Visual
I was a visual artist till I shifted to literature in my twenties. Recently I’ve been working on visual/concrete poetry and visual ways to present page poetry beyond books, magazines or readings. With a Developing Your Creative Practice grant from the Art Council of England for 2021-22 I have been able to explore ideas, production methods and dissemination of my concrete poetry, principally risograph printing and stencil prints. In 2023 this led to a solo exhibition at Parlour Gallery in Deptford. I’ve put some of the work up on instagram as: herr_morris70 . Most of it is for sale! Do get in touch if you’re interested.
Exhibition: All the names
Exhibition, October / November 2023 at Parlour Gallery, Deptford, London, taking its title from a large wall piece painted with stencils straight on the wall, tackling Steph’s childhood homophobic trauma in the 1970s via ‘All the names’, in a genre he is calling ‘confessional concrete’. Opposite it are collages which see ‘Walter the Softy’ from The Beano comic enjoying life as an out-and-proud arty, sissy, flower-loving, book reading gay boy.
Smaller visual and concrete poems intervene elsewhere in the space.
Prints of the wall piece are available, and both originals and prints of the collages are also for sale.
‘Bridge’ in Streetcake 85
concrete poem ‘Bridge’ featured in Streetcake Magazine 85
This picture is excerpt – see the magazine for the full image/poem
Visual pantoums in Mercurius Magazine
three of my visual pantoums (vispans?) featured in the wonderful, beautiful Mercurius magazine. Hope to have prints of these to sell soon.
Blackout poem in Strukturriss
My black-out poem ‘UK Government you take…’ featured in Strukturriss magazine, buy it here.
Concrete poem ‘The River Ravensbourne…”
My concrete poem ‘The River Ravensbourne…” was a runner up in the 2021 Streetcake Prize and featured in their 2021 anthology: buy it here!
Also my black-out poem ‘Uk Government you cannot…’ was included in the May 2022 Streetcake Magazine, Issue 78, Part II.
3 visual poems in Beir Bua Journal
Three of my visual poems were featured in the wonderful, much-missed, Beir Bua Journal.
2016 ‘Mixed Borders’ installation
‘Early Stages’, ‘FAQs of Gardens’, ‘Clematis has the last laugh’ and other poems in a poetry installation, Bonnington Square, London, 2016, for Poetry School’s ‘Mixed Borders’.
‘Early Stages’ later published online in Helen Ivory’s Ink Sweat and Tears online magazine, and ‘FAQs of Gardens’ later published in the anthology Write to be Counted.
‘I’ll’
‘Games’
2017 ‘Mixed Borders’ installation
‘Keep calm and cross off’ along with other poems presented as menus in the courtyard café at House of Saint Barnabas for ‘Mixed Borders’. Crossrail runs beneath the house, which is close to Centrepoint, at Tottenham Court Road underground, London.
‘Box-plot vox-pop’
Hand-out to accompany one-day residency at London Open Garden Squares Weekend 2019, Nomura International.
‘Untitled’
Collage translation of a collage poem by Herta Müller from the book Die Blassen Herren mit den Mokkatassen.
