Fisher, Allen; The Art of Flight VI to IX; Poster poem ISBN 0 86162 297 9 December 1981 reissued March 2007; £3.00 + £2.00 (p & p for UK
Sumner, Alaric et al; Shatter; edited by Lawrence Upton; 16 pp; A5 portrait; March 2007; ISBN 978-1-84254-388-1; £2.00 + £0.80 (p & p for UK)
Sunday, 1 April 2007
NEW WRITERS FORUM WEBSITE
We have had a generous offer of server space for a new WF website (covering press and workshop) and that website is in production. In the meantime no further updates will be made to the existing website and all news will be posted at the blogs and on this newsletter.
Launch introduction to “Shatter” by Alaric Sumner et al
Sumner, Alaric et al; Shatter; edited by Lawrence Upton; 16 pp; A5 portrait; March 2007; ISBN 978-1-84254-388-1; £2.00 + £0.80 (p & p for UK)
Shatter is the script for a performance by the group PresentImperfect at the Pleasance in Edinburgh in August 1994 as part of that year’s Fringe: the group made, by my count, twenty one performances. The text is taken from a handout (A4, stapled at the top left-hand corner) apparently available at the performance. Obvious typos have been corrected silently; but otherwise it is unaltered.
It was written by Alaric Sumner with Richard Talbot and others in the group. Talbot’s contributions are shaded in this edition. In the original handout, the typeface changed.
For Sumner, this project came at the end of a period of immense personal aesthetic output, in terms of quantity, which would lead on to what I see as an aesthetic renewal; although saying it like that simplifies the matter far more than is desirable. I need a little more detail.
For the academic year 1993 / 1994, he based himself at the University of Leeds, living in “Sentinel Towers”, where he took a taught M.A. in Theatre Studies. The University had accepted him as a Masters student although he did not have a first degree.
I say that he was based at the University, but his diary and other papers show him going to many concerts, performances and exhibitions in the area in general, as well as visiting London events quite often.
At the end of his course, not only did he write and co-direct his own coursework piece Marks in a landscape, but he provided at least one script for a fellow student; and from that, because it was acknowledged publicly, it seems probable that what he submitted as his coursework was more than was required of him. There are boxes of it.
It seems to me that, during that academic year, his confidence in himself as a writer increased greatly, countering an uncertainty and hesitancy which went back many years.
In the spring of 1994, his Voices (for 9) was produced at Royal Court, as part of Barclays New Stages, but it is worth remembering that Voices (for 9) had been written five or six years before, probably being finished in 1988: the score, as published in 2004 by Writers Forum, had been typeset, after working hours, at his London employers, well before his move to Cornwall.
After that move, , he engaged upon the major endeavour of the diary which lies at the heart of Waves on Porthmeor Beach, still – ridiculously! - out of print, and also made a number of new poems. Some of those poems were published in magazines; and I have salvaged others. However, in the early years of the 1990s, a great deal of his mental energy was directed towards visual arts.
At some point, he set up a studio in St Ives, in his garden, and apparently used it to put himself through a range of graphical experiments and exercises of his own devising, as if he were trying to teach himself technique at high speed – figurative and abstract painting and drawing, collage, engraving, monotyping, linocut.
Some of these exercise pieces were rather accomplished.
The never-finished Plans for the New Architecture, which I now think was started in 1978 approximately, had graphical elements from the beginning and was first prepared for public view as a poster in the early 1980s. A print of that poster was exhibited at the Sumner exhibition at CPT in 2004.
He studied photography in the mid 1980s, partly to increase his range of skills in image-making; and he submitted to the Whitechapel in the late 1980s.
He owned many art books, catalogues and exhibition posters. So the desire to be a graphic artist was always there.
The move to Penwith seems to have increased his commitment to that potential career.
In St Ives, he was taken seriously as a graphic artist by a number of curators; and some of you will remember works from the early 1990s, which had been exhibited then, on show again at CPT in 2004.
As well as that commitment, we may also detect in some statements a great regret for what he saw as time wasted in the past; and that extended in some ways to his perception of his whole life!
He had been an actor of some accomplishment in his last years at school, playing Mosca to acclaim. He was an ASM at Nottingham for a year; but, for whatever reason, nothing came of that directly.
Then he studied at East 16 acting school. He didn’t do very well in terms of assessment, not submitting course work. Not that he was lazy. There are relatively detailed working accounts for various gay organisations and projects for when he was arranging printing of posters; collecting gates; paying people for work completed; and so on. And he worked to get money, but not as an actor, presenting himself as an out-of-work actor both to himself and others. It wasn’t untrue.
It is not surprising that, when he decided to get himself higher education, both for his own mental acuity and for his curriculum vitae, he chose Theatre as his subject.
That experience, which included great encouragement from his tutors, led to the boost in his faith in himself, not just as a dramatist but as a writer in general; so that he felt able to show Voices (for 9). And that is also a considerable tribute to his tutors; anecdotal evidence suggests they thought very highly of him.
And the response to Voices (for 9) increased his self-esteem considerably, and led on to the need to write more for follow ups!
On the other hand, it wasn’t all good news. He had paid for Leeds himself and needed income. In June 1994, he applied unsuccessfully to be a part time lecturer at Dartington College of Arts
While he would have been in Edinburgh, SoHo Theatre rejected him for the job of literary manager; and the central school of speech and drama as a part time lecturer
He applied to be writer in residence in prisons; and arts centres; and theatres; UEA and University College, Galway; to be an assistant in a literary agency; to work in the BBC, reading scripts; and to be a lecturer at King Alfred’s College, University of Huddersfield, University of Stirling; University of Plymouth, Newcastle College, University of Wolverhampton; South Devon College; St Mark and St Johns; South East Essex College, University of Manchester.
He applied to be one of a team of multi-media experts, as well as trying for a training course for the unemployed in computer graphics for television
And so on… He may have been a little worried about his financial future even as he felt better than ever about himself as an artist. And it seems to me that he came to the realistic conclusion that without a better artistic c.v. or more experience as a lecturer, he would render himself unemployable, being seen simultaneously as overqualified and inexperienced for anything he might want to do.
Initially his renewed energy manifested itself in a return to what is now called Conversation in colour, a version of which was known to his peers in Leeds; and the original goes back to the 1980s.
I suggest that all that I have mentioned gave him the resources and enthusiasm to do something with what we know as Waves on Porthmeor Beach, when the blossoming of his friendship with Sandra Blow and the opening of the Tate St Ives’ exhibition Porthmeor Beach: A century of images coincided.
The core of Waves on Porthmeor Beach had been written through 8 months of 1991 ( between 29 January 1991 and 21 October 1991) and hardly needed rewriting; but to that he added a commentary on the diary plus the drawings by Sandra plus his commentary on the drawings.
The book was published in 1995, a bit over a year after the production of Voices (for 9), to be followed a year later by a production of Conversation in colour.
Three accomplished pieces in three years, each piece quite different to the others.
And, after that, it was largely new work: The Unspeakable Rooms, Nekyia, Text out of image, Bucking Curtains and LETTERS for dear AUGUSTINE.
Thus, Shatter is interesting not least for when it happened, as part of a fulcrum of experience of success.
I did not see the performance, being occupied in a very large improvised performance of my ex-partner’s; but Alaric always seemed positive to me about having been in the Edinburgh Fringe, though he never counted the writing itself as an equal achievement to the other writings I have referred to.
PresentImperfect was five people; but only three of them performed in Shatter, leaving the director free to direct and the writer to write, though the other writer, Richard Talbot, did perform; and the actors were encouraged to negotiate what was written… it seems that all of them took part in negotiation of the text, but that the two were designated as responsible for the actual writing!
However it was that he did not go on stage at the Pleasance, it does, I believe, reflect one of the major ways he saw himself. While there may well be other factors of which I am unaware, we can see Alaric defining himself neither as director nor actor but as writer, the writer for the theatre, for others to interpret and produce. That was his role in Voices (for 9) where the offer of production included the services of Roxana Silbert as director. That was the role he seems to have insisted on in The Unspeakable Rooms
He did act in the first performance of Conversation in colour and seemingly relished the task, though ambiguously.
That Shatter was, we are told, created by negotiation might be his creation of the writer as part of a team rather than, for instance, self-expressionist.
In a job application written in the months after Shatter, Sumner spoke of “rewriting during rehearsal” by making “rapid assessments” of what had been written.
He went on to speak of “co-operating with a group to create a dramatic work as well as my own writing” which might be taken to suggest that he saw himself as outside of the group to some extent, and that is readily believable; and it also suggests that he did not quite see the piece as part of his own writing.
One of the techniques he used often is the co-option of material found in others’ writing:
“The reconfigurations in turbulent liquids are similar to the re-patterning of desire in individuals as they recombine in different groupings. This group may approach the Winter Palace dragging a dead horse... that group may converge on Cable Street, carrying bags of marbles to dislodge the fascist-supporting police officers from their mounts... other groups may amass in wasteland outside the boundaries of Warrington Industrial Estate or in the streets of London's East End outside News International's Wapping site, with few symbols, no weapons. Though each of these reconfigurations may fail to produce a through-line of purpose, a resolution into an objective that we may hold on to, does that mean their desires, their aims and their passions are without value? Surely all of us believe that the struggle for our desires is of greater value than the achievement of those desires?”
Shatter wasn’t the first time he had used it by any means, but I think I see him beginning to push the technique in a new direction here, making the narrative line more ambiguous, compared for instance to its use in Voices (for 9).
He also cannibalised his previous unpublished writing. Antje’s speech “I am moving at speed while standing still” was probably written some time before, and was probably unfinished at the time it was incorporated into Shatter.
Quite what happened during the negotiation process, I do not know. My attempts to contact the others have not succeeded. Did the final text arise from discussion with everyone throwing in ideas?
However it may have been, some of the images (e.g. the armchair, and the gravel) are extended elaborately; and ideas are played with wittily:
Antje: I am certain language lies.
Nic: You can’t use language to make things certain
At the same time, some of the writing seems quite ragged and unfinished.
If one sees the writing process as an extension of what the five had been doing at University of Leeds, it is also the first surviving kind of some other performance pieces that Sumner would write later, such as error studies and Portraits and also presages his work with Ken Turner’s General Specific.
I think particularly here of Memory without past which General Specific presented at Penzance Arts Club on 18th March 1995 where Rory McDermott incorporated a speech from Sumner’s “Conversation in colour” into his contribution to Turner’s piece. Both error studies and Portraits and Memory without past involve simultaneous performance of heterogeneous plagiarised materials put together by more than one person.
It would be nice to know if Shatter changed at all from performance to performance either in text or choreography.
I think the ambiguous administration of the piece’s development probably prevented it from being more than it is. I am not going to tell you this is a great piece of writing in order to sell it; but it is pretty interesting, especially for those of us interested in this writer over all. Shatter offers insights into Sumner’s working methods; into the development of his career and enthusiasm within it; and, potentially, into collaborative writing experimentation in general. It is fascinating seen against Waves… and Voices… and I admire the imaginative courage with which he tried repeatedly to head off in a new direction rather than trying to reproduce methods that had already succeeded
[The making of Waves on Porthmeor Beach and the place of the diary within it are analysed in my paper “Some initial responses, after 10 years reading, to Waves on Porthmeor Beach by Alaric Sumner” being published in two parts by Pores magazine
Copyright (c) Lawrence Upton 2007,
Writers Forum Workshop 31st March 2007
Shatter is the script for a performance by the group PresentImperfect at the Pleasance in Edinburgh in August 1994 as part of that year’s Fringe: the group made, by my count, twenty one performances. The text is taken from a handout (A4, stapled at the top left-hand corner) apparently available at the performance. Obvious typos have been corrected silently; but otherwise it is unaltered.
