DOCSLIB.ORG

Superimpositions the Poetic Terrain Vague of Roy Fisher’S a Furnace

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Superimpositions the Poetic Terrain Vague of Roy Fisher’S a Furnace poetica 49 (2017/2018) 114-162 brill.com/poe Superimpositions The Poetic terrain vague of Roy Fisher’s A Furnace André Otto München [email protected] This essay reads Roy Fisher’s major long poem A Furnace as an expres- sion of post-industrial urban space and an engagement with its episte- mological, political and ethical challenges. Via its central procedure of superimposition, the text develops a spatial poetics that focusses on the dynamic constitution of space. It approaches the wider Birmingham area first through a problematization of perception, then through superim- posing topographically, historically and ontologically different spaces, and eventually culminates in a micro-physical analysis of spatial materi- alization. In presenting different ways of relating to space, the poem gives expression to a fundamentally relational notion of space. This spatial po- etics, however, not only refers to the representation of space and forms of conceptualizing space, it also creates space as a particular textual space and as a text that (re)configures and (re)forms the spaces it refers to. It makes these spaces available for cultural re-appropriations and turns the topographical space into a textual terrain vague, an intermediate space for imaginative poetic encounters and re-inscriptions. Placings and the Critical Zone of the Urban When in 1996 Roy Fisher, after a period of one and a half decades with Ox- ford UP, published a collection of new and selected poems, The Dow Low Drop, with Bloodaxe Books, the blurb “drew attention to the scattered and discon- tinuous nature of the poet’s actual and possible readership”.1 Although being highly praised by poets and critics alike and being considered one of the most 1 Peter Robinson, “Introduction”, in: Peter Kerrigan / Peter Robinson (eds.), The Thing about Roy Fisher. Critical Studies, Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2000, pp. 1–15, here p. 6. © Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2018 | doi 10.30965/25890530-04901005 <UN> Superimpositions 115 influential contemporary English poets, Fisher was still not widely known (nor did he particularly seek to be). Even having been published by the consecrating Oxford UP and being included in the Poetry Book Society Choice (The Thing About Joe Sullivan) and Poetry Book Society Special Commendation (Slakki: New & Neglected Poems) has not notably altered this situation. As William Wootten pointedly formulated the already topic problem of appreciation in his review of The Long and the Short of It in 2005, “Fisher’s long been the most ap- preciated under-appreciated poet we have”.2 One of the reasons for this can be deduced by applying the blurb’s characterization of Fisher’s readership to his poetic production and his poetics: “With its many varieties of style and tone, Fisher’s work has seemed so inconveniently hard to place.”3 Forming part of the British Poetry Revival in the 1960s and 70s, Fisher went against Movement orthodoxy and its ironic stance that centred on a clearly delimited identity of the speaking subject and gave expression to a markedly English conscious- ness.4 Instead, he programmatically re-visited European modernism and the (historical) avant-garde through the prism of mid-century American poetry, in particular the Black Mountain poets to which he had been introduced by fellow poet Gael Turnbull. This is where the Bloodaxe blurb’s focus on the scattered and discontinu- ous nature of Fisher’s readership gains poetological resonance in two different, but interconnected ways that both have to do with Fisher’s and other Poetry Revival’s poets’ – such as Alan Fisher, Iain Sinclair, J.H. Prynne or Peter Riley – attention to, and rethinking of, space and place. On the one hand, the very name of Bloodaxe is indicative, remitting us to the mythic Anglo-Saxon king at the centre of Basil Bunting’s late-modernist long poem Briggflatts that turned into the foundational text for the revival of the modernist tradition. Bunting’s text offered an influential