Greg Thomas
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620269
- eISBN:
- 9781789629538
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620269.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
In the work of the London-based poet Bob Cobbing, we can sense the culmination of a global shift in the definition of concrete poetry. For Cobbing, concrete poetry became a means of transcending or ...
More
In the work of the London-based poet Bob Cobbing, we can sense the culmination of a global shift in the definition of concrete poetry. For Cobbing, concrete poetry became a means of transcending or evading language in order to access a space of objective communication. His work responded to a whole gamut of twentieth-century and historical forms, from ritual chant-based practices to Dada performance, to the contemporaneous sound poetry of French ‘Ultralettrists’ such as Henri Chopin, William Burroughs’s cut-ups, and auto-destructive art. The example of classical concrete poetry served more as a stylistic counterpoint than a direct influence. Cobbing’s practice was also centrally motivated by a counter-cultural belief that artistic forms which broke down boundaries between media could have more broadly, socially disruptive and revolutionary effects. The development of these sentiments is traced from Cobbing’s early production of duplicator prints during the 1940-50s to his non-semantic, performance-oriented concrete practice of the early 1970s, in which single visual poems become the basis for endless improvisatory reworking. At the close of the chapter, the non-linguistic quality of Cobbing’s work is considered as a manifestation of, and response to, broader tensions within the concrete style.Less
In the work of the London-based poet Bob Cobbing, we can sense the culmination of a global shift in the definition of concrete poetry. For Cobbing, concrete poetry became a means of transcending or evading language in order to access a space of objective communication. His work responded to a whole gamut of twentieth-century and historical forms, from ritual chant-based practices to Dada performance, to the contemporaneous sound poetry of French ‘Ultralettrists’ such as Henri Chopin, William Burroughs’s cut-ups, and auto-destructive art. The example of classical concrete poetry served more as a stylistic counterpoint than a direct influence. Cobbing’s practice was also centrally motivated by a counter-cultural belief that artistic forms which broke down boundaries between media could have more broadly, socially disruptive and revolutionary effects. The development of these sentiments is traced from Cobbing’s early production of duplicator prints during the 1940-50s to his non-semantic, performance-oriented concrete practice of the early 1970s, in which single visual poems become the basis for endless improvisatory reworking. At the close of the chapter, the non-linguistic quality of Cobbing’s work is considered as a manifestation of, and response to, broader tensions within the concrete style.
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853238195
- eISBN:
- 9781846313806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853238195.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter focuses on the works of English poet Bob Cobbing, a senior and major exponent of the international concrete poetry movement. Cobbing practiced both visual and sound poetry, and has made ...
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This chapter focuses on the works of English poet Bob Cobbing, a senior and major exponent of the international concrete poetry movement. Cobbing practiced both visual and sound poetry, and has made more effort than most concrete poets to liberate the text from the page into performance contexts. The unity of the creative project of Cobbing was guaranteed by his division of labour between self-publishing and performance. Cobbing said the ‘the ABC of Sound made him believe that he could become a professional’. Cobbing made a series of 17 pamphlets and sheets called ‘Processual’ between 1982 and 1985 using his photocopier as a new poetic tool and as the latest mode of production of Writers Forum. Cobbing wrote the Third ABC in Sound during his 80th year in 2000.Less
This chapter focuses on the works of English poet Bob Cobbing, a senior and major exponent of the international concrete poetry movement. Cobbing practiced both visual and sound poetry, and has made more effort than most concrete poets to liberate the text from the page into performance contexts. The unity of the creative project of Cobbing was guaranteed by his division of labour between self-publishing and performance. Cobbing said the ‘the ABC of Sound made him believe that he could become a professional’. Cobbing made a series of 17 pamphlets and sheets called ‘Processual’ between 1982 and 1985 using his photocopier as a new poetic tool and as the latest mode of production of Writers Forum. Cobbing wrote the Third ABC in Sound during his 80th year in 2000.
Greg Thomas
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620269
- eISBN:
- 9781789629538
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620269.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This book presents the first in-depth account of the relationship between English and Scottish poets and the international concrete poetry movement of the 1950s-70s. Concrete poetry was a literary ...
More
This book presents the first in-depth account of the relationship between English and Scottish poets and the international concrete poetry movement of the 1950s-70s. Concrete poetry was a literary and artistic style which reactivated early-twentieth-century modernist impulses towards the merging of artistic media while simultaneously speaking to a gamut of contemporary contexts, from post-1945 social reconstruction to cybernetics, mass media, and the sixties counter-culture. The terms of its development in England and Scotland also suggest new ways of mapping ongoing complexities in the relationship between those two national cultures, and of tracing broader sociological and cultural trends in Britain during the 1960s-70s. Focusing especially on the work of Ian Hamilton Finlay, Edwin Morgan, Dom Sylvester Houédard, and Bob Cobbing, Border Blurs is based on new and extensive archival and primary research. It fills a gap in contemporary understandings of a significant literary and artistic genre which has been largely overlooked by literary critics. It also sheds new light on the development of British and Scottish literature during the late twentieth century, on the emergence of intermedia art, and on the development of modernism beyond its early-twentieth-century, urban Western networks.Less
This book presents the first in-depth account of the relationship between English and Scottish poets and the international concrete poetry movement of the 1950s-70s. Concrete poetry was a literary and artistic style which reactivated early-twentieth-century modernist impulses towards the merging of artistic media while simultaneously speaking to a gamut of contemporary contexts, from post-1945 social reconstruction to cybernetics, mass media, and the sixties counter-culture. The terms of its development in England and Scotland also suggest new ways of mapping ongoing complexities in the relationship between those two national cultures, and of tracing broader sociological and cultural trends in Britain during the 1960s-70s. Focusing especially on the work of Ian Hamilton Finlay, Edwin Morgan, Dom Sylvester Houédard, and Bob Cobbing, Border Blurs is based on new and extensive archival and primary research. It fills a gap in contemporary understandings of a significant literary and artistic genre which has been largely overlooked by literary critics. It also sheds new light on the development of British and Scottish literature during the late twentieth century, on the emergence of intermedia art, and on the development of modernism beyond its early-twentieth-century, urban Western networks.