It was written by Alaric Sumner with Richard Talbot and others in the group. Talbot’s contributions are shaded in this edition. In the original handout, the typeface changed.
For Sumner, this project came at the end of a period of immense personal aesthetic output, in terms of quantity, which would lead on to what I see as an aesthetic renewal; although saying it like that simplifies the matter far more than is desirable. I need a little more detail.
For the academic year 1993 / 1994, he based himself at the University of Leeds, living in “Sentinel Towers”, where he took a taught M.A. in Theatre Studies. The University had accepted him as a Masters student although he did not have a first degree.
I say that he was based at the University, but his diary and other papers show him going to many concerts, performances and exhibitions in the area in general, as well as visiting London events quite often.
At the end of his course, not only did he write and co-direct his own coursework piece Marks in a landscape, but he provided at least one script for a fellow student; and from that, because it was acknowledged publicly, it seems probable that what he submitted as his coursework was more than was required of him. There are boxes of it.
It seems to me that, during that academic year, his confidence in himself as a writer increased greatly, countering an uncertainty and hesitancy which went back many years.
In the spring of 1994, his Voices (for 9) was produced at Royal Court, as part of Barclays New Stages, but it is worth remembering that Voices (for 9) had been written five or six years before, probably being finished in 1988: the score, as published in 2004 by Writers Forum, had been typeset, after working hours, at his London employers, well before his move to Cornwall.
After that move, , he engaged upon the major endeavour of the diary which lies at the heart of Waves on Porthmeor Beach, still – ridiculously! - out of print, and also made a number of new poems. Some of those poems were published in magazines; and I have salvaged others. However, in the early years of the 1990s, a great deal of his mental energy was directed towards visual arts.
At some point, he set up a studio in St Ives, in his garden, and apparently used it to put himself through a range of graphical experiments and exercises of his own devising, as if he were trying to teach himself technique at high speed – figurative and abstract painting and drawing, collage, engraving, monotyping, linocut.
Some of these exercise pieces were rather accomplished.
The never-finished Plans for the New Architecture, which I now think was started in 1978 approximately, had graphical elements from the beginning and was first prepared for public view as a poster in the early 1980s. A print of that poster was exhibited at the Sumner exhibition at CPT in 2004.
He studied photography in the mid 1980s, partly to increase his range of skills in image-making; and he submitted to the Whitechapel in the late 1980s.
He owned many art books, catalogues and exhibition posters. So the desire to be a graphic artist was always there.
The move to Penwith seems to have increased his commitment to that potential career.
In St Ives, he was taken seriously as a graphic artist by a number of curators; and some of you will remember works from the early 1990s, which had been exhibited then, on show again at CPT in 2004.
As well as that commitment, we may also detect in some statements a great regret for what he saw as time wasted in the past; and that extended in some ways to his perception of his whole life!
He had been an actor of some accomplishment in his last years at school, playing Mosca to acclaim. He was an ASM at Nottingham for a year; but, for whatever reason, nothing came of that directly.
Then he studied at East 16 acting school. He didn’t do very well in terms of assessment, not submitting course work. Not that he was lazy. There are relatively detailed working accounts for various gay organisations and projects for when he was arranging printing of posters; collecting gates; paying people for work completed; and so on. And he worked to get money, but not as an actor, presenting himself as an out-of-work actor both to himself and others. It wasn’t untrue.
It is not surprising that, when he decided to get himself higher education, both for his own mental acuity and for his curriculum vitae, he chose Theatre as his subject.
That experience, which included great encouragement from his tutors, led to the boost in his faith in himself, not just as a dramatist but as a writer in general; so that he felt able to show Voices (for 9). And that is also a considerable tribute to his tutors; anecdotal evidence suggests they thought very highly of him.
And the response to Voices (for 9) increased his self-esteem considerably, and led on to the need to write more for follow ups!
On the other hand, it wasn’t all good news. He had paid for Leeds himself and needed income. In June 1994, he applied unsuccessfully to be a part time lecturer at Dartington College of Arts
While he would have been in Edinburgh, SoHo Theatre rejected him for the job of literary manager; and the central school of speech and drama as a part time lecturer
He applied to be writer in residence in prisons; and arts centres; and theatres; UEA and University College, Galway; to be an assistant in a literary agency; to work in the BBC, reading scripts; and to be a lecturer at King Alfred’s College, University of Huddersfield, University of Stirling; University of Plymouth, Newcastle College, University of Wolverhampton; South Devon College; St Mark and St Johns; South East Essex College, University of Manchester.
He applied to be one of a team of multi-media experts, as well as trying for a training course for the unemployed in computer graphics for television
And so on… He may have been a little worried about his financial future even as he felt better than ever about himself as an artist. And it seems to me that he came to the realistic conclusion that without a better artistic c.v. or more experience as a lecturer, he would render himself unemployable, being seen simultaneously as overqualified and inexperienced for anything he might want to do.
Initially his renewed energy manifested itself in a return to what is now called Conversation in colour, a version of which was known to his peers in Leeds; and the original goes back to the 1980s.
I suggest that all that I have mentioned gave him the resources and enthusiasm to do something with what we know as Waves on Porthmeor Beach, when the blossoming of his friendship with Sandra Blow and the opening of the Tate St Ives’ exhibition Porthmeor Beach: A century of images coincided.
The core of Waves on Porthmeor Beach had been written through 8 months of 1991 ( between 29 January 1991 and 21 October 1991) and hardly needed rewriting; but to that he added a commentary on the diary plus the drawings by Sandra plus his commentary on the drawings.
The book was published in 1995, a bit over a year after the production of Voices (for 9), to be followed a year later by a production of Conversation in colour.
Three accomplished pieces in three years, each piece quite different to the others.
And, after that, it was largely new work: The Unspeakable Rooms, Nekyia, Text out of image, Bucking Curtains and LETTERS for dear AUGUSTINE.
Thus, Shatter is interesting not least for when it happened, as part of a fulcrum of experience of success.
I did not see the performance, being occupied in a very large improvised performance of my ex-partner’s; but Alaric always seemed positive to me about having been in the Edinburgh Fringe, though he never counted the writing itself as an equal achievement to the other writings I have referred to.
PresentImperfect was five people; but only three of them performed in Shatter, leaving the director free to direct and the writer to write, though the other writer, Richard Talbot, did perform; and the actors were encouraged to negotiate what was written… it seems that all of them took part in negotiation of the text, but that the two were designated as responsible for the actual writing!
However it was that he did not go on stage at the Pleasance, it does, I believe, reflect one of the major ways he saw himself. While there may well be other factors of which I am unaware, we can see Alaric defining himself neither as director nor actor but as writer, the writer for the theatre, for others to interpret and produce. That was his role in Voices (for 9) where the offer of production included the services of Roxana Silbert as director. That was the role he seems to have insisted on in The Unspeakable Rooms
He did act in the first performance of Conversation in colour and seemingly relished the task, though ambiguously.
That Shatter was, we are told, created by negotiation might be his creation of the writer as part of a team rather than, for instance, self-expressionist.
In a job application written in the months after Shatter, Sumner spoke of “rewriting during rehearsal” by making “rapid assessments” of what had been written.
He went on to speak of “co-operating with a group to create a dramatic work as well as my own writing” which might be taken to suggest that he saw himself as outside of the group to some extent, and that is readily believable; and it also suggests that he did not quite see the piece as part of his own writing.
One of the techniques he used often is the co-option of material found in others’ writing:
“The reconfigurations in turbulent liquids are similar to the re-patterning of desire in individuals as they recombine in different groupings. This group may approach the Winter Palace dragging a dead horse... that group may converge on Cable Street, carrying bags of marbles to dislodge the fascist-supporting police officers from their mounts... other groups may amass in wasteland outside the boundaries of Warrington Industrial Estate or in the streets of London's East End outside News International's Wapping site, with few symbols, no weapons. Though each of these reconfigurations may fail to produce a through-line of purpose, a resolution into an objective that we may hold on to, does that mean their desires, their aims and their passions are without value? Surely all of us believe that the struggle for our desires is of greater value than the achievement of those desires?”
Shatter wasn’t the first time he had used it by any means, but I think I see him beginning to push the technique in a new direction here, making the narrative line more ambiguous, compared for instance to its use in Voices (for 9).
He also cannibalised his previous unpublished writing. Antje’s speech “I am moving at speed while standing still” was probably written some time before, and was probably unfinished at the time it was incorporated into Shatter.
Quite what happened during the negotiation process, I do not know. My attempts to contact the others have not succeeded. Did the final text arise from discussion with everyone throwing in ideas?
However it may have been, some of the images (e.g. the armchair, and the gravel) are extended elaborately; and ideas are played with wittily:
Antje: I am certain language lies.
Nic: You can’t use language to make things certain
At the same time, some of the writing seems quite ragged and unfinished.
If one sees the writing process as an extension of what the five had been doing at University of Leeds, it is also the first surviving kind of some other performance pieces that Sumner would write later, such as error studies and Portraits and also presages his work with Ken Turner’s General Specific.
I think particularly here of Memory without past which General Specific presented at Penzance Arts Club on 18th March 1995 where Rory McDermott incorporated a speech from Sumner’s “Conversation in colour” into his contribution to Turner’s piece. Both error studies and Portraits and Memory without past involve simultaneous performance of heterogeneous plagiarised materials put together by more than one person.
It would be nice to know if Shatter changed at all from performance to performance either in text or choreography.
I think the ambiguous administration of the piece’s development probably prevented it from being more than it is. I am not going to tell you this is a great piece of writing in order to sell it; but it is pretty interesting, especially for those of us interested in this writer over all. Shatter offers insights into Sumner’s working methods; into the development of his career and enthusiasm within it; and, potentially, into collaborative writing experimentation in general. It is fascinating seen against Waves… and Voices… and I admire the imaginative courage with which he tried repeatedly to head off in a new direction rather than trying to reproduce methods that had already succeeded
[The making of Waves on Porthmeor Beach and the place of the diary within it are analysed in my paper “Some initial responses, after 10 years reading, to Waves on Porthmeor Beach by Alaric Sumner” being published in two parts by Pores magazine
Copyright (c) Lawrence Upton 2007,
Writers Forum Workshop 31st March 2007
Saturday, 17 March 2007
Submissions to WF Publications
SUBMISSIONS to Writers Forum Publications
Please send, with s.a.e. / i.r.c., to Writers Forum, 32 Downside Road, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5HP
All the usual warnings, including about keeping a copy of whatever you send, apply.
Please do not send anything by email without checking with us first. (And if you pass on this item to anyone, please make sure they are aware of our editorial policy...)
Please send, with s.a.e. / i.r.c., to Writers Forum, 32 Downside Road, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5HP
All the usual warnings, including about keeping a copy of whatever you send, apply.
Please do not send anything by email without checking with us first. (And if you pass on this item to anyone, please make sure they are aware of our editorial policy...)
Tuesday, 13 February 2007
WF Info Tuesday, 13 February 2007
It is hoped that everything in this newsletter is of interest and use to you; but PLEASE PAY PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO THE FIRST TWO ITEMS
1 GUEST POET
From time to time, we invite a guest poet to join us. For instance, the Canadian poets Rob MacLennan and Stephen Brockwell joined us on 23rd September 2006.
We are now very pleased to tell you that our invited guest poet for 26th May 2007 will be Allen Fisher.
2 PLEASE NOTE VENUE CHANGE
Our venue is changing, with immediate effect, to
The Betsey Trotwood
56 Farringdon Road
EC1R 3BL
We meet there on Saturday 17th March 2007. (We have no more meetings at Torriano Meeting House.)
