Hi Robert,

you ask about perceptions and recptions at the turn of the 80s. Doubtless
there will many tags being teamed here. My own sense was of  a shift of
tactics away from institutions.

Yes, there was a strange smell lingering in the air after the Poetry
Society counter coup (that's a silly way of putting it but those kinds of
sentiments were somehow a part of that experience, Lawrence phrases it far
better). As someone who arrived in that scene and felt it to be about right
with the times I came away with having learned a strong lesson (a
confirmatory one in that I expected nothing less) about pubic (tempted to
leave that typo unregarded) funding, the interpretational abuses of
aesthetic preferences for the protextion (and that one) of priveledged
standards and about the lasting necessity of DIY, 'making do' in de
Certeau's terms.

So, there was a shift away from cosier notions of Poetry Homebase, National
HQ and so forth into an increasingly decentralising network of friends and
allies. It took time, because the recoil was strong and persistent after
such a prolonged and promising escapade. Some carried on in their houses or
with equipment and resources close at hand; Bob Cobbing, Allen Fisher, Ken
Edwards, Lawrence Upton, myself. Some explored other event series such as
RASP, SubVoicive. [Incidentally my own sense of the SubVoicive readings was
of giving a reading at the Rainbow Cafe in the very early 80s (I think
Gilbert had tried one venue previous to that) and then of reading at
subsequent locations such as The White Swan in Covent Garden, The Moon in
Holborn (a couple of other pubs whose names i cannee remember), The Archers
down Brick Lane and the Three Cups of course.] At the Rainbow Cafe I can
remember reading to a fabulous audience, not especially large but Pierre
Joris, Paige Mitchell, Gilbert Adair, Allen Fisher, Eric Mottram, Patty
Karl, Patricia Farrell (probably), Carlyle Reedy, Lawrence were all the
kinds of people that I knew were there. That felt very similar in intensity
and intimacy to the audience I read for at the Ear Inn in 1979 in New York
with Hannah Weiner, Charles Bernstein, Bruce Andrews, Jackson MacLow and
that wonderful bar staff. Sorry I don't everybody at either place at those
times, but the point being made is the sense of special occasion to close
community with radiant connections that readings felt like. Also the fact
that readings could be put on almosy anywhere. That would play strongly
into Allen Fisher's 'entranchment and awe'. I had something of this sense
of intimate community in Cork last year too btw.

The shift away from the aftershock at the Poetry Society can also be seen
as a refocussing in the wake of the effective ending of one of those
collectives that defined London's sub-epidermis at that time. My own shift,
and others moved along parallel planes, was to make strong friends and
allies alignments with the extant collectives, LMC (London Musicians
Collective), LFMC (London Film Makers Collective), X6 (new dance
collective) that were nodal points of interconnection between crossartform
practitioners and audiences as well as between more pop and more esoteric
practices. For example the big parties, desribed by David Toop in the
monograph for Steve Cripps, at Butlers Wharf, where X6 was based: 'a small
mechanical record player played as it crawled its insectile path through
partygoers and performers such as Jayne County and the Electric Chairs,
Michael Nyman, The Rich Kids (their first gig), Sid Vicious and Nany
Spungen, Bruce Lacey, Andrew Logan, Midge Ure and various members of The
Jam, The Buzzcocks and Siouxie and The Banshees.'  (this would form a
subset of recollections under parties, such as those at John Walters' house
in Baltimore with Divine serving salad using giant dildos, or that at the
Refinerie de Plan K in Brussels where Burroughs and Gysin wandered about,
his films were projected, Steve Lacy took up spaces for saxophone solos,
Kathy Acker read, Joy Division played and chicken / rice was served from a
rows of bathtubs etcetera etcetera anybody got any wild party stories?)

The curiousity was that poetry audiences remained relatively (i use that
word advisedly) discreet, whereas the audience for music, performance art,
new dance, installations, independent film crossed over. But poets
frequented those scenes and you can read such interests in their work.
There were curious events at Essex University and in Cambridge (Richard
Tabor's spree documented in the Lobby Press Newsletter). Fencott programmed
interdisciplinary mixes around the axes of improvisation (chielfy music and
voice and film), i worked a lot with young choreographers, Lawrence and ee
vonna-michel and myself worked at West Square Electronic music Studios and
at the Adult Education Institute in Covent Garden. jgjgjgjgj . . .(as long
as you can say it that's our name) had a studio space (well, a lock-up we
used a bit and rented out for a year) in Covent Garden. We'd rehearse
somethig and then pop round the corner to the Vortex to see Art Attacks or
some such.

There was the ACME Gallery with an exceptional programme, the House, The
Air, the Laundry  -  all of which poets appeared at during those years. I
heard Robert Duncan, Jackson MacLow, Jerry Rothenberg in such galleries.

Yes, a centre had gone, but although the wounds ran deep (possibly deeper
for those who didn't have youth on their side) the result was going to be
more positive in the longer term. This would be born out i suggest by the
exodus from London throughout the 1990s which has broadened and
strengthened the net considerably.

I write all of this btw with a clear understanding that London was NOt the
only place to be, that events and churnings were continuing elsewhere. I
for one remember Peter Hodgkiss getting strnge events to occur in Swansea,
there was always Morden Tower and much more I know not what  -  hope folks
here can tell us of.

One issue being raised is of reader aspration and I'd like to come back and
address that under a separate post. Another is of the conituity of a more
or less group, a now greying group. It's odd, in about 1980 i can
distinctly recollect having conversations with Lawrence and PC Fencott
about how we were looking over our shoulders and feeling disappointed that
nobody was there. Of course we couldn't see the wood for the telegraph
poles but the situation was much healthier and is certainly now far more
encouraging. But then that is one benefit of being able to handle the
protective clothing of an institution. A lesson that it has taken this
writer twenty years to begin to come full circle into.

love and love
cris










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