This is the second video made by Elizabeth Lawes, Liaison Librarian Special Collections UCL. We discuss aspects of my nature poetry I have developed since the 1960s improvising with all who come to my events in the countryside – gardens, orchards, historic sites; sharing and responding to natural objects I provide indoors; creating designs for seven Living Monuments of ginkgo tree plantings for regions of the UK, in particular GINKGO COMPASS a walk dedicated to international harmony designated for London and Tokyo – ginkgo trees enhance the front quad of UCL. Our conversation ends with my admiration for another Northamptonshire nature poet, John Clare (1793-1864) who was incarcerated in hospital just near where I was born. He is now regarded as a pioneering environmentalist extolling the natural world.
This anthology continues the tradition of Julien Blaine’s pioneering venture DOC(K)S begun in 1976, in touch with me about it from 1979. I contributed to his publications in particular the postcard collections to be sent worldwide, part of the Mail Art movement. I have 2 full colour iPad visuals in this stupendous publication of 494 pages including a USB of videos, described as a living laboratory of innovative poetry in all its diverse forms. Purchase it by emailing www.docksforever@proton.me
Esteemed Visual Poet Paula Claire’s Virtual Visit to University of Iowa Libraries
In 2021 I referred to my 2 interviews and a performance with Xelis de Toro made by ZOOM in November that year, financed by Arts Council SouthEast. Xelis and filmmaker Paul Dutnall have been involved in a series of videos about the history and main figures of Sound Poetry since the early 20th Century. Now the 3 he made with me are on YouTube.
PAULA CLAIRE a British sound, visual and concrete poet and performer.
Introduction to British Concrete Poetry : BOB COBBING and PAULA CLAIRE
NOT THE PAINTING BY GOYA : A THANKSGIVING (1987) by PAULA CLAIRE – a typewriter shaped poem and performance score improvised by Paula and Xelis.
Cassettes and book International Sound Poetry Festival NY 1980
Sean McCann of RECITAL (CA USA) has launched the Archival set of cassettes and a book documenting the International Sound Poetry Festival in New York April 1980 run by Charlie Morrow of the New Wilderness Foundation. Embedded in Sean’s website is the 10 minute video of me speaking about SOUND AND SOUND POETRY made in my Archive by Claire Mills for Charlie who had invited me to perform JETAKEOFF and POPCORN INDIVIDUALS at his comprehensive week-long event, now highly regarded and preserved through Sean’s initiative.
A VIDEO celebrating Bob COBBING and Marvin Sackner’s contribution in very different ways to the field of concrete, visual, sound and performance poetries.
Please find our VIDEO celebrating Bob COBBING and Marvin Sackner’s contribution in very different ways to the field of concrete, visual, sound and performance poetries. They both departed this life on 29 September, Bob in 2002; Marvin in 2020.
I celebrate today my 60 years of Creativity by publishing my Artist’s book DIAMOND IS FOR EVER DIAMOND Catalogue Four: Works 2011-2021. Liz is engaged in getting the superb collection of Spineless Wonders in the Poetry Store at UCL linked with the Slade School better understood and appreciated. We plan more videos in due course.
