The Making of a Radical Poetics: ModernistudForms in the Work of Bob Cobbing :udElements for an Exegesis of Cobbing’s Art

摘要

I survey Cobbing’s considerable and varied output, placing it initially into approximateudchronological phases. I discern formal and aesthetic traits and their development overudtime. I attempt to place the work within wider poetic and artistic traditions, namelyudavant-gardism, the British Poetry Revival, sound and visual poetry, and the explorationudof artistic form. I propose an understanding of flow as an intersection of two axes: linearudtemporality (flow time) which exists outside of social time, and multidimensional orudconstellatory spatiality which is generated by certain artistic works. The body bridgesudsocial time and flow time through creative gestures and by unifying temporal elements.udI trace the features of abstraction as they emerged throughout roughly the first half ofudthe twentieth century in visual art, sound poetry and lexical poetry. I define poetic andudartistic form, noting that radical works explore traditional boundaries of space, anduddiscusses the politics of form. I examine theories of perception to arrive at a synthesis ofudform and perception in what I term the Event, where the engaged perceiver participatesudwith the radical work in what constitutes a revolutionary activity. I include closeudreadings of Cobbing’s Jade-Sound Poems, Domestic Ambient Noise and a soundudperformance of Container Leaks, applying my findings with regard to flow, abstraction,udthe politics of form, perception and space. The thesis concludes that Cobbing’s work,udwhich constitutes a new poetics and exemplifies avant-gardist practice as a breaking outudof old forms, can inspire radical modes of living if we engage creatively with the world. Iudbelieve this work provides a comprehensive exegesis for understanding Cobbing’sudchallenging work in relation to addresses to form and perception, an interpretationudwhich is currently missing from the critical field.