Some may remember our workshops at The Betsey Trotwood a few years ago. Now it has a new management and one that seemingly wishes us well: they invited us back.
Our thanks to John and Susan at Torriano. They helped us just when we needed it and have been very kind to us all. There are considerable regrets at changing our venue.
3a. Next meeting
Writers Forum Workshop meets at The Betsey Trotwood on Saturday 17th March 2007. Meet at 3.30 for 4, as usual.
3b.Venue
The Betsey Trotwood
56 Farringdon Road
EC1R 3BL
Underground: Farringdon (Out of the station, turn right and right again at Farringdon Road
Overground: Farringdon – NB All trains on the Brighton-Luton line in both directions stop there, or always have, and can be a good alternative to other routes. The underground and overground stations are one thing, spread over 4 platforms.
Bus: It is believed that the only bus running down Farringdon Road is # 63; but remember that many other buses go past Mount Pleasant; and that it isn’t that far – for the fit and well - to walk downhill from there to The Betsey, though of course it is uphill on the way back. For instance, one can get a frequent bus to Mount Pleasant at The Angel, from just outside the tube station.
The Betsey Trotwood is opposite The Guardian newspaper. It is on the end of a little island of buildings. The beer is Shepherd Neame.
4. THE SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS
Saturday 17-Mar-07
Saturday 31-Mar-07
Saturday 28-Apr-07
Saturday 26-May-07 Invited guest poet Allen Fisher
Saturday 9-Jun-07
Saturday 30-Jun-07
Saturday 21-Jul-07
5 Meetings
Meetings are scheduled to start at 4 p.m.. That is after a 30 minute period of gathering together. We gather from 3.30 p.m; so please aim to arrive before 4 p.m..You can take drinks into the room.
We have agreed that we shall buy from the bar any drinks we consume on the premises. There will be a 10 minute break about half way through.
PLEASE NOTE: The terms of the agreement with The Betsey Trotwood management are good. Implicit is our acknowledgement that their business is selling drink; so PLEASE don’t turn up with carry outs…
6. WEBSITE
We have had a generous offer of server space for a new WF website (covering press and workshop) and that website is in production. In the meantime no further updates will be made to the existing website and all news will be posted at the blogs and on this newsletter.
7. REISSUED PUBLICATIONS (3rd February 2007)
Cobbing, Bob; Lightsong 2; ISBN 978 0 86162 330 3; 6pp small format in an envelope; December 1983 reissued February 2007
£3.00 + £1 (p & p UK)
Houédard, Dom Sylvester with Cobbing, Bob & Mayer, Peter (editors); Kroklok # 3; 32pp, A4 portrait. Feature: Speech as Mime or Gesture (with examples) by Peter Mayer; poems by Christian Morgenstcrn, Ernst Jandl, Peter Finch, Jeremy Adler, Michael Chant, Peter Greenham, Brion Gysin, Ilya Zdanevich, Helmut Hcissenbuttel, Bob Cobbing, August Stramm (introduction to Stramm by Jeremy Adler). Notes by Bob Cobbing. ISBN 978-0-86162-076-0. December 1972, reissued February 2007
£3.00 + £1 (p & p UK)
Introductory comments on the reissues are posted at the blog.
The reissue programme will continue. New titles are on their way, too.
8. THE FUTURE
The disruptions of the last year, caused by the old CPT management and The Plough management, have taken their toll and it has fed back; and numbers attending have dropped and arrival time has slipped. With the move, and then the new website, we hope to return to stability and productive interaction. To that end, we hope that people will attend regularly. It really does make a difference. But an attendance is welcome.
So those who have been saying “I shall go one day” or “I shall go back one day” are encouraged to attend. Try to bring someone with you!
From now on, it should be relatively easy to get to the workshop because the new venue is more accessible than the old to public transport. The arrival period of 3.30 p.m. to 4 p.m. enables us to turn up and have a drink while we all arrive; so that we can start together. It is a communal activity.
Sometimes none of us can avoid being late; but we do urge you to aim for 3.30 until you are used to the journey; and we urge you always to allow time for believable transport delays…. So that you are there on time whenever possible. It can be done most of the time.Let’s take ourselves seriously; and see the workshop grow again to full strength. It has a remarkable history; but let’s not leave it at that. There is nothing permanent about Writers Forum Workshop. If you want it, support it. Please. Also, PLEASE, if you have attended at all this year, let us know if you cannot make it on 17th March.
9 ADDRESSES AND LINKS
WFInfo-subscribe@topica.com
http://writersforumpublications.blogspot.com/
http://writersforum-workshop.blogspot.com/
1 GUEST POET
From time to time, we invite a guest poet to join us. For instance, the Canadian poets Rob MacLennan and Stephen Brockwell joined us on 23rd September 2006.
We are now very pleased to tell you that our invited guest poet for 26th May 2007 will be Allen Fisher.
2 PLEASE NOTE VENUE CHANGE
Our venue is changing, with immediate effect, to
The Betsey Trotwood
56 Farringdon Road
EC1R 3BL
We meet there on Saturday 17th March 2007. (We have no more meetings at Torriano Meeting House.)
Some may remember our workshops at The Betsey Trotwood a few years ago. Now it has a new management and one that seemingly wishes us well: they invited us back.
Our thanks to John and Susan at Torriano. They helped us just when we needed it and have been very kind to us all. There are considerable regrets at changing our venue.
3a. Next meeting
Writers Forum Workshop meets at The Betsey Trotwood on Saturday 17th March 2007. Meet at 3.30 for 4, as usual.
3b.Venue
The Betsey Trotwood
56 Farringdon Road
EC1R 3BL
Underground: Farringdon (Out of the station, turn right and right again at Farringdon Road
Overground: Farringdon – NB All trains on the Brighton-Luton line in both directions stop there, or always have, and can be a good alternative to other routes. The underground and overground stations are one thing, spread over 4 platforms.
Bus: It is believed that the only bus running down Farringdon Road is # 63; but remember that many other buses go past Mount Pleasant; and that it isn’t that far – for the fit and well - to walk downhill from there to The Betsey, though of course it is uphill on the way back. For instance, one can get a frequent bus to Mount Pleasant at The Angel, from just outside the tube station.
The Betsey Trotwood is opposite The Guardian newspaper. It is on the end of a little island of buildings. The beer is Shepherd Neame.
4. THE SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS
Saturday 17-Mar-07
Saturday 31-Mar-07
Saturday 28-Apr-07
Saturday 26-May-07 Invited guest poet Allen Fisher
Saturday 9-Jun-07
Saturday 30-Jun-07
Saturday 21-Jul-07
5 Meetings
Meetings are scheduled to start at 4 p.m.. That is after a 30 minute period of gathering together. We gather from 3.30 p.m; so please aim to arrive before 4 p.m..You can take drinks into the room.
We have agreed that we shall buy from the bar any drinks we consume on the premises. There will be a 10 minute break about half way through.
PLEASE NOTE: The terms of the agreement with The Betsey Trotwood management are good. Implicit is our acknowledgement that their business is selling drink; so PLEASE don’t turn up with carry outs…
6. WEBSITE
We have had a generous offer of server space for a new WF website (covering press and workshop) and that website is in production. In the meantime no further updates will be made to the existing website and all news will be posted at the blogs and on this newsletter.
7. REISSUED PUBLICATIONS (3rd February 2007)
Cobbing, Bob; Lightsong 2; ISBN 978 0 86162 330 3; 6pp small format in an envelope; December 1983 reissued February 2007
£3.00 + £1 (p & p UK)
Houédard, Dom Sylvester with Cobbing, Bob & Mayer, Peter (editors); Kroklok # 3; 32pp, A4 portrait. Feature: Speech as Mime or Gesture (with examples) by Peter Mayer; poems by Christian Morgenstcrn, Ernst Jandl, Peter Finch, Jeremy Adler, Michael Chant, Peter Greenham, Brion Gysin, Ilya Zdanevich, Helmut Hcissenbuttel, Bob Cobbing, August Stramm (introduction to Stramm by Jeremy Adler). Notes by Bob Cobbing. ISBN 978-0-86162-076-0. December 1972, reissued February 2007
£3.00 + £1 (p & p UK)
Introductory comments on the reissues are posted at the blog.
The reissue programme will continue. New titles are on their way, too.
8. THE FUTURE
The disruptions of the last year, caused by the old CPT management and The Plough management, have taken their toll and it has fed back; and numbers attending have dropped and arrival time has slipped. With the move, and then the new website, we hope to return to stability and productive interaction. To that end, we hope that people will attend regularly. It really does make a difference. But an attendance is welcome.
So those who have been saying “I shall go one day” or “I shall go back one day” are encouraged to attend. Try to bring someone with you!
From now on, it should be relatively easy to get to the workshop because the new venue is more accessible than the old to public transport. The arrival period of 3.30 p.m. to 4 p.m. enables us to turn up and have a drink while we all arrive; so that we can start together. It is a communal activity.
Sometimes none of us can avoid being late; but we do urge you to aim for 3.30 until you are used to the journey; and we urge you always to allow time for believable transport delays…. So that you are there on time whenever possible. It can be done most of the time.Let’s take ourselves seriously; and see the workshop grow again to full strength. It has a remarkable history; but let’s not leave it at that. There is nothing permanent about Writers Forum Workshop. If you want it, support it. Please. Also, PLEASE, if you have attended at all this year, let us know if you cannot make it on 17th March.
9 ADDRESSES AND LINKS
WFInfo-subscribe@topica.com
http://writersforumpublications.blogspot.com/
http://writersforum-workshop.blogspot.com/
Monday, 5 February 2007
Introduction to the reissue of Kroklok #3 Saturday 3rd February 2007
Today we reissue Kroklok # 3. In December, when we reissued Kroklok #2, I went into some detail which I shan’t repeat now – that talk is on the blog.
Perhaps the most important thing to tell you today is that there are not many copies of this publication. Kroklok #2 was reissued first because there were enough good quality pages readily available.
In the notes in Kroklok #3, Cobbing has a go at Gestetner
“The delay in publication is largely due to Gestetner’s inability to supply they grey paper on which # 1 was printed. The quality of the paper used for # 2 was less good; the paper for # 3 is a further deterioration”
With that in mind, a small reissue has been achieved by discarding unacceptably poor pages.
There remains an uneven supply of most of the pages. It is just possible that a few more complete copies can be achieved from Cobbing’s printings; but that assumes that some sheets have been mis-sorted and that seems increasingly unllikely.
Attention will now pass to ## 1 and 4 while the possibility of reprinting the missing pages of # 3 is investigated, in order to ensure that it remains in print; but I urge you to buy it now, knowing that things always take longer than one wishes.
Kroklok # 3 is a very interesting issue, starting with a varied feature by Peter Mayer, of which Cobbing dryly remarks “which hopefully has its own logic”, Then there are poems by Morgenstern, Jandle, Peter Finch, Jeremy Adler, Michael Chant, Peter Greenham, Brion Gysin, Zdanevitch, Heissenbutel and Stramm
Copyright © Lawrence Upton 3 February 2007
Perhaps the most important thing to tell you today is that there are not many copies of this publication. Kroklok #2 was reissued first because there were enough good quality pages readily available.
In the notes in Kroklok #3, Cobbing has a go at Gestetner
“The delay in publication is largely due to Gestetner’s inability to supply they grey paper on which # 1 was printed. The quality of the paper used for # 2 was less good; the paper for # 3 is a further deterioration”
With that in mind, a small reissue has been achieved by discarding unacceptably poor pages.
There remains an uneven supply of most of the pages. It is just possible that a few more complete copies can be achieved from Cobbing’s printings; but that assumes that some sheets have been mis-sorted and that seems increasingly unllikely.
