Poetry
And all these words have teeth like hungry rivers - ‘The Blood Aquarium’
Martin’s poetry is available digitally at the Australian Poetry Library website. A selection of his poetry is presented here along with recordings of Martin reading The Blood Aquarium, Letter to Sylvia Plath, The Fly, Gradus Ad Parnassum, The Sea-cucumber, Fault-Line and Spinoza. A new poetry selection, Beautiful Objects, was launched in 2020.
The Typewriter, Considered as a Bee-Trap,
Martin reading from his work
Australian Poets on Tape, Side 2, UQP,1975.
In the Hazel de Berg interview sound recording from 23 June, 1980 (TRC 1/1165-1166) you can hear Martin reading the following poems: Martin reads the following poems: Airport; Biography; The Scattering Layer; Dross; Cave; The House; Spinoza; Letter to Sylvia Plath; The Sea-Cucumber; The Cafe of Situations; Esprit de l’Escalier; and The Homecoming.
To hear this recording, go to the following National Library of Australia link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-610335420/listen
Poetry Collections
shadowmass, Sydney: University of Sydney Arts Society, 1971.
Ithaka: Modern Greek Poetry in Translation, Sydney: Island Press, 1973.
The Sea-Cucumber, St Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 1978.
The Typewriter Considered as a Bee-Trap, Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1984.
Martin Johnston: Selected Poems and Prose, St Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 1993.
Beautiful Objects, Ligature, 2020.
Handwritten copy of ‘Pass by my country’