Peter Finch | Typewriter Poems

[Peter Finch, editor]

Typewriter Poems

Cardiff, Wales / Millerton, USA: 17 Second Aeon Press / Something Else Press, 1972

52 pp., 21.5 x 14 x 0.5 cm., softcover

Edition of 1000

Few titles from the Something Else Press - my all-time favourite publisher of Artists’ Books - have appeared on this site because I imagine one day taking a month off and writing comprehensive entries for their entire unrivalled output. I have amassed a collection that is nearly complete - missing only the two boxed works which are far out of my price range. 

Typewriter Poems is perhaps the least characteristic of their output, given that it was a co-publication, and the input from proprietors Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles appears to be minimal, possibly just a financial contribution. 

Second Aeon was a British literary periodical published from late 1966 to early 1975. It ran for 21 issues and was edited by Peter Finch.  Second Aeon Publications was a spin-off of the magazine - a series of booklets, broadsheets and bound volumes that eventually reached 100 in number.

"As far as I know it was the very first book to anthologize typewriter work," Finch told me in 2014. Unlike Anthology of Concrete Poetry [see below*], the slim Typewriter Poems concentrated entirely on British artists. The slim volume gathers together twenty-two practitioners of the art of the typewriter poem, including Alison Bielski, Paula Claire, Thomas A. Clark, Bob Cobbing, Michael Gibbs, John Gilbert, and many others.

Higgins had not been informed that the anthology was entirely British and was reportedly dissatisfied with the end results.  He was said to have suppressed the American run, possibly even destroying many  copies. 

Printed Matter has one available for the low price (very low, compared to other titles from the publisher)  of $15.00, US, here, calling into question this account. 

*Another co-publication for the Something Else Press, the Anthology of Concrete Poetry features a textual cover graphic that serves as another precedent for the XTC album cover [see post earlier this week]. It is available from Printed Matter, here, for $225 US.