model not only for the form of the long poem, but for an archaeological approach to place and non-urban, peripheral space that was complemented by the spatially-oriented poetics of the Black Mountain poets and their wider circles. Charles Olson’s field poetics, in particular, introduced a way of combining the modernist focus on perceptual processes and energies with the dynamic spacing of the poem itself, while William Carlos Williams’s 2 William Wootten, “The Measure of the Muse. Review of The Long and the Short of It: Po- ems 1955–2005 by Roy Fisher”, in: Guardian 29.10.2005, www.theguardian.com/books/2005/ oct/29/featuresreviews.guardianreview34 (last accessed: 30.4.2017). 3 Robinson, “Introduction” (see note 1), p. 6. 4 For the British Poetry Revival’s reaction to the omnipresent poetry of the Movement and Fisher’s position within this new poetics see Robert Sheppard, The Poetry of Saying. British Poetry and its Discontents 1950–2000, Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2005, pp. 35–76. poetica 49 (2017/2018) 114-162 <UN>.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Lee Harwood the INDEPENDENT, 5TH VERSION., Aug 14Odt
    ' Poet and climber, Lee Harwood is a pivotal figure in what’s still termed the British Poetry Revival. He published widely since 1963, gaining awards and readers here and in America. His name evokes pioneering publishers of the last half-century. His translations of poet Tristan Tzara were published in diverse editions. Harwood enjoyed a wide acquaintance among the poets of California, New York and England. His poetry was hailed by writers as diverse as Peter Ackroyd, Anne Stevenson, Edward Dorn and Paul Auster . Lee Harwood was born months before World War II in Leicester. An only child to parents Wilfred and Grace, he lived in Chertsey. He survived a German air raid, his bedroom window blown in across his bed one night as he slept. His grandmother Pansy helped raise him from the next street while his young maths teacher father served in the war and on to 1947 in Africa. She and Grace's father inspired in Lee a passion for stories. Delicate, gentle, candid and attentive - Lee called his poetry stories. Iain Sinclair described him as 'full-lipped, fine-featured : clear (blue) eyes set on a horizon we can't bring into focus. Harwood's work, from whatever era, is youthful and optimistic: open.' Lee met Jenny Goodgame, in the English class above him at Queen Mary College, London in 1958. They married in 1961. They published single issues of Night Scene, Night Train, Soho and Horde. Lee’s first home was Brick Lane in Aldgate East, then Stepney where their son Blake was born. He wrote 'Cable Street', a prose collage of location and anti fascist testimonial.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Roy Fisher's Mysticism a Thesis Submitted to the University Of
    Roy Fisher’s Mysticism A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of PhD in the Faculty of Humanities 2011 Ian Pople Centre for New Writing, School of Arts, Histories and Cultures 1 Contents page Abstract 3 Declaration and Copyright Statement 4 List of Fisher’s works referred to in this thesis 5 Chapter 1: Introduction 5 Chapter 2: Fisher and Self 28 Chapter 3: Fisher and Other : Mystic Interactions 55 a. Mystic Latencies 55 b. Fisher’s Urban Other 60 c. The Mystical Abject 68 d. Fisher’s Uncanny Woman 76 Chapter 4: Mysticism and Fisher: A Furnace 85 Chapter 5: Conclusion 117 Poetry: 1. Kissing Gate 121 2. For this relief, much thanks 122 3. The Lace Wing 123 4. Berkhampstead 124 5. A Thousand Twangling Instruments 125 6. A Week of Running beside the Canal 126 7. ‘… As Dedicated Men’ 128 8. Handiwork of Light 129 i. At Church 129 ii. A Lofty House 129 iii. A View of Arnhem 130 iv. The Kiss 130 v. What the Car Park was Singing 131 9. Set Elements for John Brown – Isamu Noguchi 133 10. An Ordered Name 134 11. Angels of Anarchy 135 12. Effects 136 13. Those Who Stand Beside You After Hatzopoulos 137 14. Seven Answers 138 15. Owl 139 16. The Hierophant 140 17. Loaves and Fishes 141 18. Disposable Icon, the Reply 142 19. That Day 143 20. The Bleachers 144 21. The Shearer and the Lamb 145 22. The Aerial Orchids 153 23. William Blake at the Kardomah Café 160 24.
