New Zealand Writers
O'BRIEN, Gregory
O’Brien’s writing is about other ways of seeing, and has been variously described as ‘surreal’ and ‘magical realist’.
Author entry from The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, edited by Roger Robinson and Nelson Wattie (1998). About the Companion entries View list of Companion contributors
O’BRIEN, Gregory (1961– ), is a poet, painter and editor.
Born in Matamata, he trained as a journalist in Auckland and worked as a newspaper reporter in Northland before returning to study art history and English at Auckland University (BA 1984). Apart from two years working as arts editor of the TV3 arts programme ‘The Edge’ (1993–94), he has written and painted full-time since 1984, first in Auckland, then in Wellington, where he still lives. He held the Sargeson Fellowship in 1988 and was writing fellow at Victoria University in 1995.
O’Brien’s literary output is prolific. His poems have appeared regularly in most New Zealand literary journals (including *Islands, *Landfall and *Sport) since the mid-1980s, and in Australia (*Meanjin, Scripsi), Canada and Britain. His first major collection of poems and drawings, Location of the Least Person (opening with the ‘Old Man South Road’ sequence), was published in Auckland in 1987, followed by the smaller Dunes and Barns (1988). Man with a Child’s Violin (1990) comprised three earlier verse sequences, ‘Flying Wall Cafe’ (1982), ‘Sydney Calm Joe’ (1984) and ‘Entitled’ (1986). His next major collection of recent poems and drawings was Great Lake (Sydney, 1991), followed by Malachi, a charming verse novella (Adelaide, 1993). The collection Days Beside Water, which includes the historical verse sequences ‘Marsden at Matapouri’ and ‘The Milk Horse’ (about Mother Mary Aubert) and the wonderful imagined life of the sixteenth-century Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi, was published in Auckland in 1993, and in Britain by Carcanet in 1994. Two further collections are in preparation. O’Brien has also published short fiction in New Zealand and Australia, and a picaresque novel with illustrations, Diesel Mystic (1989), which attempts to overlay various heightened emotional, spiritual and imaginative landscapes onto an unassuming stretch of countryside between Dargaville and Ruawai in Northland.
O’Brien’s writing is about other ways of seeing, and has been variously described as ‘surreal’ and ‘magical realist’. It both explores and embodies the mystery of creation present equally in the physical, animate world and in human artistic invention. It draws heavily on the Western cultural heritage, and in particular on the images and sounds of traditional Catholicism, yet fuses these with identifiable local references—to people, especially earlier writers and artists (James K. *Baxter is a significant influence), places, objects and events. Highly original, O’Brien’s language is constantly surprising and often witty or poignant in its leaps of association and mood; not least among its many paradoxes is a lyrical quality grounded in the rhythms and vocabulary of ordinary speech.
O’Brien’s unique iconography incorporates elements of personal, public and religious history, graphically portrayed in his paintings and drawings, many of which illuminate his books. As an artist, he has held solo exhibitions and participated in group shows in Auckland and Wellington, and has illustrated the work of other New Zealand writers as well as designing covers.
Among O’Brien’s other work is a collection of interviews with twenty-one New Zealand writers, Moments of Invention (1988, with photographs by Robert Cross), a monograph on the painter Nigel Brown (1991), and a collection of profiles of New Zealand painters, Land and Deeds (1996). He was founder editor of the deliberately short-lived literary quarterly Rambling Jack in 1986–87, and editor of Sport 15 in 1995; Sport 11 included ‘After Bathing at Baxter’s’, an essay/journal describing the influence of Baxter on younger New Zealand poets. With his partner, poet Jenny *Bornholdt, he edited a collection of New Zealand love poems, My Heart Goes Swimming (1996), and co-edited, with Bornholdt and Mark *Williams, An Anthology of New Zealand Poetry in English (Oxford University Press, 1997).
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O'Brien's latest collection of poetry is Winter I Was (Victoria University Press, 1999). The poems in Winter I Was are explorations of arrival and departure. Moving from the celebratory to the elegaic, this book includes a few journeys the length of New Zealand, some mediations on home and a series of love poems. (From cover blurb.)
After Bathing At Baxter's, 2002 is O'Brien's personal exploration of some of the important New Zealand poets and painters of the 20th Century, beginning - as the title suggests - with James K. Baxter.
Welcome to the South Seas: Contemporary New Zealand Art for Young People (AUP, 2004) is a vivid introduction to contemporary New Zealand art and a lesson in how to engage with art. Over 45 artists are discussed and colourfully represented by at least one piece of their work.
Welcome to the South Seas won the Non Fiction Category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2005. It was highly commended in the Best Book, Best Cover and Best Typography categories of the Spectrum Print Book Design Awards 2005.
Welcome to the South Seas won The Elsie Locke Award at the LIANZA Children's Book Awards 2005. The judges said: “Beautifully designed and presented Welcome to the South Seas is an outstanding introduction to a great range of New Zealand art and artists. It asks deep philosophical questions about the nature of art in ways that successfully reach young readers; the text is full of insights guiding rather than leading the reader.”
O'Brien's latest poetry collection is Afternoon of an Evening Train (Victoria University Press, 2005).
The Colour of Distance New Zealand Writers in France, French Writers in New Zealand was published in 2005 by Victoria University Press and co-edited by Jenny Bornholdt.
News of the Swimmer Reaches Shore (Victoria University Press, 2007) is a travel book, an autobiographical novel and free-floating meditation on Europe and the Antipodes. It introduces a cast of underwater characters including Jacques Cousteau, the French secret service agent Dominique Prieur, Henri Matisse and the naked river-swimming nineteenth-century nun Mother Aubert. Modernism, the politics of French nuclear testing, swimming, drowning and underwater explosions are twined together with the life of a family in an innovative and engaging exploration by one of New Zealand’s most celebrated writers.
A Nest of Singing Birds (Learning Media, 2007) was edited and compiled by O'Brien.
Back and Beyond: New Zealand Painting for the Young and Curious (Auckland University Press, 2008) is an introduction to art galleries around the country and the treasures they hold. A companion-piece for Welcome to the South Seas: Contemporary New Zealand Art for Young People.
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