Attention will now pass to ## 1 and 4 while the possibility of reprinting the missing pages of # 3 is investigated, in order to ensure that it remains in print; but I urge you to buy it now, knowing that things always take longer than one wishes.
Kroklok # 3 is a very interesting issue, starting with a varied feature by Peter Mayer, of which Cobbing dryly remarks “which hopefully has its own logic”, Then there are poems by Morgenstern, Jandle, Peter Finch, Jeremy Adler, Michael Chant, Peter Greenham, Brion Gysin, Zdanevitch, Heissenbutel and Stramm
Copyright © Lawrence Upton 3 February 2007
Reissue of Lightsong 2 by Bob Cobbing 3rd Feb 2007
This is an item which hasn’t been seen by the many for some years. Lightsong 2 by Bob Cobbing.
There are 6 pages and they’re somewhat roughly hand cut; so that, though the images remain the same size, the page sizes vary by up to approximately half an inch.
It was hand-printed by Bob Cobbing on a Gestetner ink duplicator and they vary slightly in image; but, looking from another mental angle, the set is remarkably consistent considering the depth of black ink required.
This is a particular problem with ink duplicating and it is a greater and greater problem as one increases the amount of black. In a case like this it would have been difficult to even hold the stencil together.
It is so easy to end up with a mess & it is even easier to make each print look quite different to all the others. When the image is very black, as here, the greatest likelihood is that ink will not be evenly distributed across and down, but will instead come out blotchily or in excess.
Incidentally, when pages are this black, they never quite dry out, so even now it is still possible for ink to transfer – that’s one of the reasons for putting the booklet in an envelope – to stop ink transfer and to stop damage to the books as they are handled by prospective buyers.
There isn’t much that Bob couldn’t make that duplicator do; and this object is proof of it.
He is not the only person who achieved such heights. Here and there among the output of what was hyperbolically called “the mimeo revolution”, one finds prints of great Gestetner skill. I don’t know anyone, however, who did quite so much of it and in some many versions of mechanical impossibility over such a long time. It wasn’t the occasional surprising job, but a sustained exhibition of expertise.
Originally, Cobbing wrote the title of the publication in capital letters at the top left hand of the back of the final page and signed his name and the press name at the bottom right hand. It was done demotically.
This reissue uses some copies he had not so inscribed; and the data have been written on, in the same place and in the same manner; but not attempting to imitate Cobbing’s writing.
Because everything is so dark, it would be easy to give in to lazy observation and dismiss an object like this as having pages which are all the same or pages which are just black… or maybe “too black”.
But look again and you will see variation and order and wit. This is Cobbing the painter, transposed into an art mode and genre of his own making; though few painters lay the dark colour on quite so. But I’ll qualify that remark in a minute.
Comparing it with specific painters would mislead us and likely demean Cobbing’s work; but some ignorant types have made comparisons with Pollock: any comparison to Pollock, except perhaps in the idiosyncratic difference to almost everything else that has been done, would be misleading. One needs to look carelessly to think that it’s like Pollock. In Cobbing’s work, the image has been placed carefully in all its parts and the means of delivering it to the carrier paper has been mechanically controlled at a remove.
The process of the reproduction of the poem has its own method within the generic method of ink-duplication.
It’s not the layering of pigment that you get with, say, Auerbach. The ink would never dry! It’s of a different kind. The blackness of these pages stands out because it is so unexpected and perhaps because many of us know it is so difficult to achieve. He pushed the duplicator beyond its intended capabilities by a long way.
It isn’t just putting more and more colour on. It may feel that the ink is thickly applied as one looks at it, but actually it isn’t like that. There is only one application here, one pass through the machine.
There may be a connection here with his often repeated Cagean advice that if a performance wasn’t working then one kept going till it did. Not that I suggest that this poem didn’t work at an earlier stage. I mean that there is a point or points, extremes to some maybe, at which the poem works; it may be difficult to access that point; but one just stick to it till one gets there.
He did put the paper through the machine twice on some occasions. He did that in Winter Poem # 1 where, it seems he judged, the only way to get two quite different effects of very light ink output and very heavy ink output in much the same space was to use two different stencils. Note, then, that he knew where the apparently impossible became actually impossible; and he had a way round it.
It is, of course, for that reason that each image copy made by Cobbing was slightly different to all the others, because registration is not the ink duplicator’s strongest point.
Thus, one could not use this fix in every situation. Mixing non-alphabetic image and text would be difficult to handle with a misregistering printing machine; so that, as Mottram noted the appropriateness of design to the contents of wf publications, printing techniques were also applied as appropriate. Simply put, Cobbing knew what he was doing; it was just that he was doing things few people had thought of. And he didn’t say what he was doing. Instead he urged you to read the products attentively. That makes more sense. He wanted people to enjoy the outputs, rather than write about them, copying quotes from him, without engaged understanding.
Look at the blackness of these pages; and remember that the title is "Light Song". Where’s the light? Is it the white or is it the black? I’d say it’s both. I’d say that as a text for reading he would have been reading the differences, the changes, the conversation between the background of the paper and the foreground of the image; and I think I could go some way to substantiating that.
Imagine it in negative and you will find something quite different to the positive. This way is the right way round. It’s not “darkness visible” then; but it’s not not “darkness visible”.
Finally, a few words about consistency of production. The need to get the same image every time from a printing machine is a human idea, not an innate fault of the machine. The tendency is inherent in the machines ‘ tolerances. We choose to reproduce the image the same way each time, as if repeatability is the same as quality. Perhaps, though, variability is also a characteristic of quality if one lets it be.
This suggestion may not be very popular with those who deduce from their muddy ideas of the properties of democratic life that everyone should have complete access to everything.
Cobbing was quite a democrat and his hand made books could be seen as artistic multiples without that name; but he also accepted variations in production.
Mass production need not be the same as identical production. Repeatability in production originated because of the manufacturers’ desire to make everything as cheaply as possible and sell as many as possible.
I like the carefree – not careless – way that these booklets vary in size. He rarely allowed a page size to vary quite so widely; so there is a suggestion here of deliberation on the poet’s part, of appropriateness to the poem.
There aren’t many copies of this booklet left; and it presents some problems to reprint. Ink duplication is out, were the equipment and materials available now anyway. Photocopying is possible, but there will be probably be dropout. In some ways, we are up against the problem – for those who want accessibility at all costs – of the original work; but it may be valid to select one version and reproduce it by photocopying, or high resolution ink jet or litho and live with any slight degradation of the image from the original. A copy has already been put on one side for that purpose in case its needed.
Of course, however good the reproduction, that will freeze one version as the version, subject to any variations which the process may introduce.
In the meantime, you may buy one of the originals.
Copyright © Lawrence Upton February 2007
There are 6 pages and they’re somewhat roughly hand cut; so that, though the images remain the same size, the page sizes vary by up to approximately half an inch.
It was hand-printed by Bob Cobbing on a Gestetner ink duplicator and they vary slightly in image; but, looking from another mental angle, the set is remarkably consistent considering the depth of black ink required.
This is a particular problem with ink duplicating and it is a greater and greater problem as one increases the amount of black. In a case like this it would have been difficult to even hold the stencil together.
It is so easy to end up with a mess & it is even easier to make each print look quite different to all the others. When the image is very black, as here, the greatest likelihood is that ink will not be evenly distributed across and down, but will instead come out blotchily or in excess.
Incidentally, when pages are this black, they never quite dry out, so even now it is still possible for ink to transfer – that’s one of the reasons for putting the booklet in an envelope – to stop ink transfer and to stop damage to the books as they are handled by prospective buyers.
There isn’t much that Bob couldn’t make that duplicator do; and this object is proof of it.
He is not the only person who achieved such heights. Here and there among the output of what was hyperbolically called “the mimeo revolution”, one finds prints of great Gestetner skill. I don’t know anyone, however, who did quite so much of it and in some many versions of mechanical impossibility over such a long time. It wasn’t the occasional surprising job, but a sustained exhibition of expertise.
Originally, Cobbing wrote the title of the publication in capital letters at the top left hand of the back of the final page and signed his name and the press name at the bottom right hand. It was done demotically.
This reissue uses some copies he had not so inscribed; and the data have been written on, in the same place and in the same manner; but not attempting to imitate Cobbing’s writing.
Because everything is so dark, it would be easy to give in to lazy observation and dismiss an object like this as having pages which are all the same or pages which are just black… or maybe “too black”.
But look again and you will see variation and order and wit. This is Cobbing the painter, transposed into an art mode and genre of his own making; though few painters lay the dark colour on quite so. But I’ll qualify that remark in a minute.
Comparing it with specific painters would mislead us and likely demean Cobbing’s work; but some ignorant types have made comparisons with Pollock: any comparison to Pollock, except perhaps in the idiosyncratic difference to almost everything else that has been done, would be misleading. One needs to look carelessly to think that it’s like Pollock. In Cobbing’s work, the image has been placed carefully in all its parts and the means of delivering it to the carrier paper has been mechanically controlled at a remove.
The process of the reproduction of the poem has its own method within the generic method of ink-duplication.
It’s not the layering of pigment that you get with, say, Auerbach. The ink would never dry! It’s of a different kind. The blackness of these pages stands out because it is so unexpected and perhaps because many of us know it is so difficult to achieve. He pushed the duplicator beyond its intended capabilities by a long way.
It isn’t just putting more and more colour on. It may feel that the ink is thickly applied as one looks at it, but actually it isn’t like that. There is only one application here, one pass through the machine.
There may be a connection here with his often repeated Cagean advice that if a performance wasn’t working then one kept going till it did. Not that I suggest that this poem didn’t work at an earlier stage. I mean that there is a point or points, extremes to some maybe, at which the poem works; it may be difficult to access that point; but one just stick to it till one gets there.
He did put the paper through the machine twice on some occasions. He did that in Winter Poem # 1 where, it seems he judged, the only way to get two quite different effects of very light ink output and very heavy ink output in much the same space was to use two different stencils. Note, then, that he knew where the apparently impossible became actually impossible; and he had a way round it.
It is, of course, for that reason that each image copy made by Cobbing was slightly different to all the others, because registration is not the ink duplicator’s strongest point.
Thus, one could not use this fix in every situation. Mixing non-alphabetic image and text would be difficult to handle with a misregistering printing machine; so that, as Mottram noted the appropriateness of design to the contents of wf publications, printing techniques were also applied as appropriate. Simply put, Cobbing knew what he was doing; it was just that he was doing things few people had thought of. And he didn’t say what he was doing. Instead he urged you to read the products attentively. That makes more sense. He wanted people to enjoy the outputs, rather than write about them, copying quotes from him, without engaged understanding.
Look at the blackness of these pages; and remember that the title is "Light Song". Where’s the light? Is it the white or is it the black? I’d say it’s both. I’d say that as a text for reading he would have been reading the differences, the changes, the conversation between the background of the paper and the foreground of the image; and I think I could go some way to substantiating that.
Imagine it in negative and you will find something quite different to the positive. This way is the right way round. It’s not “darkness visible” then; but it’s not not “darkness visible”.
Finally, a few words about consistency of production. The need to get the same image every time from a printing machine is a human idea, not an innate fault of the machine. The tendency is inherent in the machines ‘ tolerances. We choose to reproduce the image the same way each time, as if repeatability is the same as quality. Perhaps, though, variability is also a characteristic of quality if one lets it be.
This suggestion may not be very popular with those who deduce from their muddy ideas of the properties of democratic life that everyone should have complete access to everything.
Cobbing was quite a democrat and his hand made books could be seen as artistic multiples without that name; but he also accepted variations in production.