    [Show full text]
  • The Birth of Linguistically Innovative Poetry and the Practice of a Collective Poetics in Robert Sheppard’S Pages and Floating Capital Thurston, SD
    “For which we haven’t yet a satisfactory name” : the birth of Linguistically Innovative Poetry and the practice of a collective poetics in Robert Sheppard’s Pages and Floating Capital Thurston, SD Title “For which we haven’t yet a satisfactory name” : the birth of Linguistically Innovative Poetry and the practice of a collective poetics in Robert Sheppard’s Pages and Floating Capital Authors Thurston, SD Type Book Section URL This version is available at: http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/48250/ Published Date 2019 USIR is a digital collection of the research output of the University of Salford. Where copyright permits, full text material held in the repository is made freely available online and can be read, downloaded and copied for non-commercial private study or research purposes. Please check the manuscript for any further copyright restrictions. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. 1 “For which we haven’t yet a satisfactory name”: The Birth of Linguistically Innovative Poetry and the Practice of a Collective Poetics in Robert Sheppard’s Pages and Floating Capital. In July 1987 Robert Sheppard published the first issue of a little magazine called Pages. The magazine was a humble affair, comprised of four folded A4 sheets to give eight printed pages per issue. Typescript material was pasted into camera ready copy format and photocopied.1 The editorial opens: Anybody concerned for a viable poetry in Britain must be depressed by the persistence of the Movement Orthodoxy from the 1950s into the late 80s; by its consolidation of power for a bleak future; by its neutralising assimilation of the surfaces of modernism; by its annexation of the increasingly fashionable term postmodernism; and by its ignorance – real or affected – of much of the work of the British Poetry Revival.2 This is very much a downbeat tone on which to begin a new enterprise.
    [Show full text]
  • 436320 1 En Bookbackmatter 189..209
    BIBLIOGRAPHY Adorno, Theodor & Max Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Translated by E. Jephcott, Stanford University Press, 2002. Allen, Tim & Andrew Duncan (eds.). Don’t Start Me Talking: interviews with contemporary poets. Salt, 2006. Alvarez, Al (ed.). The New Poetry. Penguin, 1966. Allnut, Gillian et al (eds). The New British Poetry. Paladin, 1988. Anderson, Simon. “Fluxus, Fluxion, Fluxshoe: the 1970s”. The Fluxus Reader, edited by Ken Friedman. Academy Editions, 1998, pp. 22–30. Andrews, Malcom. Charles Dickens and his performing selves: Dickens and public readings. Oxford University Press, 2006. Artaud, Antonin. Selected Writings, edited by Susan Sontag. Strauss & Giroux, 1976 Auslander, Philip. “On the Performativity of Performance Documentation”. After the Act—The (Re)Presentation of Performance Art, edited by Barbara Clausen. Museum Moderner Kunt Stiftung Ludwig Wien, 2005, pp. 21–33. Austin, J.L. How to Do Things with Words: the William Harvey James lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. Claredon Press, 1975. Badiou, Alain. Being and Event. Translated by O. Feltman, Continuum, 2007. Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Translated by L. Burchill, Indiana University Press, 1984. Barry, Peter. “Allen Fisher and ‘content-specific’ poetry”. New British Poetries: The Scope of the Possible, edited by Robert Hampson & Peter Barry. Manchester University Press, 1993, pp. 198–215. ———. Contemporary British Poetry and the City. Manchester University Press, 2000. ———. Poetry Wars: British poetry of the 1970s and the battle for Earl’s Court. Salt, 2006. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 189 J. Virtanen, Poetry and Performance During the British Poetry Revival 1960–1980, Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58211-5 190 BIBLIOGRAPHY Blanc, Alberto C.
