Cobbing, Bob
COBBING, Bob
Nationality: British. Born : Enfield, Middlesex, 30 July 1920. Education: Enfield Grammar School; Bognor Training College, teaching certificate 1949. Family: Married Jennifer Pike in 1963; three sons and two daughters from previous marriages. Career: Civil servant, 1937–41; farmer, 1942–43; teacher in Swindon, Wiltshire, 1944–47, and London, 1949–64; manager, Better Books Poetry Bookshop, London, 1964–67. Since 1967 freelance writer and performer. Since 1954 co-editor, And; since 1963 publisher, Writers Forum, London. Performer with abAna group and Australian Dancers, both now inactive, and with Konkrete Canticle Birdyak, and Domestic Ambient Buoys. Founding member and vice president, Association of Little Presses. Awards: C. Day Lewis fellowship, Goldsmiths' College, 1973. Address: 89A Petherton Road, London N5 2QT, England.
Publications
Poetry
Massacre of the Innocents, with John Rowan. London, Writers Forum, 1963.
Sound Poems: An ABC in Sound. London, Writers Forum, 1965.
Eyearun. London, Writers Forum, 1966.
Chamber Music. Stuttgart, Hansjörg Mayer, 1967.
Kurrirrurriri. London, Writers Forum, 1967.
SO: Six Sound Poems. London, Writers Forum, 1968.
Octo: Visual Poems. London, Writers Forum, 1969.
Whisper Piece. London, Writers Forum, 1969.
Why Shiva Has Ten Arms. London, Writers Forum, 1969.
Whississippi. London, Writers Forum, 1969.
Etcetera: A New Collection of Found and Sound Poems. Cardiff, Vertigo, 1970.
Kwatz. Gillingham, Kent, Arc, 1970.
Sonic Icons. London, Writers Forum, 1970.
Triptych One: Are Your Children Safely in the Sea [Two: Undum Eidola; Three; Four: Three Tables; Five: Feathered; Six: Variations on a Theme; Seven: A Sense of (Japanese) Dress; Eight: Clippings and Trimmings; Nine: Vestimentiferan; Ten: For Eric]. London, Writers Forum, 10 vols., 1970–95.
Kris Kringles Kesmes Korals. Cardiff and London, Vertigo-Writers Forum, 1970.
Three Poems for Voice and Movement. London, Writers Forum, 1971.
Konkrete Canticle. London, Covent Garden Press, 1971.
Beethoven Today. London, Covent Garden Press, 1971.
Spearhead. London, Writers Forum, 1971.
Five Visual Poems. London, Writers Forum, 1971.
The Judith Poem. London, Writers Forum, 1971.
Poster No.2. Brighton, Judith Walker Poster, 1971.
Songsignals. Cardiff, Second Aeon, 1972.
Tomatomato. Kettering, Northamptonshire, All-In, 1972.
15 Shakespeare-Kaku. London, Writers Forum, 1972.
Trigram. London, Writers Forum, 1972.
Ecolony. London, Writers Forum, 1973.
Circa 73–74. London, Writers Forum, 1973.
Alphapitasuite. London, Writers Forum, 1973.
In Any Language. London, Writers Forum, 1973.
The Five Vowels. London, Writers Forum, 1974.
Picture Sheet One. London, Good Elf, 1974.
A Winter Poem. (nos. 1–23). London, Writers Forum, 23 vols., 1975–99.
Five Performance Pieces. London, Writers Forum, 1975.
Yedo Keta Waro. London, Writer Forum, 1975.
Hydrangea. London, Writers Forum, 1975.
Kyoto to Tokyo. London, Good Elf, 1975.
A Round Dance. Stockholm, Writers Forum, 1976.
Poems for the North West Territories. London, Writers Forum, 1976.
Bill Jubobe: Selected Texts 1942–1975. Toronto, Coach House Press, 1976.
Jade-Sound Poems. London, Writers Forum, 1976.
Furst Fruts Uv 1977, with Lawrence Upton. London, Good Elf—Writers Forum, 1977.
Title: Of the Work. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Number Structures. Stockholm, Writers Forum, 1977.
Tu To Ratu: Earth Best. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Cygnet Ring: collected poems 1. London, Tapocketa Press, 1977.
