Book Five

HETEROPHOLIS

Leicester Kyle

"Bound beneath the heavens in a reptile form"
Blake.

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Contents:

Thesis
(for "Heteropholis" - A Comedy of Form)
[1]

Advertisement
[2]

Apostrophe
[3]
[4]
[5]

My Self
[6]
[7]

My Species
[8]

My Foot
[9]

My Employment
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]

My Mate
[14]
[15]
[16]

A Discourse (with Meditations)
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20]
[21]
[22]

Clouds
(Psalms in Their Praises)
[23]
[24]
[25]
[26]
[27]
[28]
[29]
[30]
[31]

Vision of Paradise
[32]
[33]
[34]

My Caregiver
[35]
[36]

The View
[37]
[38]
[39]
[40]

The Ritual
[41]
[42]

A Peroration
[43]

O Joy of Mystic Ecstasy
[44]

To My Atrophied Wings
(Before I Take To The Wall)

[45]
[46]

13 Hierarchic Names
(and why I left)
[47]
[48]
[49]

Addenda
[50]
[51]

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L. H. Kyle,

8/1 Ruapehu St.
Mt. Eden,
Auckland.

630 9434

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Commentary & References:

Letter to Jack Ross (17/12/02):

... By all means publish Heteropholis, if and when you're able. I sent two other works to Alan Brunton's firm; I've forgotten which ones, but I dare say that doesn't matter, as I have the feeling I shall not hear of them again - Hetero was not one of them. In any case, my main reason for sending them was to quieten my conscience, which it largely did. The whole business of publishing is so alien to this life in Buller that I cringe at the prospect and try not to pursue it.

Hetero is a work I wince at; it is rather too undergraduate for my own taste. It is good fun, witty and original, but the wit conceals rather than reveals, and I feel sensitive about that. My own favourite is probably Wedding at Tintown, but I forgot to do it justice when I had those few copies made. It is based upon an essay by Colenso, The Maori People, published in the Transactions of the Royal N.2. Institute in 1867. In the essay he was very frank, which brought him trouble, and he does not appear again in the publication for some years. Fragments of the essay were meant to illustrate the poem, but I forgot, which is a pity. However, Hetero would probably have a rather wider public appeal, even though the other is of a particular relevance.

[Elsewhere in the letter he says: "My only advantage is the 'romance of the wild', which gives me an uncertain personal cachet, but does not get my work published. my climb will be slow indeed, if I do at all, but I understand all that, and take it for granted." - JR]

Leicester Kyle, Residential: Calliope Rd, Millerton, Ph. (03) 782 8608
Postal: C/O Postal Agency, Ngakawau, Buller, New Zealand.

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© Leicester Kyle, 1998

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Editorial Note

The copytext for the facsimile is my own copy (marked "Master Copy") of Leicester's original photocopied text. The initial copytext for the transcription comes from Microsoft Word files found on the hard-drive of Leicester's computer after his death, emended by reference to the facsimile.

- Jack Ross,
Mairangi Bay, March 2012.

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© Leicester Kyle Literary Estate, 2012

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