Bob Cobbing (30 July 1920 – 29 September 2002) was a British

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' b ...

visual The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight (th ...

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...

and performance poet who was a central figure in the

British Poetry Revival "The British Poetry Revival" is the general name given to a loose poetry movement in Britain that took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The revival was a modernist-inspired reaction to the Movement's more conservative approach to British poetry. T ...

Early life

Cobbing was born in

Enfield Enfield may refer to: Places Australia * Enfield, New South Wales * Enfield, South Australia ** Electoral district of Enfield, a state electoral district in South Australia, corresponding to the suburb ** Enfield High School (South Australia) ...

and grew up within the Plymouth Brethren. He attended

Enfield Grammar School Enfield Grammar School (abbreviated to EGS; also known as Enfield Grammar) is a boys' Comprehensive school and sixth form with academy status, founded in 1558, situated in Enfield Town in the London Borough of Enfield in North London. Histor ...

and then trained as an accountant. He later went to Bognor Training College to become a teacher. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, he was a conscientious objector.

Early involvement with poetry and performance

His involvement with performance began with the Hendon Experimental Art Club and the Hendon-based magazine ''And'' in 1951. This led to his setting up

Writers Forum Writers Forum is a small publisher, workshop and writers' network established by Bob Cobbing. The roots of Writers Forum were in the 1954 arts organisation Group H, and the ''And'' magazine that Cobbing edited. The writers' branch of Group H was ca ...

, which began publishing in 1963. In 1964 he published ''ABC in Sound'', a book that combined his interest in sound and concrete poetry in an exploration of the visual and auditory possibilities of the

English alphabet The alphabet for Modern English is a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters, each having an upper- and lower-case form. The word ''alphabet'' is a compound of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, ''alpha'' and '' beta''. ...

Better Books

He left teaching around this time and managed

Better Books ''Better Books'' was an independent bookstore. It was founded by Tony Godwin and was located at 94 Charing Cross Road, London. The shop was a significant location in the 1960s counterculture movement in London. History It was founded by British ...

on Charing Cross Road, London. Better Books was more than a mere bookshop. Once described as a ‘mini

Arts Lab The Arts Lab was an alternative arts centre, founded in 1967 by Jim Haynes at 182 Drury Lane, London. Although only active for two years, it was influential in inspiring many similar centres in the UK, continental Europe and Australia, includ ...

’ it served as stage, cinema and gallery. Its cross-disciplinary approach welcomed new art forms like assemblage, performance art, and radical poetry. Together with other alternative galleries such as 26 Kingly Street and Indica Bookshop, Better Books was one of the hot spots of the London

underground Underground most commonly refers to: * Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth Underground may also refer to: Places * The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston * The Underground ...

scene. This shop was the venue for a number of events and happenings associated with what Cobbing's friend

Jeff Nuttall Jeffrey Addison Nuttall (8 July 1933 – 4 January 2004) was an English poet, publisher, actor, painter, sculptor, jazz trumpeter, anarchist and social commentator who was a key part of the British 1960s counter-culture. He was the brother of l ...

termed the '' Bomb Culture'', the British version of the 1960s

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

. As an evolution of the earlier Hendon Film Society he began avant-garde film screenings under the title Cinema 65 which led to the formation of the

London Film-Makers' Co-op The London Film-makers' Co-op, or LFMC, was a British film-making workshop founded in 1966. It ceased to exist in 1999 when it merged with London Video Arts to form LUX. It grew out of film screenings at the Better Books bookstore, part of the 196 ...

1970s

During the first half of the 1970s, Cobbing was able to use the facilities of the

Poetry Society The Poetry Society is a membership organisation, open to all, whose stated aim is "to promote the study, use and enjoyment of poetry". The society was founded in London in February 1909 as the Poetry Recital Society, becoming the Poetry Society ...

to produce

books. In all, the press published over 1,000 titles between 1963 and 2002. As well as fostering the younger poets of the

also published works by John Cage,

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

and

Ian Hamilton Finlay Ian Hamilton Finlay, CBE (28 October 1925 – 27 March 2006) was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener. Life Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas, to James Hamilton Finlay and his wife, Annie Pettigrew, both of Scots descent. He was e ...

also ran a regular Saturday afternoon writers' workshop at which poets read and discussed each other's work. In the early 1970s the Poetry Society did not have any printing facilities. Cobbing had his own equipment elsewhere throughout the 40 years of his (largely solo) operation of

. In the mid-1970s, against tremendous opposition of the rump of the old guard on the Poetry Society General Council, Cobbing and others opened a public print shop on the society's premises. Cobbing brought in his own equipment and allowed it to be used by anyone wishing to print their own book of poetry. Later the society provided a desktop litho, plate-maker and golfball typewriter with a diversion of the funds allocated to Poetry Review which was henceforth, for some years, printed in house. Cobbing also explored his interest in performance works for multiple voices and musical instruments in groups like abAna (a trio with

Paul Burwell Paul Dean Burwell (24 April 1949 – 4 February 2007) was a British thaumaturge and percussionist, influential in the fields of free improvisation and experimental art. Born in Ruislip, he studied at Ealing Art College and in the workshops organ ...

and

David Toop David Toop (born 5 May 1949) is an English musician, author, curator, and Emeritus Professor. From 2013 to 2021 he was professor of audio culture and improvisation at the London College of Communication. He was a regular contributor to British ...

, and sextet with the addition of Lyn Conetta, Herman Hauge and Christopher Small), Bird Yak and Konkrete Canticle, which included poets Paula Claire and Bill Griffiths and musician Michael Chant. He was also co-founder of the

Association of Little Presses The Association of Little Presses (ALP) was an organisation dedicated to promoting small press publishing activity in Britain and Ireland. History ALP was founded at a meeting held at Arlington Mill, Bibury, Gloucestershire, on 23 July 1966. The ...

, an organisation that promoted the work of small publishers in Britain and Ireland.

Later life and work

Cobbing was a prolific writer and performer and continued to work right up to his death. In 2000, he performed with Lawrence Upton and Derek Shiel at The Klinker, Islington, London. He also used his teacher training to work on performances with schoolchildren. Much of his later work consists of visual texts,

artist's book Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects. Overview Artists' books have employed a ...

s and markings that were used as notations or, more strictly speaking, jumping off points for performance. He also worked on more directly collaborative works with other poets, such as the ''Domestic Ambient Noise'' project, a series of 300 booklets created with his friend and fellow

editor Lawrence Upton. Since Cobbing's death, Upton has carried on the work of running

Legacy

In 2005, the British Library acquired The Papers of Bob Cobbing consisting of personal material, correspondence, his works, and papers relating to Writers Forum, to the Association of Little Presses (ALP), and to the New River Project.

Publication

"Boooook: The Life and Work of Bob Cobbing" Boooook
", ''Cobbing publication'' (published by Occasional Papers, 2015) is the first comprehensive overview of the life and work of Cobbing. It addresses all aspects of Cobbing's rich career, with new essays detailing his key roles in London Film-makers’ Co-op, Better Books, abAna, as well as his involvement in the Destruction in Art Symposium, Fylkingen, and his publishing imprint Writers Forum.

References

External links

Archivio Conz

Bob Cobbing at EPC

Bob Cobbing at 'edition selene'

Bob Cobbing interviewed by Charles Amirkhanian, 1972

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cobbing, Bob 1920 births 2002 deaths British Poetry Revival English conscientious objectors People from Enfield, London Sound poets People educated at Enfield Grammar School Signalism English male poets 20th-century English poets 20th-century English male writers 21st-century English male writers