And Avocado. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Bob Cob's Rag Bag. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Anan An'Nan. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Scorch Scores. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Citycisms. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Windwound. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Voice Prints. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Janus. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Fingrams. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Fracted. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Cuba. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Towards the City, with Jeremy Adler. London, Writers Forum, 1977.
Five Ways, with Bill Bissett. Toronto, Writers Forum, 1978.
Niagara. London, Writers Forum, 1978.
A Movie Book. London, Writers Forum, 1978.
Two Leaf Book. London, Writers Forum, 1978.
Found: Sound. London, Tapocketa Press, 1978.
Principles of Movement. London, Writers Forum, 1978.
Meet Bournemouth. London, Writers Forum, 1978
Fugitive Poems No. X. London, Writers Forum, 1978.
Game and Set. London, Writers Forum, 1978.
Ginetics. London, Writers Forum, 1978.
A B C/Wan Do Tree: collected poems 2. London, El Uel Uel U, 1978.
Sensations of the Retina. Toronto, Gronk, 1978.
A Peal in Air: collected poems 3. Toronto, Anonbeyondgr Onkontaktewild Presses, 1978.
Grin. London, Writers Forum, 1979.
A Short History of London, with Jeremy Adler. London, Writers Forum, 1979.
The Kollekted Kris Kringle (collected poems 4). London, Anarcho Press, 1979.
Pattern of Performance. London, Writers Forum, 1979.
Notes from the Correspondence, with Jeremy Adler. London, Writers Forum, 1980.
Voicings. London, Writers Forum, 1980.
The Sacred Mushroom. London, Writers Forum, 1980.
Statue of Liberty Suite. Leamington Spa, Other Branch Readings, 1980.
(Soma) Light Song. London, Writers Forum, 1981.
Serial Ten (Portraits). London, Writers Forum, 1981.
Four Letter Poems. London, Writers Forum, 2 vols., 1981.
Fencott and Cobbing in Miami [Baltimore, New York, Buffalo, Toronto, at Bay, San Diego, Clyde Dunkob in Vancouver]. Miami, Baltimore, New York, Buffalo, Toronto, San Francisco, San Diego, and Vancouver, El Uel Uel U-Writers Forum, 8 vols.,1982.
In Line. London, Writers Forum, 1982.
Sound of Jade. London, Writers Forum, 1982.
Baker's Dozen. London, Writers Forum, 1982.
Processual One [Two, 3, four, Quintet, Spin-Off, Novation: The Seventh Assignment, Double Octave, Spin-Off Two, Nonny-Nonny Swart Process U.A.L. (paper) 10, Summation, Supplement, (Almost) Random Snippets from Works in Progress, A Processual Notation]. London, Writers Forum, 15 vols., 1982–85.
Lightsong Two. London, Writers Forum, 1983.
Bob Cobbing's Girlie Poems: collected poems 5. London, Good Elf, 1983.
Prosexual. Milan, Writers Forum, 1984.
Homage to Theocritus, with Jeremy Adler. London, Writers Forum, 1985.
Sockless in Sandals: collected poems 6. Cardiff, Second Aeon, 1985.
Vowels and Consequences: collected poems 7. Newcastle upon Tyne, Galloping Dog Press, 1985.
Metamorphosis for bpNichol. London, Writers Forum, 1986.
Poetry into Music. London, Writers Forum, 1986.
Point of Departure. London, Writers Forum, 1986.
Variations on a Theme. London, Writers Forum, 1986.
Portrayed. London, Dirty, 1986.
Lame, Limping, Mangled, Marred and Mutilated: collected poems 9. London, David Barton, 1986.
Astound and Risible: collected Poems 8. Oakland, California, Ink Blot, 1987.
Processual: collected poems 10. London, New River Project, 1987.
Entitled: Entitled: collected poems 11. London, Micro-Brigade, 1987.
Wan, Do, Tree, Grin. London, Writers Forum, 1987.
Twelve. London, Writers Forum, 1987.
Six Computer Score. London, Writers Forum, 1987.
Both Both, with Bruce Andrews. London, Writers Forum, 1987.
Computer Poems. London, Writers Forum, 1988.
Stracci 1 [2,3]. London, Writers Forum, 3 vols., 1988.
Dress Sense. London, Writers Forum, 1989.
Raddle. London, Writers Forum, 1989.
Self-Portrait with Glasses. London, Writers Forum, 1989.