Mass production need not be the same as identical production. Repeatability in production originated because of the manufacturers’ desire to make everything as cheaply as possible and sell as many as possible.
I like the carefree – not careless – way that these booklets vary in size. He rarely allowed a page size to vary quite so widely; so there is a suggestion here of deliberation on the poet’s part, of appropriateness to the poem.
There aren’t many copies of this booklet left; and it presents some problems to reprint. Ink duplication is out, were the equipment and materials available now anyway. Photocopying is possible, but there will be probably be dropout. In some ways, we are up against the problem – for those who want accessibility at all costs – of the original work; but it may be valid to select one version and reproduce it by photocopying, or high resolution ink jet or litho and live with any slight degradation of the image from the original. A copy has already been put on one side for that purpose in case its needed.
Of course, however good the reproduction, that will freeze one version as the version, subject to any variations which the process may introduce.
In the meantime, you may buy one of the originals.
Copyright © Lawrence Upton February 2007
Sunday, 14 January 2007
Kroklok magazine
This year, Writers Forum will reissue all four issues of Kroklok magazine. At present, the following are available
Houédard, Dom Sylvester and Cobbing, Bob (editors); Kroklok # 2; 32 pp; A4 portrait; duplicated; duplicated cover designed by Peter Mayer and Bob Cobbing. Reprints “Three Minimanifestoes” by Bob Cobbing and publishes poems by Raoul Hausmann, Kurt Schwitters, Antonin Artaud, Rabelais, Peter Mayer, Neil Mills, Charles Verey, Hugo Ball, Severini, Theo van Doesburg. Eugen Gomringer, Pierre Albert-Birot, Michel Seuphor, Henri Chopin and Man Ray. Notes by Bob Cobbing; ; September 1971, reissued January 2007; ISBN 978-0-86162-076-0; £3 + £1.00 p & p for UK
Houédard, Dom Sylvester and Cobbing, Bob (editors); Kroklok # 2; 32 pp; A4 portrait; duplicated; duplicated cover designed by Peter Mayer and Bob Cobbing. Reprints “Three Minimanifestoes” by Bob Cobbing and publishes poems by Raoul Hausmann, Kurt Schwitters, Antonin Artaud, Rabelais, Peter Mayer, Neil Mills, Charles Verey, Hugo Ball, Severini, Theo van Doesburg. Eugen Gomringer, Pierre Albert-Birot, Michel Seuphor, Henri Chopin and Man Ray. Notes by Bob Cobbing; ; September 1971, reissued January 2007; ISBN 978-0-86162-076-0; £3 + £1.00 p & p for UK
Ordering procedure
We are registered with Paypal, but are waiting for them to correct a problem which occurred before it had been fully set up. Paypal won’t admit this. Please be patient: it’s only been a year. (Last we heard it had been referred to their own Office of Executive Escalations, which rather says it all.
We do not accept payment by credit card.
Payments sent through the post should be accompanied by sterling cheque to “Writers Forum” (without the quote marks” drawn on a UK bank. Alternatively, we will accept foreign cheques if you add £9 for bank charges per transaction. Blame HSBC
NB P & P costs are for orders for single publications. Because our publications are variously sized, it is not possible to know accurately in advance the total cost of postage and packing where more than one publication is involved. Therefore, large orders may easily be overcharged.
This problem can be overcome by customers for multiple titles asking for a quotation in advance; or we shall credit you against future orders with the amount of the overcharge
Packing and postage quoted here is for UK only. Rates to other areas of the world will be provided as soon as possible. In the meantime, do ask for individual quotations
Please do not guess the amount unless you are very generous indeed!
Please do not send notes and coinage – risking it with sterling is daft, sending anything else is pointless, including euros and dollars (which is a bit like shouting in your language at people who do not speak it)
We do not accept payment by credit card.
Payments sent through the post should be accompanied by sterling cheque to “Writers Forum” (without the quote marks” drawn on a UK bank. Alternatively, we will accept foreign cheques if you add £9 for bank charges per transaction. Blame HSBC
NB P & P costs are for orders for single publications. Because our publications are variously sized, it is not possible to know accurately in advance the total cost of postage and packing where more than one publication is involved. Therefore, large orders may easily be overcharged.
This problem can be overcome by customers for multiple titles asking for a quotation in advance; or we shall credit you against future orders with the amount of the overcharge
Packing and postage quoted here is for UK only. Rates to other areas of the world will be provided as soon as possible. In the meantime, do ask for individual quotations
Please do not guess the amount unless you are very generous indeed!
Please do not send notes and coinage – risking it with sterling is daft, sending anything else is pointless, including euros and dollars (which is a bit like shouting in your language at people who do not speak it)
publications list
[First, please note that, as yet, this is not the full list. It doesn’t seem to be possible to transfer the formatting from existing lists to here; so it’ll be done in stages, starting from the two titles published yesterday; then moving back to recent previous meetings; and then further back as seems appropriate.Stock will be checked first.]
Cobbing, Bob; Lightsong 2; ISBN 978 0 86162 330 3; 6pp small format in an envelope; December 1983 reissued February 2007
£3.00 + £1 (p & p UK)
Edwards, Ken; My Half of the Conversation; 8pp; A6 portrait; chapbook based on A4 card; May 1980; reissued June 2005; ISBN 978-0-86162-263-4
£0.60 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Ely, Roger; Dreams, fantasies and recollections; 51 pp B5; February 1987
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Fetherstone, Patrick; 18 Quadruple Readings; 20 pp single-sided; 8" x 6", duplicated; cover 9¼" x 7¼", silkscreened by Jennifer Pike from a design by Bob Cobbing; September 1965, reprinted March 1996; ISBN 978-0-86162-022-7
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Fetherston, Patrick; Muses awaited; 40 pp; B5 portrait; November 1988; ISBN 978-0-86162-428-7
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Fetherston, Patrick; Noons and afternoons; 36 pp; A5 portrait; November 1989; ISBN 978-0-86162-441-6
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Fetherston, Patrick; Schools; 38 pp; A5 portrait; April 1991; ISBN 978-0-86162-480-5
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Fetherston, Patrick; Standing: a poem in thirty stanzas; 32 pp; A5 portrait; October 1991; ISBN 978-0-86162-491-1
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Fetherston, Patrick; What it is to reflect; 40 pp; A5 portrait; October 1990; ISBN 978-0-86162-467-6
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Finch, Peter; Antarktika; 22 pp; A5 portrait from A4 folded Japanese fashion, litho; cover by author; January 1973; reprinted November 1981; August 1984; June 1996; ISBN 978-0-86162-092-0
£3.00 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Finch, Peter; On criticism; 21pp quarto portrait; ISBN 978-0-86162-344-0
£2.50 +£1 (p & p for UK)
Griffiths, Bill; A text book of drama; 144 pp B5; June 1987; ISBN 0 86162 403
£5.00 +£1 (p & p for UK)
Griffiths, Bill; Book of the boat; 26 pp B5 Japanese fold February 1988; ISBN 0 86162 416 5
£5.00 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Halsey, Alan; The book of coming forth in official secrecy; ISBN 0 86162 278 1; May 1981 reprinted May 1997 and December 1999
£4.00 + £1.00 p & p for UK)
Hansel, Stanislaw; Children of Atlantis; June 1990; ISBN 978-0-86162-459-1
£2.00 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Hansel, Stanislaw; Forcefields in February 1985; 14 pp A4 portrait; June 1990; ISBN 978-0-86162-461-4
£2.00 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Houédard, Dom Sylvester and Cobbing, Bob (editors); Kroklok # 2; 32 pp; A4 portrait; duplicated; duplicated cover designed by Peter Mayer and Bob Cobbing. Reprints “Three Minimanifestoes” by Bob Cobbing and publishes poems by Raoul Hausmann, Kurt Schwitters, Antonin Artaud, Rabelais, Peter Mayer, Neil Mills, Charles Verey, Hugo Ball, Severini, Theo van Doesburg. Eugen Gomringer, Pierre Albert-Birot, Michel Seuphor, Henri Chopin and Man Ray. Notes by Bob Cobbing; ; September 1971, reissued January 2007; ISBN 978-0-86162-076-0
£3 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Houédard, Dom Sylvester with Cobbing, Bob & Mayer, Peter (editors); Kroklok # 3; 32pp, A4 portrait. Feature: Speech as Mime or Gesture (with examples) by Peter Mayer; poems by Christian Morgenstcrn, Ernst Jandl, Peter Finch, Jeremy Adler, Michael Chant, Peter Greenham, Brion Gysin, Ilya Zdanevich, Helmut Hcissenbuttel, Bob Cobbing, August Stramm (introduction to Stramm by Jeremy Adler). Notes by Bob Cobbing. ISBN 978-0-86162-076-0. December 1972, reissued February 2007
£3.00 + £1 (p & p UK)
Cobbing, Bob & Upton, Lawrence (editors); Word Score Utterance Choreography; ISBN 978-0-86162-750-9
£9 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Jackson, Tony & Grierson, Myra; Ryma's Throat; 14 pp A4 portrait; ISBN 0 86162 424 6; May 1988
£2.00 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
James, Elizabeth; Recognition; 978-0-86162-969-5
£1.00 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Joris, Pierre; Translations from Arthur Rimbaud's Une Saisonen Enfer; 7 A4 sheets in folder; 15th December 1984 reprinted 3 August 1991; ISBN 978-0-86162-342-6
£2.00 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Johnson, Nicholas; Hassell; 16 pp (single sided); A3 landcsape; ISBN 978-0-86162-816-2
£5 + £2.50 (p & p for UK)
Monk, Geraldine; Herein lie tales of two inner cities; 27 pp quarto; May 1986, second reprint October 1988; ISBN 97 8-0-86162-381-5
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Monk, Geraldine; La Quinta del Sordo; 8pp; A4 October 1980; reprinted October 1994; ISBN 978-0-86162-265-8
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Monk, Geraldine; Long Wake; cover design Robert Clark; 25pp; quarto w/ Pirate Press; July 1979; ISBN 978-0-86162-243-6
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Mottram, Eric; Towards design in poetry; London; 38pp A4 portrait; August 1977 (originally announced for December 1976) ; reprinted; reprinted 1984; reprinted 1988; reprinted 1995; reprinted January 2000; reprinted, in association with Veer Books, January 2004; second edition (OCR scanned from a copy of the first edition first printing) January 2005; ISBN 978-1-84254-618-5
£3 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Musgrove, Keith; Tests; 8pp; A6 chapbook based on A4 card; reissued November 2006; ISBN 0 86162 248
£0.60 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Mad with music; with Pirate Press; February 1987; reprint July 1989 ISBN 0 86162 398 3
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Mr. Watkins got Drunk and had to be Carried Home; from an idea by William Burroughs; 48pp, 8" x 6½", litho, cover design by Jeff Nuttall. 12 copies of first edition numbered and signed by the author. Edition of 500. First edition.September 1968; second edition June 1979; ISBN 0 86162 039 9
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Oscar Christ and the Immaculate Conception; 32pp, 8" x 6½”, litho, cover design by Jeff Nuttall; September 1968; reprint (called “edition”) August 1970; reprint May 1997; August 1970 reprint reissued November 2006; ISBN 0 86162 038
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Scenes and dubs; with Pirate Press; February 1987 reprint July 1989; ISBN 978-0-86162-400-3
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Supper moves unlight; March 2002; ISBN 978-1-84254-052-7
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Two nice legs; ISBN 1 84254 058
£4.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Viper; 26 pp; colour cover; March 2002; ISBN 1 84254 057 4
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Oscar Christ and the Immaculate Conception; 32pp, 8" x 6½”, litho, cover design by Jeff Nuttall; September 1968; reprint (called “edition”) August 1970; reprint May 1997; August 1970 reprint reissued November 2006; ISBN 0 86162 038
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
O’Rourke, P J; Nancy Adler Poems; 11 pp printed one side; 10" x 8", duplicated; cover design by author; December 1970; 978-0-86162-068-5
£10 + £1 (p & p for UK)
