Abstract
As a case study, Burnett uses Bob Cobbing, whose infrastructural and performance practice, including community building, provides a UK counterpoint to Holman and Waldman. Cobbing accomplished pioneering work for innovative poetry with institutions in the UK, forming the Association of Little Presses, Poets Conference and Writers Forum. Writers Forum began in London in 1951 as a workshop and magazine, and by 1963 had developed into a small press. It has continued meeting for workshops even after Cobbing’s death in 2002. Cobbing’s more recent performance from the 1980s to 2000s is discussed, informed by primary research involving interview material with Cobbing’s contemporary and collaborator, Lawrence Upton. Community, energy, experiment, indeterminacy, liveness, risk and unintelligibility are explored in the context of Cobbing’s performance and publishing activities.
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Burnett, EJ. (2017). A Circuit of Energies: Bob Cobbing, Sound Poetry and Writers Forum. In: A Social Biography of Contemporary Innovative Poetry Communities. Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62295-8_5
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