Victor O'Leary was a strong voice in the early 1960s. Geoff Adams, ODT reviewer and former editor, is O'Leary's literary executor. He has collected 143 poems into To Bind A Dream.
Brilliant and brutal would sum up O'Leary's work.
O'Leary studied for the priesthood for a couple of years just after the war before becoming an English teacher.
Before he died in 2008, O'Leary had a moving farewell at the John McGlashan College library.
To Bind A Dream presents a heap of highly personal romantic poems.
O'Leary's spiritual poems look at the dark parts of human nature. Using enormous craft and skill he pens elegies, lyrics and confessions.
An All Black looks back over his life and "The Coins of Love" is a sustained piece of writing involving girls in different settings. O'Leary uses traditional form and style inspired by R.A.K. Mason and W.B. Yeats.
"Modern Miss Muffett":
Little Miss Muffet,
do you remember a time
when a child on a tuffet
gave rise to a nursery rhyme?
Curds and whey are
forgotten now. You have passed
the doll's house, the chocolate bar,
even bible stories, at last.
Yet, when your lips
touch other lips and a lover
rests his eager hands on your hips,
don't you see a shadow hover,
and with a scream
awake from your embrace,
dispel your roseate dream,
flee from the spider of disgrace?
It is wonderful Adams has made the effort to shine a light on one of our old local talents.
O'Leary simply bares his soul in his poems.
His poems are mixed up with affidavits, police reports, court transcripts, a menu and wills.
Poems are delivered with emotion and energy, sounding both thoughtful and shambolic, abstract and well designed.
Many poems invite a staple at the top of the page.
"Hobble":
Although we all know that a man
was arrested and a body lay dead
on the ground and there were a dozen
witnesses seen on the news, it is only an alleged
incident, the announcer said, it hasn't
been in the courts yet. And really,
can anything happen, truly happen,
when there is such suspension
of belief? The rule of law
draws its equator through
our tongues, a piercing hobble
to our normal hemisphere of speech.
Adams explores the role of language as a vessel for truth, an implement of justice.
This is a satisfying first-up effort, a cohesive collection caught up with the law.
• Hamesh Wyatt lives in Bluff. He reads and writes poetry.