    [Show full text]
  • Prose Supplement 6
    PS edited by Raymond Friel and Richard Price number 6 PS is the Prose Supplement to Painted, spoken, which is edited, typeset, and published by Richard Price. Please send an A5 stamped self-addressed envelope for a free copy. Earlier issues have been digitised at: www.poetrymagazines.org.uk PS‘s editorial policy is constituted in instalments by the contents of PS PS appears occasionally, from 24 Sirdar Rd, Wood Green, London N22 6RG Other related projects are outlined at www.hydrohotel.net PS edited by Raymond Friel and Richard Price PS number 6 2009 Tactile Richard Price This issue of PS is particularly concerned with small presses and little magazines and publishes for the first time two papers from a recent symposium that looked at the interconnections. Of course the tangible, haptic, hyper-visual nature of the little magazine and small press (at their best) is a significant part of the story here. It is no surprise that art history informs the narrative and that Allen Fisher, who gives a remarkable account of his work in this field, should be poet, editor-publisher, professor and artist. For traditionalists, the aesthetics of the late modernism of the sixties and seventies small press may take some re-tuning of the receptive organs, but there are many pleasures to be had in the world of the avant-garde (not just puritanical lessons). As shown by Raymond Friel‘s account of the closest the reading public is likely to get to an autobiography of Seamus Heaney, for those more calibrated towards the experimental perhaps there are also pleasures to be had (not just didactic lessons) in Heaney‘s poetry, too.
    [Show full text]
  • Urban Anxieties in Twentieth Century British and American Poetics
    The Problem of the City: Urban Anxieties in Twentieth Century British and American Poetics David R Miller PhD 2013 1 The Problem of the City: Urban Anxieties in Twentieth Century British and American Poetics David Richard Miller A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Manchester Metropolitan University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Manchester Metropolitan University 2013 2 For Youngjoo Choi (최영주) ‘The she-theorist knew something more crimson than place’ (Robertson Occasional Work 238) 3 ‘Let there be Genevan Convention on city and law and what might be proper de- ployment of violence within the state’ (Griffiths Nomad Sense 73) 4 Contents 1. Preface (p. 6) 2. Abstract (p. 8) 3. <Introduction> The Problem of the City (p. 11) 4. <Chapter One> Poetry, Polis and Necropolis (p. 37) Poetry, Polis and Necropolis (p. 39) Cities of Prose: Romantic and Modernist Cities (p. 44) 5. <Chapter Two> Root City: Charles Olson’s polis (p. 77) ‘Democratic Vista(s)’?: Howe, Whitman and Williams (p. 85) Polis-tician: Charles Olson’s Polis (p. 134) 6. <Chapter Three> City of Traces: Roy Fisher, Iain Sinclair and Allen Fisher (p. 163) City of Traces: Roy Fisher (p. 168) Olsonian Allegiances: Iain Sinclair (p. 176) Decoherence: Allen Fisher (p. 197) 7. <Chapter Four> Delusional City: Lisa Robertson’s Vancouver (p. 227) 8. <Conclusion> City of Panic (p. 266) 9. <Appendix> Cities of WARR: Francis Crot (p. 274) 10. Works Cited (p. 293) 5 Preface This germ of this thesis began with an inexplicably well-placed copy of Burton Hatlen’s George Oppen: Man and Poet (1981) obtained from the Kenneth Green library at the MMU up to ten years ago.
