Michael Gould

About

In the early Seventies I wrote Surrealism and the Cinema. Neither conventionally academic nor commercially oriented — downright iconoclastic it was — it found a place in university film courses and libraries.

The book resulted from years of film viewing, film making, programming films and reviewing films. My first substantial writing, it was picked up by one of the major film book publishers of the day. I was awarded a Canada Council award, and lectured on surrealism and film at universities and art institutes in Canada and New Zealand. Then I changed direction.

My love of  words, imagery and surrealism morphed into the writing of short poetry and imaginary absurdist titles.  I imagined the titles would be for the books I would write one day; many thousands of titles later I have yet to write them. I find the brevity of titles much more amusing! Aardvarks after Dark (currently seeking a publisher) is a collection of a thousand of my best titles.

I am happy about the return of rhyme and alliteration to contemporary poetry (mostly seen in slam poetry) and I use these devices, along with surreal juxtaposition, in my poems. In 2021 I was awarded by the New Zealand Society of Authors (NZ is where I live) as an emerging poet of note. My poems have been published in journals, both academic and commercial, in New Zealand, Australia and England.