voices, junior voices + more
12 August 2010 - edited to add links, footnotes and sections in square brackets
Both connected to the masks I'm currently working on and something that has been touched on by this blog before* are the Voices poetry collections published at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s [edited by Geoffrey Summerfield].
My parents, I'm pretty sure now, had at least books 1-3 and book 5 (possibly book 6) of the initial Voices collection for secondary schools and colleges, and books 1-4 of the Junior Voices series that followed.
At my mother's over the weekend it was clear she now only has books 1-3 of the first Voices books. I was also clear that none of those have the photograph I remember of what I now believe to be Asaro mudmen.
Neither does the book in the scans below.
When I returned home I had another search online for the books, following a less serious search around two years ago. I have been able to buy books 1-4 of the Junior Voices series, although at present only book four has arrived.
The front cover below is a good indication of the striking images and composition used for the covers, and I think is a good indicator of the quality of the illustrations inside, the selection of poetry, and the presentation and quality of the books overall.
My chasing up of these books appears to indicate that there were initially three Voices books and a fourth teachers' handbook published late 1968/early 1969. They were accompanied by a 6 LP set from Argo records featuring classical music, folk music from around the world, field recordings of animals, readings of poems, and poems with musical settings**. This may make additional sense of the musical notation provided for some of the songs included in the books at the back of each. In book four in these illustrations that includes Woody Guthrie's Pretty Boy Floyd [- or less romantically, here].
Those books then seem to have been joined (I think in 1969, but possibly 1970) by books 5 and 6. These appear to be rarer if the prices charged are an indicator.
Then in 1970 came the Junior Voices collection, from which I suspect the more troubling images that I remember like the Asaro mudmen and the Messerschmidt busts [character heads] may have come. According to the book I now have but not in any online source I've seen there was apparently a fifth book, a teachers' handbook in the Junior Voices set. I am not aware that there was an accompanying set of LPs for this collection. If there was it's unlikely to have been on Argo records. They had just been taken over by Decca, and Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl who compiled a number of their folk compilations had just left for Topic [this is in fact the wrong way round. Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl joined Argo from Topic in the mid-late sixties. Decca took over Argo in 1957. That's what happens when you read quickly and carelessly].
I have no indication of who compiled the 6 LP set that was designed to expand the first three books. Peggy Seeger certainly had a track on it though.
The rear cover of the book, jumping back to the book I just received today, helps the front cover make more sense. The pipes are gas pipes and the front cover image is turned on its side.
There is in this fourth book of the Junior Voices series at least one illustration I don't remember but which I think will lead to the creation of a piece of work at some point. It is the picture*** below described as:
82 Voice Prints, electronic pictures of five people saying 'you'. The prints top left and bottom right are the same person.
If we trust the acknowledgements when the book was published it had either not been possible to trace the copyright owners of these pictures or they were not subject to copyright.
I have three more of this series to arrive over the next week. I can then slowly start to purchase the original series and try to find the 6 LP set designed to accompany it. I am quite surprised not to have heard of it before, I would have thought a set of that nature, from this period would have an attraction for a lot of crate-diggers. But then if most of the sets went into schools and colleges they may well have been damaged in use or just thrown away when they were no longer in favour.
So now you have actual evidence of the existence of those Voices books I keep banging on about. More to follow I think. At the weekend if not before I'll also go back and throw up some links to the sources of some of the information in this post so you can start your own searching.
*See the 11th comment for details, toward the end: Perversely enough Gummo is one of the films I didn't get round to seeing yet, not sure why. And I don't think I've come across Charles Lloyd at all, I'll check that out. It's from the right period for a lot of my recent purchases (for myself and friends), that pioneer age from 1895 to the mid 30's. Things like Jean Vigo's work, like Haxan and The Phantom Carriage (which had the recent edition with a KTL soundtrack).
Also kind of enjoying this library of comments building up around this post - I'd like to see some more people participating - maybe Adam will happen back. In a way its building up to a version of the kind of thing I wanted to achieve with the post. Albeit at greater length, and from the mind of more authors. but given the collaborative nature of most of Derek Jarman's work that's appropriate.
And at least it's meant that today hasn't been a write-off. I took flexi-leave because I could do with a break, because I have a lot of hours to clear, because I wanted to spend some time doing creative work, and because I'd arranged to be around for redelivery of a 500GB external hard-drive to move my files to and extend the life of my Mac. But by 7.30pm nothing had arrived, so I rang the despatch company. They initially claimed they'd left a card when they'd failed to deliver. This was bollocks, 'cause although it was a beautiful day, perfect for getting out and taking photos, and although I needed a bunch of groceries, I stayed in all day. They then claimed my item had been sent to Chelmsford by mistake, because someone had added a C to the beginning of my postcode.
Idiots. But as I said, at least I got to write some comments, to have a bath, and to start reading through Jarman's Smiling In Slow Motion, the last volume of his diaries, edited after his death. I've saved it for a year after racing through Chroma again, Modern Nature (my first copy of which I gave to a friend, for whom I think it means more), and Kicking The Pricks, because I didn't want to get to the end. Although I already know how the book ends. A fortnight before his death, blind and writing purely by touch, his careful calligraphy and brilliant prose become scratchy and almost illegible:
"Birthday Fireworks.
___
HB true love"
I think everyone should read this book. I still have a number of his books to read through, fortunately.
Beginnings for me, whenever I launch on a new way of making things, are all about finding a way in. I have to have a handle, something that helps me understand the mechanisms, and gives me permission to go play. I bought both my camera, and my LoopStation (in fact the whole audio setup) before I had any idea that I might do anything with them. They were just things I could use if I could figure out how. With each it took me about a year, and the more comfortable I get with them the more I find I can do.
My growing up doesn't seem to be much covered in film. After the age of nine I isolated myself and spent a lot of my time walking about on the mountains in various states of delusion. Even now I'd think nothing of walking six miles to buy or pick up something pretty hefty, and then carry it back. You probably get to know yourself pretty well that way, but it doesn't teach you to be at ease. I'm getting better at that, but it took a long time. Anyway, the point being I missed out on both a lot of cultural conditioning, and on a lot of social conditioning.
I was going to say that a lot of what I learned that didn't come fro my parents or the radio came from books - including illustrated books of art history, of books on mythology, religion and culture, and from a set of paperback anthologies published by Penguin in the late sixties/early seventies called Voices. I wanted to provide a link for that, because the mix of photos, reproductions of art and poetry was mesmerising for a child. But Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, Ebay and Penguin's own site drew a blank. They must be out there somewhere. And the art wasn't well-behaved designed for kids. It included Messerschmidt's busts of psychological states, Archimboldo's painted portraits composed from vegetables and objects (an influence on Jan Svankmajer and the earlier surrealists), African clay masks, and photos of people with tribal scars among others. Just like the books on mythology featured the hides of horses draped over poles in Finnish forests, and bog-bodies.
Heady and terrifying stuff for a pre-teen who's never experienced war or human death for themselves.
**See also this fascinating blog.
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