Stephen Oliver
Stephen Oliver grew up in Brooklyn-west, Wellington, New Zealand. He has travelled extensively and up until recently lived in Australia for 20 years. Previous to his collaboration with Matt Ottley on King Hit, his most recent collection of poetry is Either Side The Horizon (Titus Books, Auckland/Sydney, 2005). He has worked in the broadcasting industry in Australia and New Zealand, freelancing as production voice, newsreader, feature writer, copywriter, producer, etc.
New Zealand Book Council / Writers
Stephen Oliver / Pat Prime Interview / Words On Walls
Titus Books / Either Side The Horizon
Project Gutenberg / Oliver poetry titles / free download
eNews 34: Interview by Assistant Editor Casey Hutton
Phantom Billstickers the Pied Piper of Poster Poems
O SAY CAN YOU HEAR?
The dripping Gorgon’s head
over the sands of Iraq, spittle of snakes flame out
from a thousand gun barrels—
at last! the two worlds unite in the death struggle,
the two as one to make a third:
fantasy is reality is fantasy.
America has become its own horror cartoon,
each thought locked within its renegade cell,
Bugs Bunny holds forth in the senate on
the bankrupt dream-stocks buried at Fort Knox.
Donald Duck meantime jerks off in disgust
over the American flag—quacks
the country’s been bushwhacked,
‘ain’t worth a hill of beans’
in archaic colloquialisms of a nation near claim
jumping the Middle East.
The last capitalist gasp v the last medieval groan;
eventually, to make way for the eco-terrorists whose
motto: destroy what you cannot save: will sound
the retreat to a history vaporized—a memory erased.
So we come to inherit “Our Common Loss”.
The space shuttle Columbia makes
its long wave good-bye
bright finger nails tearing at the sky (like)
‘morning Lucifer, that star that beckons all
mankind to daily rounds’
scratching down God’s blackboard
as seven souls fly away
toward the Pleiades.
So we make our omens to live and die by
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Harmonic
$25.00 (GST-inc)Harmonic brings together the strengths of Oliver’s poetic; clarity of thought, compressed, highly original imagery, and rhythmic expression. Yet in many respects he is the philosopher-poet. In this book, Oliver displays a depth of thought, and a range of perception rarely found in contemporary Australasian poetry.
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King Hit Audio
$25.00 (GST-inc)Stephen Oliver’s voice resonates with strength and passion. With the highly original music of Matt Ottley this CD transports us across soundscapes of harmony and disharmony, life and death, peace and violence.
