John Gallas

John Edward Gallas FEA (born 11 January 1950) is a New Zealand born poet who in 2016 was the Joint Winner of the Indigo Dreams Pamphlet Prize and the St Magnus International Festival poet.[1][2][3]

John Gallas in 2020

Gallas was born in Wellington in New Zealand[4] and is of Austrian descent, the son of Frederick, né Fritz Eduard Gänzl, an educator, and Nancy Gallas, née Agnes Ada Welsh. He is the younger brother of the historian and writer Kurt Gänzl.[5] He attended the University of Otago in his native New Zealand, and won a Commonwealth Scholarship to Merton College, Oxford to study Medieval English Literature and Old Icelandic[3] and has since lived and worked in York, Liverpool and various other locations as a bottlewasher, archaeologist and teacher. His books are published by Cold Hub Press in New Zealand and by Agraphia in Sweden. The Little Sublime Comedy is his tenth Carcanet Press collection. Gallas is the editor of two books of translations – 52 Euros and The Song Atlas. also published by Carcanet, and the librettist for David Knotts' Toads on a Tapestry, and for Alasdair Nicolson's opera The Iris Murders. His poem 'Cat' was The Guardian's 'Poem of the Week' in December 2014.[1][6]

He is a Fellow of the English Association, won the International Welsh Poetry Competition in 2009, was the Joint Winner of the Indigo Dreams Pamphlet Prize in 2016 and was the St Magnus Festival poet in Orkney in the same year.[1][3]