About Gregory O'Brien
Gregory O'Brien, born in Matamata, is a Wellington-based Australian poet, editor and painter. He is one of New Zealand’s most prolific contributors to both arts and literature. His poems and short stories are widely anthologised, and he has published several acclaimed volumes of poetry. He has published many poetry books introducing the country's visual arts to a younger generation, Welcome to the South Seas (AUP, 2004) and Back and Beyond (AUP, 2008), Location of the Least Person (1987), Dunes and Barns (1988), Man with a Child’s Violin (1990) and Flying Wall Cafe (1982) and Sydney Calm Joe (1984). His book of essays on New Zealand arts and letters, After Bathing at Baxter's, appeared in 2002 and was followed by a book-length essay about the antipodes and Southern France, News of the Swimmer Reaches Shore (Carcanet/VUP, 2007). This came out of the period he spent in Menton when his wife, the poet Jenny Bornholdt, was Katherine Mansfield Fellow. O'Brien was a guest at the Poetry International Festival, Rotterdam, in 2005 and his poems were the basis for a range of clothes from Auckland-based fashion designer Doris Du Pont the following year. In 2011 he was one of nine artists invited on an expedition to the remote Kermadec isalands in the south Pacific.Browse all poems and texts published on Gregory O'Brien
