News

This past year, for me & my colleagues, has been less productive than I would have hoped, thanks to Covid 19. Fortunately, in health terms, we’ve survived unscathed, as have most of our friends.

This year has, however, seen the deaths of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael Horowitz, and my dear friend the artist Ian Tyson. There are two clips of Ian on the site, one featuring the creation of a large steel sculpture for the University of East Anglia, and another on his long-term collaborations with the American poet Jerome Rothenberg. 

I hope this year, possibly in a revised & extended form, to relaunch ‘Abstract Alchemist of Flesh’, the film I made about Michael McClure, featuring, among others. Peter Coyote, Terry Riley, Ray Manzarek & Dennis Hopper.  I also hope, at long last, that I shall be able to launch my films on Stan Brakhage, Robert Creeley, Jerome Rothenberg, Michael Horovitz & Raúl Zurita.

My main preoccupation over the past year has been the consolidation of my archive on American poetry, which consists of more than a hundred hours of interviews & readings, featuring the seventy-odd poets & artists I’ve worked with over the years, in the hope that it will find a permanent home in an American university. Meanwhile I plod on as best I can, ably assisted by my socially-distanced editor Harry Baker.