    [Show full text]
  • “It Isn't Race Or Nation Governs Movement”: New Writers' Press And
    humanities Article “It Isn’t Race or Nation Governs Movement”: New Writers’ Press and the Transnational Scope of Irish Experimental Poetry in the 1960s and 1970s Will Fleming Department of English Language and Literature, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK; will.fl[email protected] Received: 30 September 2019; Accepted: 15 November 2019; Published: 20 November 2019 Abstract: In this paper, I seek to contribute to the resurrection from critical obscurity of an overlooked tradition in contemporary Irish poetry: namely, that of small-press poetic experimentalism. Taking as a case study the Dublin-based New Writers’ Press (NWP, established 1967), I will interrogate the absence of virtually any mention of small Irish experimental presses in critical narratives of late modernist poetry of the British Isles in the 1960s and 1970s. By using an array of insights gleaned from the many letters, typescripts and other ephemera in the NWP archive housed at the National Library of Ireland, such absences in scholarship are explored in the context of what the press’ founding editors faced in navigating the small Irish poetry market of the mid-twentieth century. Through this archival lens, the reasons why a cohesive avant-garde network of British and Irish poetic experimentalists never materialised are analysed, and an argument for how Irish poetic experiments of the last half century have not received anywhere near the same degree of critical attention as those of their British counterparts will emerge. In the first half of this paper, I focus on the Irish commercial poetry scene in the 1950s and 1960s, ultimately illustrating how narrow and competitive it was in comparison to the British market, as well as the peculiar individual context of an Irish campus magazine, Trinity College’s Icarus (1950-).
    [Show full text]
  • Coversheet for Thesis in Sussex Research Online
    A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details J.H. Prynne in Context, 1955–1975 Louis Goddard Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Sussex September 2016 1 Contents Front Matter 3 Summary . 3 Declaration . 3 Acknowledgements . 4 Note on the text . 4 Introduction 5 Chapter 1. ‘The contemporary situation here in England’ 12 i. Introduction . 12 ii. Donald Davie and Charles Tomlinson . 14 iii. F.R. Leavis . 26 iv. May Day and Metaphor . 35 v. Conclusion . 45 Chapter 2. ‘The inter-modifying force of open argument’ 49 i. Introduction . 49 ii. Prynne and little magazines, 1955–1966 . 53 iii. The role of prose . 60 iv. ‘A Note on Metal’ . 66 v. Conclusion . 77 Chapter 3. ‘The idea of perfection’ 86 i. Introduction . 86 ii. Wyndham Lewis . 87 iii. Douglas Oliver . 92 iv. Edward Upward . 98 v. ‘The Plant Time Manifold Transcripts’ . 105 vi. Conclusion . 115 Conclusion 122 Bibliography 132 Archival material . 132 Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut .
    [Show full text]
  • Adams, John in Canto LXXI, 44 in Canto LXXXIV, 35 in the Cantos
    Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-76447-6 - The Cambridge Introduction to Modernist Poetry Peter Howarth Index More information Index Adams, John Ashbery, John, 218 in Canto LXXI, 44 Athenaeum, The 63 in Canto LXXXIV, 35 Auden, W. H. in The Cantos, 51 and modernism, 189, 191 Adorno, Theodor, 14, 180–2 on difficulty, 171 and Weber, 180 The Orators, 189 advertising, 5, 7, 22–3 autonomy (of poem), 7–8 influence of, 11 avant-garde, 95, 163, 164 Aldington, Richard against compromise, 144 and H. D., 159 against fascism, 187 Some Imagist Poets, 126 against genre, 142 Allen, Donald, 214 and art–life division, 142, 144 Altieri, Charles, 139 and audience relations, 145 An “Objectivists” Anthology, 203 and black culture, 193 Anderson, Margaret, 186 and consumerism, 145 anthology, 36, 46 and feminism, 143 and publicity, 45 and ‘Language’ writing, 219 as compilation, 41 and mainstream, 142, 145–6 as education, 45 and manifestos, 142–5 as means of selection, 36 and modernism, 186 Anthology of Revolutionary Poetry, and organic form, 188 The, 198 and performance, 142 Des Imagistes, 12 and ‘post-avant’ poetry, 221 Georgian Poetry 1918–1919, 1 and Puritans, 176 Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, 46 and sexuality, 163 Apollinaire, Guillaume, 4 and transnationalism, 142 and advertising, 22 anti-personal composition, 142 and Simultaneism, 141 as postmodernism, 214 and Stein, 155 Blaise Cendrars and, 141 Arensburg, Walter, 114 characteristics of, 141–2 Armory Show, 106 experiments with layout, 14 Arnold, Matthew, 14 hybrid works, 141 art’s relation to society, 13,
