sometimes the sky isn't big enough: poems Owen Bullock (Steele Roberts, 2010) RRP $20 ISBN 978-1-877448-86-7

Janice Giles

A first collection of Owen Bullock's longer poems, sometimes the sky isn't big enough follows his 2009 selection of haiku, wild chamomile, and is presented in two parts. These seem mainly to represent themes of lost and found, journey and return, with some overlap, and despite references to a Cornish childhood and travels away, his poems are clearly located in New Zealand by place names and other local references.

The first part contains reflections on endings, lovers lost or absent, and childhood memories.  A feeling of restlessness, and noting the child in the man are echoed in poems such as ‘a true come dream'; ‘photograph'; ‘heart in the night' and ‘daylight'. There is hope in these poems, however, and an awareness of transition and pending possibilities.

For example in ‘ample alone':

the field empty but for sound waves,
one man, a child who hadn't found himself -
there's still time on the clock
the future has arrived

Or in ‘the orchard' when the poet observes "the fruit almost ripe."

Some poems in the second part tend towards more abstracted excursions, distant from the simpler life depicted before. Other poems reflect an arrival into ontological acceptance focused through the lens of a life more carefully lived. The sense of stillness and review returns, as in ‘sea-line':

I'm at home in the world
when the estuary's emptied out
and write about a memory
because I can do little else

     Owen Bullock's works have been published widely, both nationally and internationally. Those who know and enjoy Owen's longer poems will be delighted with this collection.

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