dumbfoundry

Jeremy James: "My father’s interests in photography and poetry merged, as he started to photograph the readings that he went to. He always gave the poets and other participants copies of the photos, and some were used in books and at exhibitions. Many have been donated to archives, the Basil Bunting archive in Durham, the Poetry Society, and many will go to the Morden Tower, which celebrates an anniversary this year.

"So, as we worked on clearing the house, I found a ring binder with a short work about photographing poets and poetry readings. I remembered that he had tried to get it published, 20 years ago. Well, black and white photography of live poetry readings is a small subject area, unlikely to attract the interest of publishers. But I wondered…. Could I publish it myself, in blog form, as kind of thank you for the introduction he had give me? The chapters seem to be about the size of blog entries, but I have done it backwards so to speak – so it reads as a narrative down the blog. The photographs were scanned in, the words retyped, and some minor changes made to suit the format. I probably need to explain one aspect of the work. He loved photographing women, and he was surprisingly good at persuading them to pose for him, in varying stages of dress and undress. This explains some of the references in the text."

This entry was posted by Ivy on Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 1:06 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.