A Choice of Whiskies (as Connie Sirr). London, Writers Forum, 1989.
Improvisation Is a Dirty Word: collected poems 12. Heptonstall, Yorkshire, Magenta, 1990.
Bob Jubile. London, New River Project, 1990.
Codes and Diodes, with Robert Sheppard. London, Writers Forum, 1991.
Life, The Universe and Everything. London, Interim Books, 1992.
Fuerteventura. London, Writers Forum, 1992.
Ulli's Sett. London, Micro Brigade, 1993.
Open Folios. London, Writers Forum, 1993.
Voice Prints: collected poems 13. Seaham, Amra Imprint, 1993.
Score. London, Writers Forum, 1994
Electrografien. Berlin, Hybriden Verlag, 1994.
Domestic Ambient Noise, with Lawrence Upton. London, Writers Forum, 257 vols., 1994–99.
Pitchblend. London, Writers Forum, 1995.
Poems by R W C for R W C: collected poems 14. Sutton, R W C, 1996.
Gibbering His Wares: collected poems 15. Glasgow, Object Permanence, 1996.
Ow, Ow 2, Ow 3. London, Writers Forum, 3 vols., 1996–97.
Glossolalie un hallali. London, Writers Forum, 1997.
In Just Intonation. London, Writers Forum, 1997.
Undum Eidola. London, Writers Forum, 1997.
Fuming, with Lawrence Upton. London, Writers Forum, 1997.
Sound of Colour, Colour of Sound. London, Writers Forum, 1997.
Vispo for Eric. London, Writers Forum, 1997.
Cylinder Head, with Jennifer Pike. London, Writers Forum, 1997.
15 Shakespeare-Kaku (augmented edition). London, Writers Forum, 1998.
Kikaku Revisited. London, Writers Forum, 1998.
Are Your Children Safe in the Sea? London, Writers Forum, 1998.
Circuit. London, Writers Forum, 1998.
Morris Dance. London, Writers Forum, 1998.
System and Random. London, Writers Forum, 1999.
Ein Noise Project, with Serge Segay. London, Writers Forum, 1999.
Voices. London, Writers Forum, 1999.
Kob Bok Selected Texts 1948–1999. Buckfastleigh, Etruscan Books, 1999.
Shrieks and Hisses: collected poems 16. Buckfastleigh, Etruscan Books, 1999.
Recordings: An ABC in Sound, with Ernst Jandl, Writers Forum, 1965; Chamber Music, Swedish Radio-Fylkingen, 1968; Whississippi, Swedish Radio-Fylkingen, 1969; Marvo Moves Natter and Spontaneous Appealinair Contemprate Apollinaire, Ou, 1969; Variations on a Theme of Tan, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1970; As Easy, Swedish Radio-Fylkingen, 1971; Ga(il s)o(ng), Suesequence, Poem for Voice and Mandoline and Poem for Gillian, Hymn to the Sacred Mushroom, Arts Council, 1971; Khrajrej, Opus Magazine, 1973; E colony, Typewriter Magazine, 1973; Hymn to the Sacred Mushroom, CBS/Sugar, 1975; Portrait of Robin Crozier, Fylkingen, 1977; 15 Shakepearekaku, with Laurence Casserley, Cramps, 1978; Vive Rabelais, with Henri Chopin, Pipe, 1980; on cassette: Bob Cobbing and abAna, Polytechnic of Central London, 1975; Slowly Slowly The Tongue Unrolls, Balsam Flex, 1979; Trigram, Balsom Flex, 1979; An ABC in Sound, Balsam Flex, 1980; Cobbing at Orpington, and at King's College, Herne Tapes, 1981; abAna, Writers Forum, 1982; Scrambles, with Clive Fencott, Writers Forum, 1982; Various Throats, with Steve Smith and Keith Musgrove, Underwhich 1982; Oral Complex at the October Gallery [at L.M.C.], Writers Forum, 1982–83; Aberration, Klinker Zoundz, 1988; Green Computer, Klinker Zoundz, 1988; E Colony; from A Processual Double Octave, Klinker Zoundz, 1988.
Other
Three Manifestos. London, Writers Forum, 1970.
Concrete Sound Poetry. London, Writers Forum, 1974.
Some Myths of Concrete Poetry, with Peter Mayer. London, Writers Forum, 1976.
Some Statements on Concrete Sound Poetry. London, Writers Forum, 1978.
