Experimental

His fiction is uncompromisingly
experimental
his book Ghost Stories

may well be his most accessible
I was a bit disconcerted
to find that

‘uncompromisingly experimental’
line in my publisher’s write-up
on Facebook

tired of airport books?
bored by Tom Clancy and Dan Brown?
wearied by puerile web sites?

seeking a challenge? try a “novel”
by Dr Jack Ross
said Michael Morrissey

a few years further back
à propos of
The Imaginary Museum of Atlantis

it’s hard to remember
why I felt it so necessary
to print half the pages upside down

it certainly caused pain
to the printers
who had to redo the whole first run

I suppose it was just
that the first time I picked up
a book

with half its pages
in Farsi
hand-drawn dream maps

and diagrams of the compound
where the ‘action’
was feigned to take place

it gave me a kick
like I just can’t describe
after that

texts within texts
print windows
surrounded by pictures

concrete poems imbedded
like plums
in Jack Horner’s pie

were all that attracted me
but passion dies
and the puritan fervour falls away

till you find yourself
left-siding everything
because you’re so much more interested

in what you’re saying
than how to say it
and the need for such scaffolding

seems lost like left luggage
in an old train station
where the ghosts of ambition

have gone to rest

Jack Ross

Jack Ross is the author of six poetry collections, four novels, and four books of short fiction. His latest book of short stories, Haunts, is due out from Lasavia Publishing later this year. He lives with his wife, crafter and art-writer Bronwyn Lloyd, on Auckland’s North Shore, and blogs here. https://mairangibay.blogspot.com/