Very pleased to announce the publication of a new E-book

Temptation in Whispers – written in 1971 – and now published by Argotist Ebooks

Just click that link!

Temptation in Whispers was written at a time when I was deeply committed to the notion of “abstract poetry”. This was neither simply “sound poetry” nor “concrete poetry”. I was interested in working with limited vocabularies and permutations. In those days I was engaged in finding a way of writing in key with innovation going on in other purlieus of art – Philip Glass’s musicians had stayed in my studio on their first visit to London, and I had conducted the first British radio interview with John Ashbery. Several times I visited Clark Coolidge in New Lebanon and often hosted readings by poets associated with the New York School. My work was contemptuously dismissed by the British poetry establishment, and this manuscript proved impossible to publish.

Best read aloud, this is writing with sound, and it is aware of its “look” – but there is always an element of change that moves it, I hope, towards a readability that goes beyond the sound and the look of it.  But it is more like a tapestry than something one needs to begin at the beginning of. Like a tapestry, you can begin looking at it from anywhere, yes, since it can be looked at as much, if not more, than it need be read, for I am weaving threads, assembling a mosaic of patterns.

Very grateful thanks to Jeffrey Side at Argotist.

My other ebook, an early novel, can be found here: The Distance Measured in Days

And other novels can be found under the fiction category on this blog. There are also ebook versions of two Grey Suit publications – see https://greysuiteditions.co.uk/