Border Blurs: Concrete Poetry in England and Scotland (Liverpool English Texts and Studies): 79

318 Pages·2019·3.892 MB·English

by  Greg Thomas

Border Blurs
LIVERPOOL ENGLISH TEXTS AND STUDIES 79

BORDER BLURS
Concrete Poetry in
England and Scotland
GREG THOMAS
Border Blurs
LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS
First published 2019 by
Liverpool University Press
4 Cambridge Street
Liverpool
L69 7ZU
Copyright © 2019 Liverpool University Press
The right of Greg Thomas to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data
A British Library CIP record is available
ISBN 978-1-78962-026-9
epdf ISBN 978-1-78962-444-1
Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster
Contents
Contents
Figures vii
Notes on Referencing ix
Acknowledgements xi
1. Introduction 1
2. Concrete Poetry/Konkrete Poesie/Poesia Concreta:
The International Scene 19
3. Order and Doubt: Ian Hamilton Finlay 65
4. Off-Concrete: Edwin Morgan 115
5. Apophasis: Dom Sylvester Houédard 159
6. Abstract Concrete: Bob Cobbing 203
7. ?Concrete Poetry and After: Conclusion 249
Works Cited 261
Index 281
v
For my family, friends, and Saskia
Figures
Figures
Chapter Two: The International Scene
1. Eugen Gomringer, ‘Ping Pong’ 32
2. Eugen Gomringer, ‘Silencio’ 34
3. Décio Pignatari, ‘LIFE’ 39
4. Décio Pignatari, ‘Bebe Coca Cola’ 40
5. Augusto de Campos, ‘Sem um Numero’ 40
Chapter Three: Ian Hamilton Finlay
1. From Glasgow Beasts, An a Burd 74
2. Toy Cow 79
3. From Concertina 80
4. ‘An Eatable Peach’ 85
5. ‘m’ 86
6. ‘roses’ 88
7. ‘eve’ 89
8. Spread from the first ‘Changing Guard’ Times
Literary Supplement 91
9. Standing Poem 2: Apple/Heart 95
10. Key and detail from Standing Poem 3 96
11. 4 Sails 99
12. Canal Stripe Series 3 ([6–13]) 100
13. Canal Stripe Series 3 ([28–29]) 101
14. Ocean Stripe 5 ([11]) 102
15. Starlit Waters 107
16. ‘The Four Seasons in Sail.’ Honey by the Water 109
17. The Four Seasons in Sail 109
vii
border blurs
Chapter Four: Edwin Morgan
1. From Morgan’s scrapbooks 119
2. ‘Dogs Round a Tree’ and ‘Original Sin
at the Water-Hole’ 131
3. ‘Instant Theatre Go Home’ 134
4. From Festive Permutational Poem 137
5. ‘Starryveldt’ 140
6. ‘Message Clear’ 142
Chapter Five: Apophasis: Dom Sylvester Houédard
1. ‘Thalamus Sol’ 175
2. ‘Birhopal Takistract: Eyear Poem for Takis Vassilakis’ 177
3. ‘Four Stages of Spiritual Typewriting’ 179
4. ‘4’ 180
5. ‘Om’ 181
6. ‘070267’ 192
7. ‘020467’ 193
8. ‘Visualisation of Idapingala Staircases with Mount
Meru up the Middle’ 194
9. Cube Typestract 195
10. Screen Typestract 196
Chapter Six: Abstract Concrete: Bob Cobbing
1. ‘Crabtree’ 209
2. ‘Typestract: Introduction/Conclusion’ 228
3. ‘Worm’ 230
4. From ‘Are Your Children Safe in the Sea?’ 232
5. ‘Marvo Movie Natter’ (two versions) 240
6. ‘Fugitive Poem’ 243
viii
Notes on Referencing
Notes on Referencing
Given the difficulty of defining the medium of certain concrete poems,
any two-dimensional work referred to by its creator as a ‘poem’ is treated
as such; three-dimensional ‘poems’ are generally treated as works of art.
References are not always provided for three-dimensional poems seen
only in reproduction, many of which no longer exist in any other form.
Untitled poems are named according to their first lines, or, in the case
of ‘non-linguistic’ poems, by date of composition, an annotative phrase,
or – in as few cases as possible – a simple descriptive term provided by
the author. The page numbers of works and quotes from unpaginated
bound volumes have been calculated by taking the cover as the first page.
The following abbreviations are used throughout the text after being
introduced once: ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts); POTH (Poor.
Old.Tired.Horse); TLS (Times Literary Supplement); DIAS (Destruction
in Art Symposium).
ix