    [Show full text]
  • This Thesis Has Been Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for a Postgraduate Degree (E.G
    This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: • This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. • A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. • This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. • The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. • When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Poetic Experiments and Trans-national Exchange: The Little Magazines Migrant (1959-1960) and Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. (1962-1967) Lila Matsumoto PhD English Literature University of Edinburgh 2013 Thesis Abstract Migrant (1959-1960) and Poor.Old.Tired.Horse.(1962-1967) were two little magazines edited respectively by British poets Gael Turnbull and Ian Hamilton Finlay. This thesis aims to explore the magazines’ contributions to the diversification of British poetry in the 1960s, via their commitment to trans- national exchange and publication of innovative poetries. My investigation is grounded on the premise that little magazines, as important but neglected socio- literary forms, provide a nuanced picture of literary history by revealing the shifting activities and associations between groups of writers and publishers. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu and Pascale Casanova, I argue that Migrant and Poor.Old.Tired.Horse were exceptionally outward-looking publications bringing various kinds of poetic forms, both historical and contemporary, local and international, to new audiences, and creating literary networks in the process.
    [Show full text]
  • Modern Literature: British Poetry Post-1950
    This is a repository copy of Modern Literature: British Poetry Post-1950. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/140828/ Version: Accepted Version Article: O'Hanlon, K (2018) Modern Literature: British Poetry Post-1950. Year's Work in English Studies, 97 (1). pp. 995-1010. ISSN 0084-4144 https://doi.org/10.1093/ywes/may015 © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the English Association. This is an author produced version of a paper published in The Year's Work in English Studies. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ 1 7. British Poetry Post-1950 2016 saw the publication of two major surveys of post-war poetry in the same series: The Cambridge Companion to British and Irish Poetry, 1945-2010, edited by Edward Larrissy, and The Cambridge Companion to British Black and Asian Literature (1945-2010), edited by Deirdre Osborne.
    [Show full text]
  • ROMANTICISM and ANIMISM in Roy Fisher's a Furnace
    Cercles 12 (2005) ROMANTICISM AND ANIMISM in Roy Fisher’s A Furnace WILLIAM WOOTTEN London, Literary Journalist Roy Fisher’s debt to a cosmopolitan modernism has been evident from the start of his career. Cocteau, Kafka, Russian Formalism, Surrealism, Cubism, and, most importantly, the poetry of William Carlos Williams, the Objectivists and the Black Mountain School have all been cited as influences both by Fisher and his critics. This list contains no English poet. Nevertheless, Fisher’s place in an English poetic tradition has been the subject of debate. In Thomas Hardy and British Poetry Donald Davie wrote that Fisher’s temperament is “like Larkin’s profoundly Hardyesque” [154]. Others, not least Fisher himself, have disagreed with this analysis which, though often interesting and insightful, has as much to do with the temper of Davie’s book as Fisher’s writing.1 More recently, critics have seen Fisher as belonging to a rather different tradition.2 Neil Corcoran, whilst acknowledging parallels with Williams, Olson and Dorn, detects lines in City that seem “English Romantic in origin” [171]. He goes on to observe that this tendency makes Fisher—like [Christopher] Middleton—a more peculiar combination of the local and the “other” of literary Modernism than some of his own declarations of scope, which emphasise the “effect of indeterminacy” in his work, would tend to suggest. It is not entirely surprising to find him, in the preface to A Furnace (1986), acknowledging both a formal and thematic indebtedness to John Cowper Powys, that extraordinary late-Romantic exotic, and nature mystic. Although Fisher’s later work differs from his earlier in being more overtly and persistently concerned with local histories as well as topographies, I think it is possible to sense, throughout, a bizarre and individuating combination of an English provincial realism, a formal and philosophical neo-Modernism and a will towards a kind of contemporary sublime.
    [Show full text]