Sondheim, Alan; Orders of the real; 44 pp; A4 portrait; cover by author; 18 June 2005; reprinted January 2007; ISBN 1 84254 601 5
£4.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Stickney, Walt Christopher; To Night • Little David on Mouth Harp; 12 pp printed one side only; 10" x 8"; cover and illustrations by Brian McCollum; December 1970 ISBN 0 86162 067
£1 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Sumner, Alaric; The Instability of Inherence Section 1: exploring The Instability; cover image by author; editorial note by Lawrence Upton; 28 pp A5 portrait; ISBN 978 1 84254 373 3; January 2006
£2.50 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Sumner, Alaric; The Instability of Inherence Section 2: exploring inherence; cover image by Lawrence Upton; 24 pp A5 portrait; ISBN 978 1 84254 374 1; 4 February 2006
£2.50 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Sumner, Alaric; The Instability of Inherence Section 3: exploring Inherent Instability & Section 4: exploring The Instability Of Inherence; cover image by Lawrence Upton; 28 pp A5 portrait; ISBN 978 1 84254 375 X; 25th February 2006
£2.50 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Sumner, Alaric; The Shock of Shock: extremeness in writing and performance; cover by Lawrence Upton; ; edited by Lawrence Upton; 28 pp A5 portrait; January 2006 ISBN 978 1 84254 602 3; £2.50 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Sumner, Alaric; Tonight, from Act 2; cover image by author; editorial note by Lawrence Upton; 20 pp A5 portrait; ISBN 978 1 84254 378 4; £2.50 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Sumner, Alaric; LETTERS for dear AUGUSTINE - the semantic text i.e. excluding the graphic elements; A4 portrait; 41 pp; edited by Lawrence Upton; some copies comb bound; July 2004; third revised edition January 2007; ISBN 1 84254 526 4; £3.50 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Upton, Lawrence (editor); Alaric Sumner: Documentation of his writing, performances and other artistic activities (Version 3); 39 pp; A4 portrait; Writers Forum; ISBN 978 1 84254 397 X; January 2007; £7.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Upton, Lawrence; Easy kill; 11 pp (single sided); A3 landscape; ISBN 978-0-86162-815-5
£6.00 + £2.50 (p & p for UK)
Upton, Lawrence; Remembering Alaric Sumner; co-published with words worth books; 12 pp; A5 portrait; September 2004; ISBN 978-1-84254-549-2
£1.00 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Weller, M J; Beowulf Cartoon; introduction by Bill Griffiths; published in association with Visual Associations, London; September 2004; ISBN 978-1-84254-584
£15 + £2 (p & p for UK)
Whiting, John; Cage on cage; 6 pp in A4 plastic wallet; ISBN 0 86162 350 9; March 1985 2nd edition October 1998
£4 + £1 (p & p for UK)
Cobbing, Bob; Lightsong 2; ISBN 978 0 86162 330 3; 6pp small format in an envelope; December 1983 reissued February 2007
£3.00 + £1 (p & p UK)
Edwards, Ken; My Half of the Conversation; 8pp; A6 portrait; chapbook based on A4 card; May 1980; reissued June 2005; ISBN 978-0-86162-263-4
£0.60 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Ely, Roger; Dreams, fantasies and recollections; 51 pp B5; February 1987
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Fetherstone, Patrick; 18 Quadruple Readings; 20 pp single-sided; 8" x 6", duplicated; cover 9¼" x 7¼", silkscreened by Jennifer Pike from a design by Bob Cobbing; September 1965, reprinted March 1996; ISBN 978-0-86162-022-7
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Fetherston, Patrick; Muses awaited; 40 pp; B5 portrait; November 1988; ISBN 978-0-86162-428-7
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Fetherston, Patrick; Noons and afternoons; 36 pp; A5 portrait; November 1989; ISBN 978-0-86162-441-6
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Fetherston, Patrick; Schools; 38 pp; A5 portrait; April 1991; ISBN 978-0-86162-480-5
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Fetherston, Patrick; Standing: a poem in thirty stanzas; 32 pp; A5 portrait; October 1991; ISBN 978-0-86162-491-1
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Fetherston, Patrick; What it is to reflect; 40 pp; A5 portrait; October 1990; ISBN 978-0-86162-467-6
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Finch, Peter; Antarktika; 22 pp; A5 portrait from A4 folded Japanese fashion, litho; cover by author; January 1973; reprinted November 1981; August 1984; June 1996; ISBN 978-0-86162-092-0
£3.00 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Finch, Peter; On criticism; 21pp quarto portrait; ISBN 978-0-86162-344-0
£2.50 +£1 (p & p for UK)
Griffiths, Bill; A text book of drama; 144 pp B5; June 1987; ISBN 0 86162 403
£5.00 +£1 (p & p for UK)
Griffiths, Bill; Book of the boat; 26 pp B5 Japanese fold February 1988; ISBN 0 86162 416 5
£5.00 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Halsey, Alan; The book of coming forth in official secrecy; ISBN 0 86162 278 1; May 1981 reprinted May 1997 and December 1999
£4.00 + £1.00 p & p for UK)
Hansel, Stanislaw; Children of Atlantis; June 1990; ISBN 978-0-86162-459-1
£2.00 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Hansel, Stanislaw; Forcefields in February 1985; 14 pp A4 portrait; June 1990; ISBN 978-0-86162-461-4
£2.00 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Houédard, Dom Sylvester and Cobbing, Bob (editors); Kroklok # 2; 32 pp; A4 portrait; duplicated; duplicated cover designed by Peter Mayer and Bob Cobbing. Reprints “Three Minimanifestoes” by Bob Cobbing and publishes poems by Raoul Hausmann, Kurt Schwitters, Antonin Artaud, Rabelais, Peter Mayer, Neil Mills, Charles Verey, Hugo Ball, Severini, Theo van Doesburg. Eugen Gomringer, Pierre Albert-Birot, Michel Seuphor, Henri Chopin and Man Ray. Notes by Bob Cobbing; ; September 1971, reissued January 2007; ISBN 978-0-86162-076-0
£3 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Houédard, Dom Sylvester with Cobbing, Bob & Mayer, Peter (editors); Kroklok # 3; 32pp, A4 portrait. Feature: Speech as Mime or Gesture (with examples) by Peter Mayer; poems by Christian Morgenstcrn, Ernst Jandl, Peter Finch, Jeremy Adler, Michael Chant, Peter Greenham, Brion Gysin, Ilya Zdanevich, Helmut Hcissenbuttel, Bob Cobbing, August Stramm (introduction to Stramm by Jeremy Adler). Notes by Bob Cobbing. ISBN 978-0-86162-076-0. December 1972, reissued February 2007
£3.00 + £1 (p & p UK)
Cobbing, Bob & Upton, Lawrence (editors); Word Score Utterance Choreography; ISBN 978-0-86162-750-9
£9 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Jackson, Tony & Grierson, Myra; Ryma's Throat; 14 pp A4 portrait; ISBN 0 86162 424 6; May 1988
£2.00 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
James, Elizabeth; Recognition; 978-0-86162-969-5
£1.00 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Joris, Pierre; Translations from Arthur Rimbaud's Une Saisonen Enfer; 7 A4 sheets in folder; 15th December 1984 reprinted 3 August 1991; ISBN 978-0-86162-342-6
£2.00 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Johnson, Nicholas; Hassell; 16 pp (single sided); A3 landcsape; ISBN 978-0-86162-816-2
£5 + £2.50 (p & p for UK)
Monk, Geraldine; Herein lie tales of two inner cities; 27 pp quarto; May 1986, second reprint October 1988; ISBN 97 8-0-86162-381-5
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Monk, Geraldine; La Quinta del Sordo; 8pp; A4 October 1980; reprinted October 1994; ISBN 978-0-86162-265-8
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Monk, Geraldine; Long Wake; cover design Robert Clark; 25pp; quarto w/ Pirate Press; July 1979; ISBN 978-0-86162-243-6
£3.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Mottram, Eric; Towards design in poetry; London; 38pp A4 portrait; August 1977 (originally announced for December 1976) ; reprinted; reprinted 1984; reprinted 1988; reprinted 1995; reprinted January 2000; reprinted, in association with Veer Books, January 2004; second edition (OCR scanned from a copy of the first edition first printing) January 2005; ISBN 978-1-84254-618-5
£3 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Musgrove, Keith; Tests; 8pp; A6 chapbook based on A4 card; reissued November 2006; ISBN 0 86162 248
£0.60 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Mad with music; with Pirate Press; February 1987; reprint July 1989 ISBN 0 86162 398 3
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Mr. Watkins got Drunk and had to be Carried Home; from an idea by William Burroughs; 48pp, 8" x 6½", litho, cover design by Jeff Nuttall. 12 copies of first edition numbered and signed by the author. Edition of 500. First edition.September 1968; second edition June 1979; ISBN 0 86162 039 9
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Oscar Christ and the Immaculate Conception; 32pp, 8" x 6½”, litho, cover design by Jeff Nuttall; September 1968; reprint (called “edition”) August 1970; reprint May 1997; August 1970 reprint reissued November 2006; ISBN 0 86162 038
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Scenes and dubs; with Pirate Press; February 1987 reprint July 1989; ISBN 978-0-86162-400-3
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Supper moves unlight; March 2002; ISBN 978-1-84254-052-7
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Two nice legs; ISBN 1 84254 058
£4.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Viper; 26 pp; colour cover; March 2002; ISBN 1 84254 057 4
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Nuttall, Jeff; Oscar Christ and the Immaculate Conception; 32pp, 8" x 6½”, litho, cover design by Jeff Nuttall; September 1968; reprint (called “edition”) August 1970; reprint May 1997; August 1970 reprint reissued November 2006; ISBN 0 86162 038
£3.00.+ £1.00 (p & p for UK)
O’Rourke, P J; Nancy Adler Poems; 11 pp printed one side; 10" x 8", duplicated; cover design by author; December 1970; 978-0-86162-068-5
£10 + £1 (p & p for UK)
Sondheim, Alan; Orders of the real; 44 pp; A4 portrait; cover by author; 18 June 2005; reprinted January 2007; ISBN 1 84254 601 5
£4.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Stickney, Walt Christopher; To Night • Little David on Mouth Harp; 12 pp printed one side only; 10" x 8"; cover and illustrations by Brian McCollum; December 1970 ISBN 0 86162 067
£1 + £1.00 (p & p for UK)
Sumner, Alaric; The Instability of Inherence Section 1: exploring The Instability; cover image by author; editorial note by Lawrence Upton; 28 pp A5 portrait; ISBN 978 1 84254 373 3; January 2006
£2.50 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Sumner, Alaric; The Instability of Inherence Section 2: exploring inherence; cover image by Lawrence Upton; 24 pp A5 portrait; ISBN 978 1 84254 374 1; 4 February 2006
£2.50 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Sumner, Alaric; The Instability of Inherence Section 3: exploring Inherent Instability & Section 4: exploring The Instability Of Inherence; cover image by Lawrence Upton; 28 pp A5 portrait; ISBN 978 1 84254 375 X; 25th February 2006
£2.50 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Sumner, Alaric; The Shock of Shock: extremeness in writing and performance; cover by Lawrence Upton; ; edited by Lawrence Upton; 28 pp A5 portrait; January 2006 ISBN 978 1 84254 602 3; £2.50 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Sumner, Alaric; Tonight, from Act 2; cover image by author; editorial note by Lawrence Upton; 20 pp A5 portrait; ISBN 978 1 84254 378 4; £2.50 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Sumner, Alaric; LETTERS for dear AUGUSTINE - the semantic text i.e. excluding the graphic elements; A4 portrait; 41 pp; edited by Lawrence Upton; some copies comb bound; July 2004; third revised edition January 2007; ISBN 1 84254 526 4; £3.50 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Upton, Lawrence (editor); Alaric Sumner: Documentation of his writing, performances and other artistic activities (Version 3); 39 pp; A4 portrait; Writers Forum; ISBN 978 1 84254 397 X; January 2007; £7.00 + £1.50 (p & p for UK)
Upton, Lawrence; Easy kill; 11 pp (single sided); A3 landscape; ISBN 978-0-86162-815-5
£6.00 + £2.50 (p & p for UK)
Upton, Lawrence; Remembering Alaric Sumner; co-published with words worth books; 12 pp; A5 portrait; September 2004; ISBN 978-1-84254-549-2
£1.00 + £0.60 (p & p for UK)
Weller, M J; Beowulf Cartoon; introduction by Bill Griffiths; published in association with Visual Associations, London; September 2004; ISBN 978-1-84254-584
£15 + £2 (p & p for UK)
Whiting, John; Cage on cage; 6 pp in A4 plastic wallet; ISBN 0 86162 350 9; March 1985 2nd edition October 1998
£4 + £1 (p & p for UK)
launch of “LETTERS for dear AUGUSTINE” second edition by Alaric Sumner
Letters for dear Augustine was one of the works with which, apparently, Sumner was engaged at the time he died early in 2000.