Concerning Concrete Poetry (omnibus), with Peter Mayer. London, Writers Forum, 1978.
Changing Forms in English Visual Poetry. London, Writers Forum, 1988.
Serious Dissertations on Something or Other. London, Anarcho Press, 1989.
Editor, Pamphlet One. London, Writers Forum, 1968.
Editor, A Typographical Problem. London, Writers Forum, 1969.
Editor, Free Form Poetry I and II. London, Writers Forum, 2 vols., 1970–71.
Editor, Samples of Concrete Poetry. London, Writers Forum, 1970.
Editor, British Modernism: Fact or Fiction? London, Writers Forum, 1971.
Editor, with Peter Mayer, International Concrete Poetry. London, Writers Forum, 1971.
Editor, Gloup and Woup: A Folio of Concrete Poetry. Todmorden, Lancashire, Arc, 1974.
Editor, Prospects. London, Writers Forum, 1986.
Editor, Songs: All Over the Place. London, Writers Forum, 1986.
Editor, Seevic's Feat. London, Writers Forum, 1989.
Editor, with Bill Griffiths, Verbi VisiVoco—A Performance of Poetry. London, Writers Forum, 1992.
Editor, with Bill Griffiths, Motley for Mottram. London, Writers Forum, 1994.
Editor, In Memoriam Dsh. London, Writers Forum, 1995.
Editor, Gifts for Three Sheppards. London, Writers Forum, 1996.
Editor, with Lawrence Upton, Word Score Utterance Choreography. London, Writers Forum, 1998.
*Manuscript Collections: State University of New York, Buffalo; Ruth Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Miami.
Critical Studies: By Dom Sylvester Houédard, in "Bob Cobbing Issue" of Extra Verse 17 (London), 1966; by Eric Mottram, in Second Aeon 16–17 (Cardiff), 1973; Bob Cobbing and "Writers Forum" edited by Peter Mayer, Sunderland, Ceolfrith Press, 1974.
Bob Cobbing comments:
(1975) My earlier poems "might seem to be conventionally linear; but their urge is towards stabilized diagram, itemised pieces of information in a spatial lay-out which is, in fact, the syntax" (Eric Mottram). In later poems the dance of letters, half-letters, syllables, and words on the page is score for "a ballet of the speech organs" (Victor Shklovsky). In still later poems the scores are for instrumental as well as vocal poetry, for a ballet of the whole body and not just the voice.
I have been described as "a lettriste, thirty years out of date" (François Dufrêne), and it is true that I value lettriste principles, but not solely. My work derives equally from Joyce, Stein, and the Kerouac of "Old Angel Midnight"; from François Dufrêne's post-lettriste cri-rythmes and the vocal microparticles of Henri Chopin. This leads Dom Sylvester Houédard to note the range of my personal scale (a) from eye to ear, (b) from most to least abstract.
At present I am working on single-voice poems; multivoiced poems; poems based on words; poems not using words or even letters; poems for electronic treatment on tape; poems for "voice as instrument and instruments as speaking voices" (Time Out magazine, concerning the group abAna with which I performed); poems as scores for dance or drama, invitations to act out an event in space, sound and choreography.
"History points to an origin that poetry and music share in the dance that seems to be a part of the make-up of homo sapiens and needs no more justification or conscious control than breathing" (Basil Bunting). This attitude is always worth exploring and means both a going back and a going forward.
* * *Bob Cobbing is a senior and major exponent of the international concrete poetry movement in Great Britain. What is immediately impressive about his large body of work, in comparison with that of other poets in the field, is its range, and the published texts, which are freestanding visual poems, are also scores for vocal performance as sound poems. One of Cobbing's titles, Sonic Icons, stresses the interdependence of the two sides of his work through its appropriate anagram. His division of labor between self-publishing and performance ensures the unity of a creative project of great importance, yet his quest for new materials, techniques, and processes remains undiminished in energy and innovation.
