australian Weekend page 6, 26 April 1975. [3pp]

[»] The First Paperback Poets Anthology, ed. by Roger McDonald. 1975.[2pp]

[»] Translations From The Albatross, poems by Robert Harris, late 1970s. [3pp]

[»] The Vernacular Republic, Selected Poems, by Les A.Murray. First published in the Weekend Australian, Saturday 29 January 1977. [3pp]

[»] New Devil, New Parish, poems by Alan Wearne; UQP Paperback Poets Second Series, $1.50 (paper). First published in The Australian, 11 June 1977. [3pp]

[»] Fourth Quarter, poems by Judith Wright; Angus & Robertson, $7.95.
Water Life, poems and linocuts by Judith Rodriguez, UQP, $5.00 cloth, $2.50 paper. 1977. [3pp]

[»] In Casablanca for the Waters, by Nigel Roberts and Seven Poets, 1978. [3pp]

[»] Product: Later Verses by R. D. Fitzgerald, Ethnic Radio, poems by Les A. Murray, Words with a Black Orpington and other poems by David Campbell. First published in 24 Hours, July 1978. [4pp]

[»] ‘The artist seen as a young trendy’: Brett Whiteley, by Sandra McGrath. 1979. [4pp]

[»] Musicopoematographoscope by Christopher Brennan, Introduction by Axel Clark. 1982. [3pp]

[»] The Younger Australian Poets, eds. Robert Gray and Geoffrey Lehmann. Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1983. [5pp]

[»] The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets ed. Susan Hampton and Kate Llewellyn. 1986. [3pp]

[»] Poetry Australia (NSW issue) No 107/108, and Scripsi Vol 4, No 2, 1987. [3pp]

[»] Sex and Anarchy by Anne Coombs, about the Sydney ‘Push’. 1996. [3pp]

[»] Kenneth Slessor: critical readings, edited by Philip Mead. University of Queensland Press, 1997. [3pp]

[»] Somebody Else — Arthur Rimbaud in Africa by Charles Nicholl. 1998. [10pp]

[»] Hypnerotomachia Poliphili by Francesco Colonna, trans. Joscelyn Godwin, 1999. [4pp]

[»] BUCKY WORKS: Buckminster Fuller’s Ideas for Today by J.Baldwin. Late 1990s. [3pp]

[»] Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist by Philip Furia. Late 1990s[?]. [3pp]

[»] Dreams and Reality: John Tranter in conversation with Patrick Allington, Balmain, Sydney, 16 November 2007, for Etchings magazine number 2

[»] Jacket magazine: the free Internet-only literary quarterly founded by John Tranter in 1997, which has had over half a million visits since then.

[»] Some High-resolution photographs of John Tranter, including the one at right, taken near Congo, New South Wales. The gun is a Canadian Iver Johnson 12-gauge single-barrel shotgun.

E N D The Internet address of this page is http://johntranter.com/contents.shtml

John Tranter homepage: Contents