Paul Blackburn

Paul Blackburn was a New York Poet – but then again, he wasn’t. He spent most of his life in New York City, yet as Robert Creeley points out his Preface to Against the Silences, he was still strongly shaped by the experience of his Puritan New England childhood. He was an important figure in the New York poetry scene of the 1950s and 60s, organising readings and helping out fellow poets, yet one of his most important influences were the Provencial poets he started studying in his 20s and which he translated throughout his life. As a close friend to Robert Creeley he has often been associated to the Black Mountain Poets, but he himself resisted such categorisation. His own poetics – probably summarised best in his 1954 statement (http://jacketmagazine.com/12/blac-stat.html) – lays a great emphasis on the sound quality of poetry. Reading it today – more than 60 years later – I found some of his words almost prophetic, or maybe we have just been heading in the same bloody direction for 60 years!

I recommend checking out the recordings of his readings on Penn Sound and a whole bunch of poems on EPC.

http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/blackburn/

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Blackburn.php

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Hackney Pandora

After Paul Blackburn

it’s not so much about

curiosity

as about               finding  someone

to blame for all

the         dog shit

& take-away                      chicken

bones & blue

off-license plastic bags

garnishing the   trendy                  side-

walks     of artisan sourdough dreams

sweeping            it                            all           up

every morning at six thirty-five before

we          catch

the over               - ground to highbury     or kingsland

as if        land                      -fill the fucking void

or congestion

charge

just like the cats

and sacks

and that               weirdo schroedinger

(or so they say )              when

singed fur smell &            skunk                   fills the

air

& you can’t escape                           it

                forty hours are never                     enough

in the shade of

 shards &

 restaurant                          bookies

plain                      payday mockery 

most of us           (  living)                               in            a              box

  anyway

with the mouldy bits

&             three     weeks                   of rent                                 behind

so all      they                       are concerned   about

is to                                                        screw

the lid back on

screw

the lid back on

so that

fucking laughing cynic

 hope                    remains