SPINELESS WONDERS project Slade School of Art UCL 18 FEBRUARY online conference
I am presenting to end the day An Utterance of STONE TONES, published by Cobbing’s Writers Forum Press 1974, my documentation of my first vocalisations of lines and marks on a variety of stones, Poetry Society London May 1973. These spontaneous responses to natural objects I term my ‘gestation of language research’ – see YouTube link to my talk on this I gave to the Colloquium Visual Poetry São Paulo November 2021
The organisers plan this year a hard copy catalogue and online text of all speakers’ presentations, making this biennial Colloquium a key research resource about international practitioners in the vast ever growing field of concrete visual sound performance poetries
Xelis originally from Galicia Northern Spain now based in Brighton is very active creatively with a particular flair for sound poetry. See videos on www.xelisdetoro.netHe came to my performance in Speaking Parts a Tribute to Bob Cobbing, Raven Row Gallery London (see entry 2015) and recently was successful in obtained a grant from Arts Council SouthEast for us to perform together by ZOOM and interview me about key works. We did this in November with invaluable technical help from film maker Paul Dutnall who will edit and post these items in the spring and provide a link. The piece I chose for us to perform together is NOT THE PAINTING BY GOYA – A THANKSGIVING, a shaped typewriter poem I created in 1987 that combines my experience of being shot at with an air rifle (luckily ‘they missed,’ a motif of the poem) when standing on my balcony admiring the new moon with teferences to the murdered poet Lorca’s unhappy destiny and Goya’s famous anti-war painting The Third of May 1808 of a freedom fighter facing the enemy’s firing squad.
Tweet by Society of Authors from Paula Claire’s video thanking the Judges for a prestigious Award for her lifetime of innovative poetry that has an international context.
I was invited by Marc Matter who runs a course Musik und Text at the Robert Schumann College, Düsseldorf Germany to hold with his students a ZOOM session 2 hours 20 April 2021 discussing with my usual interaction the various techniques of my Sound Poetry. We finished with a big ‘voice stretch’ of Bob Cobbing’s exhortation “Own Your Voice” triggered by my iPen score. (Recording not allowed re privacy laws).
BROWSE COLLECTIONS features images of the text/textile bookworks of Amelia Etlinger: the VIDEO (46 mins) at the end was made by my husband Paul San Casciani of me showing 8 works Amelia gave me, some with fabrics I sent her to transform into her extraordinary artworks. Photo of me in my Archive with the works I show in the Video.
Iowa University Special Collections now houses the Sackner Archive indisputably the largest Collection of concrete/visual/sound poetry anywhere, assembled by Ruth and Marvin in Miami from 1978 onwards. They bought my work from Bob Cobbing, then from me. Corresponding from 1980, we met only once, see photo RSA vaults 2013. Iowa online database cites 143 items of mine including the book I sold them then.
Princeton University Special Collections recently purchased a comprehensive collection I assembled, citing 90 publications and much documentation I provided, part of their British innovative poets focus.
Scottish poetry festival STANZA this spring hosted Greg Thomas’ article with illustrations on his special subject, concrete poetry. Some were printed on acetate and given away to be fixed on a window and looked through. Mine was SPRING 1970, an acrostic design for an enamelled glass panel. Read this acrostic from bottom upwards, it SPRINGS.
Entretecido/Interlace – exhibition Pavilhao Blanco Lisbon: 26 artists working in textile-related artworks, curator Tobi Maier. My typewriter text-ile ENTWINE (1993, see image 2015 entry) included in the exhibition and documentary fanzine.
Performance for The Oxford Italian Association, St Hugh’s College Oxford 31 January 2020, my last live event! I spoke about the Venice Biennale exhibition and my outdoor performance for it Codestones of Venice (Writers Forum London 1978) republishing it in a new format Codestones of Venice Revisited at this event. See TOIA Facebook page.
Dr Niall Munro, Director of Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre kindly posted my leaflet advertising the book launch on 18 March 2020 of fromWORDtoART, browsing the Paula Claire Archive I had written about my Collection I intended to hold in a rented room in Rewley House OUDCE where I gave One-Day Schools in Concrete Poetry in 1988-91, then part-time at Oxford Poly 1991-1994. Government restrictions prevented it, so I ‘published’ it out of my Archive window with 3 blasts on my ramshorn to neighbours below – see photos in MAPmagazine Greg Thomas review.
Special Collections: Small Press Collections: see Poetry Store. Image: cover of my SEVESO (1977) a typewriter ‘text-ile’ seequence published by Cobbing’s Writers Forum. My three Catalogues, My Life in Poetry, fromWORDtoART browsing the Paula Claire Archive purchased in 2020. UCL Art Librarian tweeted (7 June 2019) photos of my British Library Performance. UCL is my alma mater, graduated 1960.