Even while he was writing, he was – as he often did – thinking of the final published appearance.
At one point, Sumner had been considering publishing the text in his own hand-writing; but, within a year, he was also thinking of using the text for web-specific writing.
He began to treat pages of typescript as graphical images and enhanced them by the superimposition of constructions based on letters of the alphabet, a kind of illuminated text. This treatment dates from June 1999 and possibly continued into early 2000. It was not completed.
Sumner wrote “In part, Letters for dear Augustine are ‘readings through’ or ‘plunderings’ and distortions of other texts; and he listed many sources.
The book of LETTERS for dear AUGUSTINE was produced in the rush before the 2004 Alaric Sumner Festival. Textual errors were noticed almost immediately – they were glaring – and corrected with an errata sheet
This second edition by Writers Forum incorporates those typographical errors in the first edition . It does not include the illuminated pages: a special edition for that purpose will follow
Lawrence Upton © January 2007
Saturday, 13 January 2007
Reissue of Kroklok #2 Saturday 16th December 2006
Kroklok was an enterprise, if that’s not too strong a word, of Cobbing and Houédard (dsh) – Houédard making available his collection of visual poetry and his often arcane learning, with Cobbing the printer publisher and practitioner.
Of course, both were fine practitioners and both knew a lot of out of the way things.
Kroklok #1 names dsh as editor, with Henri Chopin, Stefan Themerson & Bob Cobbing advisers
Kroklok #2 names dsh as editor and Cobbing as executive editor of Writers Forum; but the syntax is ambiguous and might be naming Cobbing as executive editor of the magazine; and later writers forum publications lists show dsh and Cobbing as joint editors
Kroklok #3 “is edited by dom Sylvester Houédard with Bob Cobbing as Executive Editor and Peter Mayer as Associate Editor”; whereas writers forum lists after the event have it “edited by Dom Sylvester Houédard with Bob Cobbing and Peter Mayer
Kroklok #4 repeats the formula of #3
while writers forum listings after 1976 say #4 was “edited by Dom Sylvester Houédard and Bob Cobbing”
Certainly I am sure that some materials in #4 were included ad hoc by Bob’s fiat, with Sylvester finding out later. I do not offer that as a criticism. In all his editing and publishing work, if Bob had an idea that he liked consistently for any length of time, then he tended to act on it. And, in this context, presumably that is what is meant by “executive editor”.
So… it always was Sylvester’s magazine; and it always was something of a double act between Sylvester and Bob, with others being involved at particular times.
Originally, they hoped Kroklok would be a quarterly magazine.
The first issue appeared in February 1971; followed in September 1971 by #2; but #3 appeared in December 1972, and the final issue, #4, in May 1976. And that was the last issue. A little over five years in all.
Quite how it was that there wasn’t a fifth issue, I do not know. It doesn’t seem to have been the result of a decision as such.
In 2001 or 2002, a decade after Sylvester had died, Bob spoke to me of the possibility of republishing Kroklok. He may have raised the idea with others. I don’t know.
When he asked me, I said yes, I thought it was a good idea. We discussed the idea of actually reviving the magazine and publishing a Kroklok #5; but Bob felt that was inappropriate. That’s a feeling with which I concur now.
In so far as a decision was taken, it was to republish issues 1 - 4.
It was a decision which Bob did not live to implement; but Writers Forum is now in a position to do so. It would be pleasant to reissue all four in one go; but the work involved is considerable and a little painstaking. Rather than hold up what is available, we are starting with issue two.
Here it is. It is entirely printed by Bob Cobbing. My work has been to locate the remains, a few here and a few there; to sort them, weeding out the pages that were too damaged; to fold them; to collate them; and to staple them.
From the first the magazine was to be, in the words of its editor, dsh, in the introduction to Kroklok # 1. the writers forum anthology of sound poetry
That is, poetry on the page which is identified as sound poetry.
And this is differentiated from “visual poetry”.
To me, now, these seem odd separations, not least in the light of the work of Bob Cobbing himself. Nevertheless, it might be remembered that during what we might call the Kroklok period, the writers forum workshop met according to a schedule concentrating by turns on sound poetry, visual poetry and performance of poetry. Or so I remember. Others may correct me; but it was something like that.
I am not going to worry too much about it; and I point these things out because it may help you read these magazines.
In the introduction to #1, dsh expresses the hope that it will be possible to publish recordings along with the texts. That never happened, but how much more ambitious one would have to be now to include the wide variety of soundwork, not least the material made possible by new media.
Retrospectively, it all seems very ambitious; but it indicates something of the mood of the times.
Copyright © Lawrence Upton 16 December 2006
Of course, both were fine practitioners and both knew a lot of out of the way things.
Kroklok #1 names dsh as editor, with Henri Chopin, Stefan Themerson & Bob Cobbing advisers
Kroklok #2 names dsh as editor and Cobbing as executive editor of Writers Forum; but the syntax is ambiguous and might be naming Cobbing as executive editor of the magazine; and later writers forum publications lists show dsh and Cobbing as joint editors
Kroklok #3 “is edited by dom Sylvester Houédard with Bob Cobbing as Executive Editor and Peter Mayer as Associate Editor”; whereas writers forum lists after the event have it “edited by Dom Sylvester Houédard with Bob Cobbing and Peter Mayer
Kroklok #4 repeats the formula of #3
while writers forum listings after 1976 say #4 was “edited by Dom Sylvester Houédard and Bob Cobbing”
Certainly I am sure that some materials in #4 were included ad hoc by Bob’s fiat, with Sylvester finding out later. I do not offer that as a criticism. In all his editing and publishing work, if Bob had an idea that he liked consistently for any length of time, then he tended to act on it. And, in this context, presumably that is what is meant by “executive editor”.
So… it always was Sylvester’s magazine; and it always was something of a double act between Sylvester and Bob, with others being involved at particular times.
Originally, they hoped Kroklok would be a quarterly magazine.
The first issue appeared in February 1971; followed in September 1971 by #2; but #3 appeared in December 1972, and the final issue, #4, in May 1976. And that was the last issue. A little over five years in all.
Quite how it was that there wasn’t a fifth issue, I do not know. It doesn’t seem to have been the result of a decision as such.
In 2001 or 2002, a decade after Sylvester had died, Bob spoke to me of the possibility of republishing Kroklok. He may have raised the idea with others. I don’t know.
When he asked me, I said yes, I thought it was a good idea. We discussed the idea of actually reviving the magazine and publishing a Kroklok #5; but Bob felt that was inappropriate. That’s a feeling with which I concur now.
In so far as a decision was taken, it was to republish issues 1 - 4.
It was a decision which Bob did not live to implement; but Writers Forum is now in a position to do so. It would be pleasant to reissue all four in one go; but the work involved is considerable and a little painstaking. Rather than hold up what is available, we are starting with issue two.
Here it is. It is entirely printed by Bob Cobbing. My work has been to locate the remains, a few here and a few there; to sort them, weeding out the pages that were too damaged; to fold them; to collate them; and to staple them.
From the first the magazine was to be, in the words of its editor, dsh, in the introduction to Kroklok # 1. the writers forum anthology of sound poetry
That is, poetry on the page which is identified as sound poetry.
And this is differentiated from “visual poetry”.
To me, now, these seem odd separations, not least in the light of the work of Bob Cobbing himself. Nevertheless, it might be remembered that during what we might call the Kroklok period, the writers forum workshop met according to a schedule concentrating by turns on sound poetry, visual poetry and performance of poetry. Or so I remember. Others may correct me; but it was something like that.
I am not going to worry too much about it; and I point these things out because it may help you read these magazines.
In the introduction to #1, dsh expresses the hope that it will be possible to publish recordings along with the texts. That never happened, but how much more ambitious one would have to be now to include the wide variety of soundwork, not least the material made possible by new media.
Retrospectively, it all seems very ambitious; but it indicates something of the mood of the times.
Copyright © Lawrence Upton 16 December 2006
Relaunch of "Oscar Christ and the Immaculate Conception", Saturday, 04 November 2006
Today we relaunch a book by Jeff Nuttall, artist, poet, jazz musician, critic, social commentator, novelist, theatrical innovator, actor and teacher.
The book is Oscar Christ and the Immaculate Conception, first published by Writers Forum in September 1968, when the title of the book did have considerable power to shock.
For those who don't know about Jeff, I quote Tim Emlyn Jones from THE INDEPENDENT, January 2004:
"His contribution to contemporary culture will come to be seen to be far greater than many may have suspected up to now. In an earlier time. his boisterous passion for truth and love of outrage would not have disallowed the recognition of his deep seriousness. It is in the difficulties as well as in the pleasures of this man's art that its worth may be found".
There are difficulties: there are for me. They lie not so much in understanding what he is saying, which is clear though often unexpected, but in the manner of it: what, in other artists, I might call sexism.I am not saying it isn't sexist, just that I hesitate to say it; and for a reason. I don't want to go near dismissing the work because of its many fine qualities. Jeff's understanding of the processes running in us and in our society was so acute that I do not want to reject quickly what upsets me.
Upsetting people was part of what he was about sometimes - for instance, his unannounced theatrical events.
Latterly, he frequently upset me, one to one, with some of his forcefully-expressed opinions on modern art practice. But, even there, there is more to be said, there was always more in what he was saying that was perceptive and useful to oneself in among the condemnations of that which I really don't think needed condemning.
I would point to Eric Mottram and Bob Cobbing as examples of perceptive, intelligent and, to the end, mentally-flexible people who after years of being in the van sometimes didn't see the quality in new approaches beyond their immediate praxis and theoretical environment.
I think, in the case of Bob, of some of the discussions he and I had as we drew up the lists of invitees for On Word and debated the names that we did not have in common.
What I retain from that engagement is that Bob did learn and also did teach me, just as surely as he taught many of us here.
People have latched on to Mottram's difficulties, late in his life, with some contemporary formal innovations. But what is important to me is not any failure to see immediately what his poetic peers were up to: it is that he questioned himself over why it was that others, whose judgements had informed his were now at variance with him, and that he worked at it and debated and learned.
