MICHAEL GOULD, WRITER, POET
Email: m.gould@xtra.co.nz
Phone: 027 620 2750
Website: www.michaelgould.co.nz
Social: www.facebook.com/michael.gould.1481169/
BIOGRAPHY
Michael Gould is the author of Surrealism and the Cinema: Open-eyed Screening (1976), one of the first books in English on this topic. Choosing not to pursue the expected career path (academia) he opted for a life of adventure, travel and (some very) odd jobs. Emigrating from his native Canada, he finally settled into a quiet mid-life in Aotearoa New Zealand. Coming to poetry later in life, now in his early seventies, his poems have appeared in publications both academic and popular, here in Aotearoa New Zealand (e.g., Landfall); in Australia (e.g., Otoliths); in the UK (e.g., London Grip); and in the USA and Canada. In 2021 he was awarded by the New Zealand Society of Authors as an emerging writer of note.
PERVERSE VERSE — SYNOPSIS
Perverse Verse is an iconoclastic collection by poet and film theorist Michael Gould. It contains 67 poems (mostly short, both new and previously published) and is divided into three sections that explore life from the perspective of someone in his senior years still living life with a sense of humour and philosophical reflection.
The humour, often black, is that of an outlier, and outside mainstream (academic) poetry today. The collection will appeal to the hip general reader, the literate reader and the lover of wordplay.
The poems’ themes: age/youth, success/failure, love/sex/relationships, nature/the environment/technology, identity/mental health/illness, all seen through mature eyes –though with a somewhat askew view – coalesce in the central issue of how we live now in our contemporary screwed-up world. The poems are held together with sophisticated wit and a liberal use of rhyme. Our love of rhyme, almost a basic human instinct, has all but disappeared for the serious reader, though its importance is illustrated by its abundance in children’s literature, commercial advertising and today’s poetry slams.
DETAILS — PERVERSE VERSE
Genre: Contemporary Poetry
ISBN: 978 0 473 75572 0
Publisher: Umbrella Books, Wellington
Launch: 10 March 2026, Unity Books, Wellington
Format: A5, softcover, perfect bound, 78 pages
Sales Price: $30
Distributor: Expensive Hobby
Retailer: Wellington Unity Books and other good bookstores around the country
“ … scathing, direct, abrasive, deflationary, peremptory, cartoonish, witty, iconoclastic … the best poems are very good indeed … internationalist … strong and distinctive, even pungent … the self-deprecation, the acquired modesty, and the bare unadorned quality of the verse owe a lot to language as used in conversation and in traditions of unassuming presentation.”
David Eggleton, NZ Poet Laureate (2019 – 2022)
Front Cover
EXCERPTS
To My Executioner
Please, give me a moment to relax
before you aim the blade of your axe
at the back of my head and render me dead
and allow me to take a bow
for a life lived well in the here and now.
When I’m ready, when I’m done
you may then proceed
with your kinky idea of fun.
Light Verse and Rhyme
Some plan for the future
and hope for great advances
others trust karma
and take their chances
some lose, others win
losers best take it on the chin.
When I was young, I twiddled my thumbs
not knowing I might lose before I’d even begun
and while I ruled out career options
my frantic parents considered adoption.
Biding my time, I said I was
when others asked, what, exactly, is it
that he does?
In the end, I chose to write light verse and rhyme
which the literati consider a crime, but
I don’t mind.
The Devil and the Divine
I’ve been with the devil
he lives in hell
the food was divine
the sex, swell.
SHORT Q’S & A’S
Q: Most emerging writers are in their twenties or early thirties. What took you so long?
A: That’s a long story …
Q: How do you fit into the current New Zealand poetry scene?
A: I don’t.
Q: Page or stage; which do you prefer?
A: I love the act of putting words down. I fear speaking out, but I deal with that.
Q: You weren’t born in New Zealand. What made you emigrate?
A: I used to tell people I was New Zealand’s only refugee from Canada.
Q: What is your next project?
A: I write down titles for imaginary books, surreal, rhyming, humorous titles; I’m going to do something with that. I’ve got an underground cartoonist from New York who’s provided some artwork.
Q: You started out writing on film, a film theorist. Why did you not continue on that path?
A: When that presented itself, I was away with the fairies.
Q: You’ve expressed a dislike for academia. Why is that?
A: Only academia in the arts and only for some of the arts. I feel that if you’re creative, just create!
PRAISE FOR THE WRITER’S POETRY
… comic gems.
David Eggleton, former New Zealand Poet Laureate (2019 — 2022)
Hilarious!
Mary Ruefle, American poet and 2020 Pulitzer Prize finalist
I near pissed myself laughing …
Kelly Wilson, Company Director, Phantom Billstickers, Auckland
TWO READINGS