Two new books from Shearsman bring some lost or uncollected work of Andrew Duncan back into the public eye and both are startlingly immediate to the eye and mind.
Threads of Iron is Andrew’s lost book: not because it was never published, but because it never appeared as intended. Instead, the original was split into two and was published in two parts by Reality Street Editions (in 1991) and by Shearsman Books (in 2000). Another part of the manuscript was cut and became Sound Surface; this latter manuscript is part of In Five Eyes, published simultaneously with this volume.
Three of the poems from Threads of Iron were first published in Grosseteste Review 15 (1984-85), Tim Longville’s last issue of the finely produced magazine that he had started along with John Riley and Gordon Jackson in 1968. ‘The Poet and the Schizophrenic’, ‘Visitors to Art Galleries Considered as a Branch of the Fine Arts’ and ‘Turkish Music’ appeared alongside work by William Bronk, Tom Lowenstein, Andrew Crozier, Nick Totton, Philippe Jacottet, Rosemarie Waldrop, Stephen Rodefer, Ian Patterson, John Wilkinson, Peter Riley, Peter Robinson, Michael Haslam, Rod Mengham, Roy Fisher, Anthony Barnett, John James, David Chaloner and more…and more…
and they were followed by ‘A letter to Andrew Duncan’ by J. H. Prynne, a short extract from which appears on the back cover of this Shearsman publication:
‘Seeing this sequence as a large, articulated work, put into its sections and with the culminations of a sustained amplitude, I esteem its achievement very highly.’
As a matter of further interest and connectedness it is worth noting that the first issue of SNOW is due out on Friday:
SNOW 1 is published on Friday and will be sent out to contributors and those
who have already bought the issue by Saturday.
SNOW is 80 pages. All contributions are previously unpublished.
Prose and poetry by Michael Haslam, Rosa van Hensbergen, Peter Hughes,(Petrarch), D S Marriott, Alistair Noon, Joseph Persad, Denise Riley,
Peter Riley, Keith Sands (Mandelstam), Nick Totton, Juha Virtanen,
Nigel Wheale, James Wilson.
An etching dated 1975 by Gisèle Celan-Lestrange; a 1983 letter by J H Prynne
substantially about Paul Celan and translation; music scores by India Cooke,
the late Leroy Jenkins, Dave Soldier; film, photography and other work by
Sung Hee Jin, Alexis Nishihata, restaurateur Alex von Riebech, Aya Toraiwa;
a drawing of Hélène Cixous reading at the 1979 Cambridge Poetry Festival.
SNOW is available only direct from the UK publisher. Issue 1 is priced at
£10 incl. mailing or euro12 or US$19 incl. airmailing. Payment can be made
to PayPal ID ab@abar.net or by sterling cheque payable to Anthony Barnett.
SNOW
Anthony Barnett, Ian Brinton, eds.
Allardyce Book
14 Mount Street, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1HL
Tears in the Fence 
Reblogged this on WJ Clark.