Coming from a family of sign writers may have enabled Cobbing to disregard divisions between design and inscription, but he was a visual artist before he was a poet. His earliest duplicator print of 1942 presages his later work and his interest in the mechanics and accidents of printing. But it was not until 1965, with the alliterative sequence An ABC in Sound, that Cobbing came to maturity. Perhaps the best-known poem from this work is "Tan Tandinanan," a complex series of mantric variations for chanting that begins with
tan tandinanan tandinane
tanan tandina tandinane
tanare tandita tandinane
tantarata tandina tandita …
At about this time Cobbing began to make visualizations of earlier, often conventional poems, utilizing the ink duplicator as a medium. Thus, the mimetic crawling superimposition of "WORM"(1964) is based on a 1954 linear original. He used letters as elements in a visual design, but although he used his artistic skills, his materials remained anchored to language. Accepting these "signs" as if they were hieroglyphs of a forgotten language, one could freely interpret them as sound. As the texts became less lexical and more like black-and-white abstracts, suggestive landscapes of sound, so the emphasis moved away from phonetics toward the use of "vocal micro-particles," anything from a whisper to a bellow. The lip prints used for "U" from The Five Vowels might be considered as the most direct and primitive of linguistic signs. The semantic element, slenderly present in "WORM," for example, rarely surfaces in later work, where interpretation is no longer a matter of literary hermeneutics but of performance. Rather than a series of works, Cobbing's poetry is a continuing activity.
Cobbing performs in various ensembles, sometimes with improvising musicians but often with other sound poets. As with any form of improvised art, rapport between performers is essential to the fluency and unity of the work. A group can develop techniques and procedures, and possibly even conventions of translating marks on the page into sound, but the surprises of spontaneous improvisation are still the joys of such work. However much the sound poetry approaches contemporary music, the emphasis is always more linguistic than musical, even in works where the voice is modified by electronics or accompanied by musical instruments. In one of the "Three Variations on a Theme of Tan" paralinguistic, but nonmusical, sounds such as grunting, panting, and coughing take over the rhythm of the poem. Whenever professional singers perform the piece, they tend to regulate the pitch, harmony, articulation, and timbre according to musical criteria, whereas Cobbing is most interested in the full potentialities of the human voice.
This exploratory work, extending toward other art forms, can be usefully considered as one of the enduring (and most pleasurable) forms of multimedia and performance art from the 1960s and 1970s. Yet Cobbing has frequently asserted that his work belongs to a centuries-long tradition of phonological and graphological invention within the mainstream of literature. His work can therefore be seen as the result of experiments in foregrounding one or more of the conventional units of poetic structure (such as rhyme and alliteration or line and layout), allied to a concentration upon the materiality of language as sound or sign. While he makes sophisticated use of the technologies of printing and electronics, Cobbing believes his work to be essentially primitive, a direct mode of communication at times verging on the prelinguistic. He insists that poetry belongs not just to the vocal chords but to the whole body, and, in works such as Three Poems for Voice and Movement, he has scored for dancing as well.
In his work of the late 1970s and early 1980s Cobbing began to use nonlinguistic marks, both natural forms and man-made objects, as though they were significant linguistic signs. In performance these inky maps became scores for the various groups he formed. In a series of pamphlets and sheets entitled "Processual," made between 1982 and 1985 and issued in 1987 as a boxed set called Processual: collected poems 10, Cobbing used his new photocopier as both a poetic tool and as the latest mode of production for Writers Forum, his veteran little press. "Processual" refers directly to the processing of materials by photocopying, which was a major development in his work. This led to a transformational, almost impersonal, series of texts. The systematic magnification and reduction of images suggest both microscopic and cosmic forms, but in fact they are often produced by a mundane object such as a wine glass on the copy board.
While Cobbing has continued to produce many smaller items and has developed his techniques by moving text during the photo-copying process, since the mid-1990s his work with Lawrence Upton has resulted in an astounding collaboration on both texts and performances that threatens to dwarf "Processual." Called Domestic Ambient Noise, the completed project is projected to consist of three hundred booklets, each processing a single theme drawn from the other poet's work to produce six-page variations, which in turn may be selected as themes. The risky dialogue between the two writers ensures the injection of unpoetic materials, even by Cobbing's standards: packaging, clip art, Marmite smears as well as calligraphy, found texts, and even composed texts. Cobbing and his latest photo-copier can process any materials he is challenged with (Upton often produces computer-generated images and text) and transform them into surprising and even beautiful texts.
By the year 2000 Writers Forum had produced about a thousand booklets and pamphlets. The anthology Verbi VisiVoco gives some idea of the scope of the press and of the associated workshop that Cobbing has run in London since 1954.
—Robert Sheppard