In an ongoing series, The Lumičre Reader asks a diverse range of writers and readers about the book that got them into books.

GREGORY O’BRIEN: The ‘books that got me into books’ got me into thinking about a great many other things as well. I’ve always been drawn to books by people who work in other disciplines: notable among them, French composer Erik Satie’s A Mammal’s Notebook (a surreal assemblage of minor brilliances), the sculptor Jean (Hans) Arp’s Collected Writings in French and Paul Klee’s The Thinking Eye.

Andrey Tarkovsky’s study of film-making Sculpting in Time is a glorious handbook to creative making of any kind. American composer John Cage’s Silence and A Year From Monday have been, for years now, similarly useful models for a creative living, generally. As much about literature as it is about music, Cage’s writing also opened my eyes/ear/mind to Zen Buddhism, the study of mushrooms, abstract expressionism and the ways in which writing can function as a form of ‘composition’ in a visual and musical as well as a literary sense.

I fell in love with the literary essay as a form through American poet and Jargon Society publisher, Jonathan Williams’ collection, The Magpie’s Bagpipe. Poetry first arrived in the form of James K. Baxter’s Jerusalem Sonnets and other (agreeably) slim volumes, among them Hone Tuwhare’s two collections Something Nothing (magnificently illustrated by Robin White) and Sapwood and Milk (with Hotere’s watercolour designs). In a world of large tomes and productions that make far too much noise and take up far too much room, I remain entranced by the slim collection of poetry, readable in one sitting: among recent highlights of the genre are Geoff Cochran’s Hypnic Jerks, Bill Manhire’s Lifted, Paula Green’s Crosswind, Michele Amas’s After the Dance and Abandoned Novel by David Beach. Flann O’Brien’s novel The Poor Mouth changed my life (as any good book should), and Dylan Horrock’s terrific Hicksville introduced me to the genre of graphic novels. Those are some of the books that ‘got me into books’ and that keep me into them. Otherwise I’d get into something else.

Gregory O’Brien is a Wellington poet.