MAP magazine Issue August 2020: The Poetic and Archival Practice of Paula Claire, review including 5 of my bw/colour illustrations by specialist in concrete poetry and allied fields Greg Thomas, see his Twitter account 25 August 2020.
Women in Concrete Poetry 1959-79 New York USA October 2020. Editors: Alex Balgiu and Monica de la Torre. Fifty female practitioners, including 5 of my works 1970-78. Copy sent for my Archive fromWORDtoART Oxford.
SHOP: Limited Edition of 50 letterpress prints for sale with certificate of authenticity from 5 of the practitioners in their anthology Women in Concrete Poetry 1959-79, including my SEA SHANTY, a typewriter ‘text-ile’ 1971.
ZOOM book launch by the 2 editors featuring 5 practitioners, hosted by after8books, Paris of Women in Concrete Poetry 1959-79, 5 December 2020, 2 hours. It begins with me explaining why and how I created Sea Shanty (1971) published in SOUNDSWORD, Cobbing’s Writers Forum London 1972. Then ‘interactive voices’ joined in from all over when I began to improvise with the ‘score.’
www.argotistonline.co.uk. This site is now closed, please contact Jeffrey Side for further information.
Email interview posted December 2020 by Director Jeffrey Side about the history of my practice, perceptively questioned by fellow poet Giles Goodland who has visited my Archive (see my photo) several times and exchanged work with me. We shared an event at the late Albion Beatnik Bookshop Oxford in their Poetry Reading Month, November 2012.
I presented ‘8 Poems for 80’ at my British Library 80th birthday year event, 6 June 2019 in the Eliot Room of their Knowledge Centre, filmed by their Archivist Stephen Cleary. I premiered LOST PARADISE my plea for our Blue Planet based on images from a copy I own of John Martin’s mezzotints for Milton’s PARADISE LOST, wearing a painted robe on the theme commissioned from Carole Waller.
Issue Two: Dedicated to Materializzazione del Linguaggio, a show of over 80 international female visual poets curated by Mirella Bentivoglio, Venice Biennale 1978. I took part and gave outdoor performances.
Archive: #75. Astro-poems and Vertica Group Exercises. Concrete Poetry at CSA June 2018. I lent 5 works donated to my Archive by Edward Wright, I am standing by a photo of his metal plaque 4 Catrina 4
Audio recordings, a Queen Mary University of London initiative in conjunction with the British Library. I recorded 11 poems in a diversity of my styles at their Studio, June 2017.
Online magazine run by Colin Herd, Glasgow. Issue Two including 6 of my iPad poems using script. Amongst Sunflowers WHAT created 28 July 2014, ‘Lament for the loss of flight MH17 17 July 2014’. A missile brought it down in a field of sunflowers.
Visual Poetry in Europe. Part of Benetton’s huge art project: format 10 x 12cm. I chose to encapsulate a memory stick into the reverse of the frame: Reliquary:The Ultimate Concrete Poem. Book published by Fabrica, Italy 2016.
Clasp – late Modernist Poetry in London in 1970s. Editors Robert Hampson and Ken Edwards April 2016. I front the cover in my Universe Robe, photo by Pete Day. Article by me Working with Bob Cobbing in the 1970s.
Performance One (morning) of Two at this June Conference for RA Schools curated by Sarah Jones, theme ‘the noise and voices of objects.’ Reynolds Room: ammonites, a conch, Luna Aria vase from PHOS PHOR (Houston Festival 1986)
Performance Two (afternoon) Life Room. Drawing marks in black treacle, then Improvisations to text/ures of Savoy cabbages, and It’s About Time with metronome, drawing on hands in Hands Up!
Speaking Parts: Bob Cobbiiiiiiiiig Live Tribute to her colleague in Konkrete Canticle, founded 1971. Paula Claire performing his Suesequence 20 May 2015.
