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involving Ireland (e.g. ‘Branwen, daughter of Llyr’ in the Mabinogion). Here, again, ‘matter’ is taken literally, applying a simple acrostic process to the title of a book (London: Writers Forum, 1996) by the dedicatee, the Irish poet Billy Mills (co-publisher with Catherine Walsh of my first book). I have reused minerals named in Billy’s book, without checking that they are in fact found in Ireland; that correlation was more important than strict geological accuracy. Revisions (after Roy Fisher) was published online in Molly Bloom (http:// mollybloom-tributes.weebly.com), in a memorial supplement for the late Roy Fisher (2017). The poem wrote itself, many years ago now, onto a scrap of paper that ended up interleaved in a book of Roy’s poems; it is a Widerruf, or poetic reversal, of the fifth of his 1980s set of ‘New Diversions’: Vigil taking over hours and losing them into a moist gleam, a single light The Latin tag translates roughly as ‘that activity might through reflection forge the various arts’ (Georgics i.133); Fisher was of course a highly adept jazz pianist as well as a great poet. Coping Batter (for Tom Raworth) was published online in Molly Bloom (http://mollybloom-tributes.weebly.com), in a memorial supplement for the late and much-missed Tom Raworth (2017). a breath of air was commissioned to accompany the cd release of a 2008 concert of solo soprano saxophone improvisations by Evan Parker (whitstable solo , Psi 10.01). Parker has run through this book subliminally as well as openly: he’s said that piobaireachd is influential on his work, and he recorded with Steve Lacy. This poem takes its intricate stanza-structure and rhyme-scheme from ‘l’aura amara…’ by the twelfth-century troubadour Arnaut Daniel, in an attempt to hint at the complexity of Parker’s playing. That untranslatable word for pure pleasure, jouissance, is from Barthes; a chalumeau is a pastoral (thus ‘unsophisticated’) reed instrument; the fourth stanza in part describes the interior of St Peter’s church, Whitstable, where the solos were recorded; gemutató (‘presentation’) was cited by Parker from Bartók on a previous solo recording; de motu is the Latin title of a piece of writing by Parker, available online (www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/fulltext/demotu.html ); remir is the Occitan word for ‘I gaze’, found in the corresponding line in Arnaut’s original (a different poem, though, than the one Pound remembers as the focus of a moment 232
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of jouissance in Canto xx). The poem was written for Evan Parker’s cd, but would like to remember the late Bill Griffiths, one of the few poets writing in English who could rival Arnaut Daniel for complexity and breadth of inventiveness. acknowledgements I owe my principal debt of thanks to Tony Baker and the late Richard Caddel, my first friends in the world of poetry (and outside it, too, importantly); and to Billy Mills and Catherine Walsh, who offered me the chance of book-publication at a point when I was about to turn my energies to other things. More recently I am indebted to Peter Manson, who nagged at me for years to consider the notion of a Selected Poems (and later was of direct practical assistance); and in the recent past to Luke Allan, for acting, independently, on Peter’s suggestion; and finally to Elizabeth James, for sterling, sometimes stern, advice, and much hard graft helping me get this book into shape. I have been at some pains to give as full an account as I could of my small participation in the wide web of small presses and little magazines that throughout the 1980s and on were of immense importance in supporting a wide range of writers and writing over a long period of time when outlets of more notional consequence took little or no interest. For prior publication (or major involvement therein) thanks are due to David Aldridge; David Annwn (in his own right and with Frances Presley and Peterjon & Yasmin Skelt); David Ashford; Tim Atkins; Kevin Bailey; Tony Baker; Jeffery Beam; Andrea Brady; Henrietta Brougham, Christopher Fox & Ian Pace; Rodger Brown; the late Richard Caddel (in his own right and with Ann Caddel and with Peter Quartermain); Maoilios Caimbeul; Maxine Chernoff & Paul Hoover; Adrian Clarke & Lawrence Upton; Bob Cobbing ; David Connearn; Martin Corless-Smith ; Sara Crangle & Sam Ladkin; Bill Culbert; Simon Cutts & Erica Van Horn; Andrew Duncan (with Tim Allen, and with Charles Bainbridge); Alec Finlay ; the late Ian Hamilton Finlay; Allen Fisher; John Goodby & Lyndon Davies; Terrel Hale; Robert Hampson; Tom Jenks & James Davies; Andrew Lawson & Anthony Mellors; Rupert Loydell; Steve McLaughlin & Jim Carpenter (reproduced by kind permission); Peter Manson; Roy Miki; Billy Mills & Catherine Walsh; Peter Mortimer; Alec Newman & Scott Thurston; Rich Owens; Ian Pace; Andrew Parkinson, Duncan McLean & Alistair Peebles; the late Evangeline Paterson; Alistair Peebles (in his own right); Bridget Penney & Paul Holman; Helen Petts; Robin Purves & Peter Manson; Peter Quartermain (in his own right, and 233

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involving Ireland (e.g. ‘Branwen, daughter of Llyr’ in the Mabinogion). Here, again, ‘matter’ is taken literally, applying a simple acrostic process to the title of a book (London: Writers Forum, 1996) by the dedicatee, the Irish poet Billy Mills (co-publisher with Catherine Walsh of my first book). I have reused minerals named in Billy’s book, without checking that they are in fact found in Ireland; that correlation was more important than strict geological accuracy. Revisions (after Roy Fisher) was published online in Molly Bloom (http:// mollybloom-tributes.weebly.com), in a memorial supplement for the late Roy Fisher (2017). The poem wrote itself, many years ago now, onto a scrap of paper that ended up interleaved in a book of Roy’s poems; it is a Widerruf, or poetic reversal, of the fifth of his 1980s set of ‘New Diversions’:

Vigil taking over hours and losing them into a moist gleam, a single light

The Latin tag translates roughly as ‘that activity might through reflection forge the various arts’ (Georgics i.133); Fisher was of course a highly adept jazz pianist as well as a great poet. Coping Batter (for Tom Raworth) was published online in Molly Bloom (http://mollybloom-tributes.weebly.com), in a memorial supplement for the late and much-missed Tom Raworth (2017). a breath of air was commissioned to accompany the cd release of a 2008 concert of solo soprano saxophone improvisations by Evan Parker (whitstable solo , Psi 10.01). Parker has run through this book subliminally as well as openly: he’s said that piobaireachd is influential on his work, and he recorded with Steve Lacy. This poem takes its intricate stanza-structure and rhyme-scheme from ‘l’aura amara…’ by the twelfth-century troubadour Arnaut Daniel, in an attempt to hint at the complexity of Parker’s playing. That untranslatable word for pure pleasure, jouissance, is from Barthes; a chalumeau is a pastoral (thus ‘unsophisticated’) reed instrument; the fourth stanza in part describes the interior of St Peter’s church, Whitstable, where the solos were recorded; gemutató (‘presentation’) was cited by Parker from Bartók on a previous solo recording; de motu is the Latin title of a piece of writing by Parker, available online (www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/fulltext/demotu.html ); remir is the Occitan word for ‘I gaze’, found in the corresponding line in Arnaut’s original (a different poem, though, than the one Pound remembers as the focus of a moment

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