Sean Noel Bonney (21 May 1969 – 13 November 2019) was an English poet born in Brighton and brought up in the north of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. He lived in London and, from 2015 up until the time of his death, in Berlin. He was married to the poet

Frances Kruk Frances Kruk is a contemporary Polish-Canadian poet living in London, UK. She completed her PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London, under the supervision of Redell Olsen. Her writings have been published in journals including ''Damn the Caesa ...

. Charles Bernstein published poet William Rowe's obituary for Bonney in US online magazine Jacket2, as well as releasing his own poem ''The Death of Sean Bonney''. Detailed notes to Bonney's poetics by Jacob Bard-Rosenberg are featured on the Poetry Foundation website. ''The Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry'' has published a special edition on Bonney. His publications include ''Blade Pitch Control Unit'' (2005), ''Baudelaire in English'' (2008), ''Document'' (2009), ''The Commons'' (2011), ''Happiness: Poems After Rimbaud'' (2011), ''Letters Against the Firmament'' (2015), and ''Our Death'' (2019).

Life and work

Together with other UK-based poets, Bonney's work marks a progression and continuance of 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 ...

, combining with his abiding interest in left-wing radical movements such as British punk, the

Angry Brigade The Angry Brigade was a far-left British terrorist group responsible for a series of bomb attacks in England between 1970 and 1972. Using small bombs, they targeted banks, embassies, a BBC Outside Broadcast vehicle, and the homes of Conservati ...

, the Red Army Faktion, the American Black Power movement, Surrealism and revolutionary art in general. Living at various points in Hackney, Hastings and Walthamstow, he was a regular attendee at the

Bob Cobbing Bob Cobbing (30 July 1920 – 29 September 2002) was a British sound, visual, concrete and performance poet who was a central figure in the British Poetry Revival. Early life Cobbing was born in Enfield and grew up within the Plymouth Bret ...

-led

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 ...

workshop, co-founding the reading series Xing the Line with

Jeff Hilson Jeff Hilson (born 1966) is a British poet. His works include ''A Grasses Primer'' (Form Books, 2000), ''Stretchers'' (Reality Street, 2006), ''Bird Bird'' (Landfill, 2009), and ''In The Assarts'' (Veer Books, 2010). He also edited ''The Realit ...

, and co-editing the press Yt Communication with

. A sequence of 14 line poems, ''The Commons,'' originally subtitled "A Narrative / Diagram of the Class Struggle' combined contemporary uprisings with the voices of the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the english Civil War and "the cracked melodies of ancient folk songs". Following the completion of his PhD from

Birkbeck, University of London , mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck. , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £4.3 m (2014) , budget = £10 ...

, from 2015 to 2019 Bonney was a postdoctoral researcher at the

John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies The John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies (JFKI) is a central institute at Freie Universität Berlin. The JFKI was founded in 1963 by Ernst Fraenkel, a political scientist and was named in the honor of John F. Kennedy after his ass ...

at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in poli ...

, conducting a project examining the work of

Diane di Prima Diane di Prima (August 6, 1934October 25, 2020) was an American poet, known for her association with the Beat movement. She was also an artist, prose writer, and teacher. Her magnum opus is widely considered to be ''Loba'', a collection of poems ...

. Bonney died in a tragic accident on 13 November 2019 in Berlin.

Books

*''London Review Bookshop Samplers, No. 2'', Face Press, 2019. *
Our Death
', Commune Editions, 2019. *

'
Materials
2017. *''Cancer: Poems After Katerina Gogou'', A Firm Nigh Holistic Press, 2016.
''All This Burning Earth: Selected Writing''
Ill Will Editions (online), 2016. *''Letters Against the Firmament'',

Enitharmon Press Enitharmon Press is an independent British publishing house specialising in artists’ books, poetry, limited editions and original prints. The name of the press comes from the poetry of William Blake: Enitharmon was a character who represen ...

, 2015 *''Letters: on Harmony'', Iodine Press, 2013 *''Four Letters, Four Comments'', Punch Press, 2012 *''Happiness (Poems After Rimbaud)'', Unkant Publishing, 2011 *
The Commons
', Openned, 2011 *''For the Administration'', Crater Press, 2010 *''5 After Rimbaud'', Grasp Press, 2010 *
Document: Poems, Diagrams, Manifestos: July 7th 2005 - June 27th 2007
',

Barque Press {{No footnotes, date=March 2021 Barque Press is a London-based publisher of experimental poetry. Founded in 1995 by Andrea Brady and Keston Sutherland. Barque's list includes Andrea Brady, Keston Sutherland, J. H. Prynne, John Tranter John Er ...

, 2008 *
Baudelaire in English
'' Veer Books, 2007 *'from ''Tracts and Commentaries: A Lecture''' (in ''Pilot: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry'', 2007) *''Black Water'', Yt Communication, October 2006 *''Document: hexprogress'', Yt Communication, May 2006 *
Blade Pitch Control Unit
''

Salt Publishing Salt Publishing is an independent publisher whose origins date back to 1990 when poet John Kinsella launched ''Salt Magazine'' in Western Australia. The journal rapidly developed an international reputation as a leading publisher of new poetry ...

, 2005 *''Poisons, Their Antidotes'', West House Books, 2003 *''Notes on Heresy'', Writers Forum, 2002 *''The domestic poem'', Canary Woof, 2001 *''From the book of living or dying''
Writers Forum
1999. *''Astrophil and Stella'', Writers Forum, 1999. *''now that all the popstars are dead'', damnation publications, 1996 *''Marijuana in the breadbin'', Doktor Hypno publications, 1992

Life and work

Books

References

See also