So someone like Jeff, in his output, experiences and presents difficulties.
Mottram called him a genius, but that has limited use. It needs to be noted though. We need to think what he meant by that; and I have had a go - you can find that on the Nuttall website http://www.jeff-nuttall.co.uk/html/lawrence_upton.html
I believe any understanding of it, and any judgement we make of our own, needs to remember that genius, whatever the term means, does not mean perfect innovation on tap. The acronym of perfect innovation on tap is PIT and that's where such thinking gets us. What Eric was describing was the result of Jeff's hard work. It takes us all hard work if one would keep working through a long life.Charges of sexism in his hard work hurt Jeff deeply, or so it seemed from the way he told me of it. He asked me if I found his work sexist and I had to say yes; but I'm listening: let's keep talking, as it were; and I kept inviting him to read at Sub Voicive Poetry.
Reading Oscar Christ these last few days, it has struck me that it has dated. References to Vera Lynne may no longer have the same connotation as they did in 1978. The silly German voices, phonetically spelled "vun foot on see taple, vun foot nailed town to see upright of se Iron Cross" irritate me. This particular line goes on. Here it is in full without the cod accent, which is faded out in Nuttall's text anyway: "Oscar, pulling the rubber truncheon on the front row, one foot on the table, one foot nailed down to the upright of the Iron Cross with a halo of our legs their cheap black-market nylons that his triumph trickled down, unless we caught it first, like tears, on stolen Red Cross cottonwool"
I do have difficulty with ejaculate as "a triumph"; but let us beware of attributing everything to the author personally, of saying he says "I" so it must be him; let us attend to the metaphorical grammar. And let us attend to what else is going on here. The repression and suppression and fetishism sluicing through these pages is not in the past, except in the context of the Second World War; and our society is screwing itself up in lots of new ways; so we might hesitate to act adversely on perhaps inevitable judgements. The collage of pre-existing print, of drawings, cut up text and written text bears study. It is risky writing, adventurous writing.
It looks, superficially, like many other things I have seen. It may be that similarity points to the influence Jeff had on us - like the remark that Shakespeare is full of quotes - just as he always acknowledged the influence of Burroughs on him. The influence of The People Show has been enormous - this book is only one aspect of a varied and hard-to-classify output that has to be read as one thing as much as possible if we are to receive it clearly. His work was no way a simple copy of Burroughs and there is a lot more than Burroughs in these books, way beyond what one might call Jeff's own style. He took what was useful to him and it became his. He modified his style as he went along. His repeated acknowledgement of Burroughs is a sign of Jeff's honesty and generosity.
A man who writes "Our man woke in the small hours with poltergeist speeches rattling automatically from under his shamed forelock" is not just writing a sexist text.Sexism is relative given that so many of us are carriers. Whatever of it remains useful, and I think that much does, the text is also of its time and place, as with the author.
This book is worth reading NOW.
The effort to restore this to print has been gladly made.
Finally, for the record, a brief bibliographical note. Cobbing used the word "edition" to mean both "edition" and "impression", that is reprint. One set of Oscar that he called the second edition, that is the second impression, is dated May 1997. So far so good. This reissue is assembled from a box of printed pages found in Bob's workroom. It may well be the last discovery of that kind. And on the cover of that printing it says "2nd edition August 1970". Initially, I thought that Bob had printed the impression and never issued it; so that by 1997, over a quarter of a century later, he had forgotten it. But that didn't add up. It wasn't his way to print and not distribute. And when I went back to Bob's own listing of the publication, I found the 1970 print clearly acknowledged, so it had hardly been forgotten
"38. Oscar Christ and the Immaculate Conception, by Jeff Nuttall. (WFP 23, September 1968) 32pp, 8" x 6 1/2", litho, cover design by Jeff Nuttall. 2nd edition August 1970".
I found that there were far fewer covers than sets of pages, which suggests a degree of sorting, given that all the remaining covers were good, unheard of in tabletop printing 35 years ago. The shortfall suggests bad prints were discarded.
Therefore, I assume that the 1970 edition / impression was issued, but with a lot of pages and covers put into storage without being collated. He did that quite a lot.
And then he forgot it! Presumably there are people with copies of it, to confirm my assumption, but I doubt this matters enough to make it sensible to check. Thus, this is the second impression, the distribution of which was interrupted and then forgotten as Bob hurried on to the next and subsequent wf publications; and that which claims to be the second impression is in fact the third.
Lawrence Upton © Saturday, 04 November 2006
The book is Oscar Christ and the Immaculate Conception, first published by Writers Forum in September 1968, when the title of the book did have considerable power to shock.
For those who don't know about Jeff, I quote Tim Emlyn Jones from THE INDEPENDENT, January 2004:
"His contribution to contemporary culture will come to be seen to be far greater than many may have suspected up to now. In an earlier time. his boisterous passion for truth and love of outrage would not have disallowed the recognition of his deep seriousness. It is in the difficulties as well as in the pleasures of this man's art that its worth may be found".
There are difficulties: there are for me. They lie not so much in understanding what he is saying, which is clear though often unexpected, but in the manner of it: what, in other artists, I might call sexism.I am not saying it isn't sexist, just that I hesitate to say it; and for a reason. I don't want to go near dismissing the work because of its many fine qualities. Jeff's understanding of the processes running in us and in our society was so acute that I do not want to reject quickly what upsets me.
Upsetting people was part of what he was about sometimes - for instance, his unannounced theatrical events.
Latterly, he frequently upset me, one to one, with some of his forcefully-expressed opinions on modern art practice. But, even there, there is more to be said, there was always more in what he was saying that was perceptive and useful to oneself in among the condemnations of that which I really don't think needed condemning.
I would point to Eric Mottram and Bob Cobbing as examples of perceptive, intelligent and, to the end, mentally-flexible people who after years of being in the van sometimes didn't see the quality in new approaches beyond their immediate praxis and theoretical environment.
I think, in the case of Bob, of some of the discussions he and I had as we drew up the lists of invitees for On Word and debated the names that we did not have in common.
What I retain from that engagement is that Bob did learn and also did teach me, just as surely as he taught many of us here.
People have latched on to Mottram's difficulties, late in his life, with some contemporary formal innovations. But what is important to me is not any failure to see immediately what his poetic peers were up to: it is that he questioned himself over why it was that others, whose judgements had informed his were now at variance with him, and that he worked at it and debated and learned.
So someone like Jeff, in his output, experiences and presents difficulties.
Mottram called him a genius, but that has limited use. It needs to be noted though. We need to think what he meant by that; and I have had a go - you can find that on the Nuttall website http://www.jeff-nuttall.co.uk/html/lawrence_upton.html
I believe any understanding of it, and any judgement we make of our own, needs to remember that genius, whatever the term means, does not mean perfect innovation on tap. The acronym of perfect innovation on tap is PIT and that's where such thinking gets us. What Eric was describing was the result of Jeff's hard work. It takes us all hard work if one would keep working through a long life.Charges of sexism in his hard work hurt Jeff deeply, or so it seemed from the way he told me of it. He asked me if I found his work sexist and I had to say yes; but I'm listening: let's keep talking, as it were; and I kept inviting him to read at Sub Voicive Poetry.
Reading Oscar Christ these last few days, it has struck me that it has dated. References to Vera Lynne may no longer have the same connotation as they did in 1978. The silly German voices, phonetically spelled "vun foot on see taple, vun foot nailed town to see upright of se Iron Cross" irritate me. This particular line goes on. Here it is in full without the cod accent, which is faded out in Nuttall's text anyway: "Oscar, pulling the rubber truncheon on the front row, one foot on the table, one foot nailed down to the upright of the Iron Cross with a halo of our legs their cheap black-market nylons that his triumph trickled down, unless we caught it first, like tears, on stolen Red Cross cottonwool"
I do have difficulty with ejaculate as "a triumph"; but let us beware of attributing everything to the author personally, of saying he says "I" so it must be him; let us attend to the metaphorical grammar. And let us attend to what else is going on here. The repression and suppression and fetishism sluicing through these pages is not in the past, except in the context of the Second World War; and our society is screwing itself up in lots of new ways; so we might hesitate to act adversely on perhaps inevitable judgements. The collage of pre-existing print, of drawings, cut up text and written text bears study. It is risky writing, adventurous writing.
It looks, superficially, like many other things I have seen. It may be that similarity points to the influence Jeff had on us - like the remark that Shakespeare is full of quotes - just as he always acknowledged the influence of Burroughs on him. The influence of The People Show has been enormous - this book is only one aspect of a varied and hard-to-classify output that has to be read as one thing as much as possible if we are to receive it clearly. His work was no way a simple copy of Burroughs and there is a lot more than Burroughs in these books, way beyond what one might call Jeff's own style. He took what was useful to him and it became his. He modified his style as he went along. His repeated acknowledgement of Burroughs is a sign of Jeff's honesty and generosity.
A man who writes "Our man woke in the small hours with poltergeist speeches rattling automatically from under his shamed forelock" is not just writing a sexist text.Sexism is relative given that so many of us are carriers. Whatever of it remains useful, and I think that much does, the text is also of its time and place, as with the author.
This book is worth reading NOW.
The effort to restore this to print has been gladly made.
Finally, for the record, a brief bibliographical note. Cobbing used the word "edition" to mean both "edition" and "impression", that is reprint. One set of Oscar that he called the second edition, that is the second impression, is dated May 1997. So far so good. This reissue is assembled from a box of printed pages found in Bob's workroom. It may well be the last discovery of that kind. And on the cover of that printing it says "2nd edition August 1970". Initially, I thought that Bob had printed the impression and never issued it; so that by 1997, over a quarter of a century later, he had forgotten it. But that didn't add up. It wasn't his way to print and not distribute. And when I went back to Bob's own listing of the publication, I found the 1970 print clearly acknowledged, so it had hardly been forgotten
"38. Oscar Christ and the Immaculate Conception, by Jeff Nuttall. (WFP 23, September 1968) 32pp, 8" x 6 1/2", litho, cover design by Jeff Nuttall. 2nd edition August 1970".
I found that there were far fewer covers than sets of pages, which suggests a degree of sorting, given that all the remaining covers were good, unheard of in tabletop printing 35 years ago. The shortfall suggests bad prints were discarded.
Therefore, I assume that the 1970 edition / impression was issued, but with a lot of pages and covers put into storage without being collated. He did that quite a lot.
And then he forgot it! Presumably there are people with copies of it, to confirm my assumption, but I doubt this matters enough to make it sensible to check. Thus, this is the second impression, the distribution of which was interrupted and then forgotten as Bob hurried on to the next and subsequent wf publications; and that which claims to be the second impression is in fact the third.
Lawrence Upton © Saturday, 04 November 2006
Publication Launch
Today at our workshop we shall be launching some reprints -
of Alan Sondheim's Orders of the Real and of Kroklok 2 edited by dsh and Bob Cobbing
Full details will be posted here later
of Alan Sondheim's Orders of the Real and of Kroklok 2 edited by dsh and Bob Cobbing
Full details will be posted here later
Welcome
This is just a holding post...
The writers forum website has become untenable with problems with the ISP and a company called Ipswitch which supplies the FTP software, or rather doesn't supply it
This blog is being opened for the time being and perhaps for ever in order to communicate what we are doing
In due course this message will be modified; and further messages will be added
The writers forum website has become untenable with problems with the ISP and a company called Ipswitch which supplies the FTP software, or rather doesn't supply it
This blog is being opened for the time being and perhaps for ever in order to communicate what we are doing
In due course this message will be modified; and further messages will be added
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