About Anthony Howell

Anthony Howell is in Peter Reading’s words, “an eclectic original”: a poet and novelist whose first collection of poems Inside the Castle was brought out in 1969. In the tradition of Robert Browning, James Hogg and Andre Gide, he often explores ‘immoralism’ in his writings via personae, fusing the exploration of problematic character with a modernism derived from Huysmans, Robbe-Grillet and systemic conceptual art.

A former member of the Royal Ballet Company, his novel In the Company of Others was published by Marion Boyars in 1986.  A ‘tango novel’ Oblivion came out from Grey Suit editions, and The Fortnightly Review’s Odd Volumes brought out his ‘non-fiction’ novel Consciousness (with Mutilation).  Anvil did his Selected Poems, and his Analysis of Performance Art is published by Routledge. His most recent novel is The Distance Measured in Days (2021).

Howell was founder of The Theatre of Mistakes, which created notable performances worldwide in the seventies and eighties at venues such as the Paris Biennale, the Sydney Biennale, the Paula Cooper Gallery, the Theatre for the New City (NY), the Tate and the Haywood.   Play-scripts of these performances are published by Grey Suit Editions. He is still active in dance and teaches the tango!

His poems have appeared in The New Statesman, The Spectator and The Times Literary Supplement.  His articles on visual art, dance, performance and poetry have appeared in many journals and magazines including Artscribe, Art Monthly, The London Magazine, and Harpers & Queen. His translations, and the Anvil backlist of his books of verse are now published by Carcanet.   In 1997 he was short-listed for a Paul Hamlyn Award for his poetry.  His versions of the Silvae of Statius have been well received and his versions of Plague Lands, after poems by Fawzi Karim, were a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for 2011.

Howell currently curates The Room, a space for dance, performance, poetry and visual art in London.  He has also danced with Lindi De Angelis as Tango Schumann, interpreting classical music through the tango in art galleries such as the Ikon Birmingham and Modern Art Oxford. He and Lindi performed for the Robert Schumann Bicentennial in Zwickau in 2010.

Anthony’s website is at:   www.anthonyhowell.org

Anthony says, ‘the website has several sections – Readings and Performances (videos and recordings of performance art, poetry readings, musical events etc), Writings (links to my novels, books of poems and texts that have been published), Journal (a link to this blog), Links (to the websites of writers, artists and performance artists I admire), Archive (a link to my earlier website with many details about readings and performances, theory and history).’

Contact email: editorial@greysuiteditions.co.uk

With Kerry-Lee Powell (Canada) and Pamela Stewart (USA) he started Grey Suit: Poem Stream and Grey Suit: Critique – these are online initiatives, the first streaming international, historical and contemporary poetry, the second collating online articles on poetry.  The operation developed a website and a physical manifestation in the form of chap-books, video archives and DVDs. However the latest incarnation of Grey Suit – which includes book length projects – is at https://greysuiteditions.co.uk/ . This link opens to all previous websites. Grey Suit Editions has launched this new series of publications in association with Phoenix Publishing House.

Click Writings for links to some of Anthony’s publications

See links for other sites relating to Anthony Howell

Bibliography

1968-9: Sergei de Diaghileff – long poem – Turret Books.

1969: Inside the Castle – poems – Barrie & Rockliff, The Cresset Press.

1970: Imruil – free translation from pre-Islamic Arabic – Barrie & Rockliff .

1971: Edited Erotic Lyrics – anthology – for Studio Vista, London.

1972: Femina Deserta – poem – Softly Loudly Books, London.

1975: Oslo: a Tantric Ode – book-length poem – Calder & Boyars, London.

Elements of Performance Art – textbook for performance artists – co-authored with Fiona Templeton, Ting Books, London.

1976: The Mekon – poem – The Many Press, London.

1983: Notions of a Mirror – poems – Anvil Press Poetry, London.

1984: Winter’s not Gone – poems – The Many Press, London.

1986: Why I may never see the Walls of China – poems – Anvil Press Poetry, London.

In the Company of Others – novel – Marion Boyars, London.

1990: Howell’s Law – poems – Anvil Press Poetry,  London.

1992:Edited and wrote introduction to Near Calvary – Selected Poems of                                         Nicholas Lafitte  –  The Many Press, London.

1995:First Time in Japan – poems – Anvil Press Poetry, London.

1999:The Analysis of Performance Art – Harwood Academic                                                      Publishers (Routledge) London (Re-issued 2017)

Sonnets – Grey Suit, London.

2000: Serbian Sturgeon: Journal of a visit to Belgrade – Harwood Academic Publishers (Routledge), London.

Selected Poems, Anvil, London.

Spending: Poems, Menard, London.

2003 Dancers in Daylight – Poems 1995-2002 – Anvil Press , London, 2003  

2006: Homage to Morandi – play script – text by A.H.- The Theatre of Mistakes  (1980) – Grey Suit Editions, London (re-issued 2017)

Oblivion – novel – Grey Suit Editions, London

Statius: Silvae – Translations and Versions from the Latin -with Bill  Shepherd- Anvil Press Poetry.

Going – play script – text by A.H. and Fiona Templeton – The Theatre of Mistakes (1976) – Grey Suit Editions, London (re-issued 2017)

2009: The Ogre’s Wife – poems – Anvil, London

2011: Plague Lands and other poems by Fawzi Karim: versions by AH –                             Carcanet Manchester  – Poetry Book Society choice for Translation, 2011

2014: The Empty Quarter – versions by A H of new poems by Fawzi Karim – GreySuit Editions, London.

2014:  Silent Highway – poems – Anvil, London

2017 The Poems of Alain-Fournier – translated (with Anthony Costello and Anita Marsh) Carcanet, Manchester

2017 From Inside – poems – The High Window Press – Grimsby

2019 Incomprehensible Lesson – versions by A H of poems by Fawzi Karim – Carcanet, Manchester (short-listed for the Helen Maguire Prize)

Consciousness (with Mutilation) – novel – Odd Volumes, the Fortnightly Review, France.

The Step is the Foot: Dance and its relationship to Poetry – Grey Suit Editions UK, London.

Songs of Realisation – poems – The High Window Press – Swindon, UK.

2020 Heron of Hawthornden – poems – Grey Suit Editions UK.

2021: The Distance Measured in Days – novel –  Grey Suit Editions UK.

2022: Invention of Reality – poems – The High Window Press, UK, Autumn, 2022.

Forthcoming:

Lost Farm – novel – Odd Volumes, The Fortnightly Review, France, Autumn 2022.