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Only a Bullet will Stop me Now  

  by Niel Wright

  from his epic THE ALEXANDRIANS

 This book Only a Bullet Will Stop me Now gives Niel Wright’s poems written in 1969. It opens with a courtship poem and closes with a honeymoon poem. A handful of poems are reflective and a few are epigrams. But the bulk of the book consists of two long narrative poems: the shorter one on the typical traditional hero Theseus as a sort of Hamlet in reverse; the longer one a psychological study of a topdressing tragedy on the Canterbury plains in the 1950’s.

 Death of mates is a perennial kiwi theme as in this book. John Lennon was shot in 1980. Did he die that others of us should survive?

 Niel Wright, born in Christchurch in 1933, was a prize winning author at 14 and a Doctor of Philosophy at 40. In the 1960’s he was the most prolific poet of New Zealand, publishing 17 books of his poetry including one in the USA, making up Books 1-30 of his epic poem THE ALEXANDRIANS, now in 2004 reaching to Book 101 and totalling 30,300 lines.

 Niel Wright in the 1960’s redefined English poetry not just in New Zealand but everywhere, and has since remained the underground influence on New Zealand poetry which flourishes in the 21^st century as never before with over 500 poets who have published books since 1990.

Review by Trevor Reeves in Southern Ocean Review

 Neil Wright cannot be accused of ignoring history. The Greeks, Romans, Athenians, Carpathians, you name it. Such a rich heritage that Neil Wright got spurred at an early age to write about; millions of his own lines to celebrate it. Nothing wrong with that. But that doesn't tell you much about this book, does it? Some might recall that the artist's greatest asset is his wastepaper bin. I feel that Wright must have felt 'resistance is futile' when he dragged himself into this mammoth epic. He might say 'somebody had to do it', whereas we might suggest that we would never have missed it! Although there are some entertaining pieces here, much is built around mundane thoughts and clichés - just goes to show that in some respects we haven't learned a lot from the past. Have a read - I figure there's a little of something in here for everyone. I hope I am right. 

TITLE              Only a Bullet Will Stop me Now
AUTHOR         Niel Wright
PUBLISHED    2004
CATEGORY    Poetry
FORMAT         Paperback
EXTENT           A5, 36 pages
ISBN                1-86942-044-6
PRICE              NZ  $5

 Bibliographical Note 
    Half a lifetime after the original publication, this book reprints the 1970 edition of ONLY A BULLET WILL STOP ME NOW less the Appendix and section headings, but the typography has been redesigned. The few changes of wording included in the Definitive Edition but nothing else are made in this edition as well. In the Definitive Edition of my epic poem THE ALEXANDRIANS the material of the 1970 edition of ONLY A BULLET WILL STOP ME NOW appears with some rearrangement across Books 27-31.

The Iron Horse

The horse with the livid
Eye has borne my beloved
Away through the dark forest;
And on without stop for rest
Or refreshment all night maintains
His headlong course through misty mountains.

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