The aim of this book is to reinstate the Benedictine monk and artist Dom Sylvester Houedard as an important figure within the countercultural and transnational art movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, especially as regards kinetic and concrete poetry. Widely recognised by his contemporaries as one of the leading theorists and outstanding practitioners of concrete poetry, Guernsey-born Dom Sylvester Houedard (1924 1992) is an unsung intellect of the twentieth century. Houedard is deeply relevant to our digital age. We may no longer use an Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter, as he did, but we all increasingly type rather than hand-write our lives. He would have been delighted by the permutational possibilities offered by the 280 characters in a tweet, or the visual shorthand of emojis and hashtags. For this monk, everything connected and was interconnected. The opportunity for the individual to compose ‘machinepoems’ or text works that ‘move thru the air’ in a ‘global kinkon’ is now greater than ever.
AUTHORS: Dr Andrew Hunt is a curator, writer and educator based in London and Manchester. He is currently Professor of Fine Art and Curating at the Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Dr Nicola Simpson is a Research Impact Fellow at Norwich University of the Arts, before which she was a lecturer at The University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University. Her doctoral dissertation centred on Houedard’s work. SELLING POINTS: . Houedard (born 1924 Guernsey, died 1992) was a Benedictine monk, theologian, literary critic and celebrated poet firmly rooted in counterculture, and was widely recognised as one of the outstanding practitioners of concrete poetry, but less well known for his role in the countercultural art movement of the 1960s and 1970s . Numerous typewriter works by Houedard are reproduced here for the first time . Houedard also wrote about theology and art, as well as corresponding with major contemporary poets and writers (William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Graves) and artists such as Ian Hamilton Finlay . He is a highly unusual countercultural figure and offers a fascinating and unique window onto the 1960s and 1970s 80 colour, 4 b/w illustrations
