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Wordsounds & Sightlines by Michael Horovitz
New & Selected Poems.  New Departures. £6.99 ($14.99)
PO Box 9819 London W11 2GQ UK

Michael Horovitz is probably now best known as an influential literary editor and poetry impresario. In younger manifestations he was ‘poet, songwriter, singer, kazooist, translator, journalist and clown’. In early youth I frequented many of his early high-energy gigs in public halls, libraries, clubs and theatres (during the late fifties and early sixties); catching more manifestations in later times. Mister Horovitz was an established practicing troubadour entertainer long before ‘performance poetry’ was thought up.
     
     Horovitz sees all this as ‘transmedial non-conformist arts circus’. How does such work stand upon the printed page? Much as any conventional song lyrics or theatre play manuscripts do; when shorn of presentational vitality, live presence and visual dimension. That’s an obvious downside. A complimentary upside is that bare-bone scripts invite the reader to flesh them out in whichever way seems possible or appropriate.
    
    Academy meets carnival, in classical kaleidoscope pantomime. ‘When you’ve fallen / into the fire   /   you  find you can’t / get up any higher —’
    
    Michael Horovitz is fired by Blakean utopianism and that shines through his surrealistic wordplay, bardic subtlety and linguistic slapstick.  ‘...But to sins, / spread wings and fly — to feel / alive, are freedoms beyond the wildest dreams / afforded by these birdless tower blocks / of enterprise, glitter, chart-topping / guilt fingered dross…’

Book cover illustration of Michael Horoviz by David Hockney