origins of the stamp poem

You're possibly bored with me writing about my stamp poem ) TH GOOD /OLD W~AY. In my first post about it I described the poem as a dialogue between me and my various influences.

I'd like to explore those influences as an example of how much borrowing (or theft) goes into any piece of work. I'll try not to make it an indigestible list of names.

Although I mention more poets than visual artists or musicians I feel that the influence of visual art and music is greater than that of poetry. This is something that a simple list can't convey.

Visual art:

Gary Fisher has created text works on till rolls using a typewriter. These along with his handmade books of text and sketches and his collage pieces made on postcards are an influence on my treatment of text as material.

Jennifer McDonald's work on her blood blackberries and her description of the painstaking process led to my decision to deliberately place an obstacle between myself and making the poem.

This was not a new concept to me. I have in the past deliberately made writing difficult. I'm also aware of Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint works. But knowing something is different from thinking of it at the time.

Poetry:

Richard Barrett, in particular the way he approaches text as an artificial construct. This is close to what I mean by treating text as material. Foregrounding the visual and sonic elements over meaning.

Sean Bonney's collaging and use of typewriter in Baudelaire in English and Document and the non-standard use of punctuation marks inform the similar techniques I apply.

Philip Davenport is perhaps the poet I feel I'm having the most active dialogue with. This comes in the use of black squares replacing letters referencing his white squares throughout about everything.

The ambiguity about what direction and order to read the text of about everything and the spreadsheet poem exhibited in Association's Call Out to Collaborators is also directly echoed. I'm aware that Scott Thurston and others also do this.

My own past poetry has also given me clues about how to approach what I put into the poetry.

Way back in 1995 I first experimented with interrupting and interweaving several sentences at one time. The following year I started to throw in quoted speech, found text and other decontextualised language. All these techniques make a reappearance here.

Music:

The Watersons' version of The Good Old Way is the obvious source for the title. But it's more than that. Despite being an atheist I retain a love of many christian songs. Whether traditional songs like this, blues, gospel or country.

I haven't yet directly addressed this in the poem but these kind of contradictions fascinate me. I do quote from the song.

Other influences:

Like most of my work this year the poem draws heavily on my childhood. The Watersons are part of that. I also had a John Bull Printing Set as a child. It worked in more or less the same way as the stamp I have now except that the printing black and ink pad weren't part of the same unit.