Interviews

Interview with Green Linden Press

Christopher Nelson: I imagine that for some readers of this journal your poetry will be unusual. Can you contextualize it a bit? Do you think of it as concrete poetry, visual poetry, visual art, something else? Perhaps categorization isn’t important, but I would call it visual poetry, and by that I mean a text-based creation that foregrounds visual elements (balance, color, movement, etc.) while conventional poetic features (line, stanza, image, etc.) are pushed to the background. In short—at the risk of being reductive—a visual poem is meant to be seen more than read.

Robin Tomens: I only call it visual poetry as a handy reference since it’s a commonly-used term. For a while I also called it concrete poetry but ultimately settled for visual poetry. If pushed to define the difference, I’d say concrete tends towards a more formal structure, typified by the stuff from the ‘50s, but that’s only my view. Recent books with concrete poetry in the titles could include anything, it seems—photography, collage, abstract, etc., with text barely relevant if included at all. I’m a bit of a purist in the sense of thinking anything that includes “poetry” as a label should feature letters, words, or text as a key component. The problem with using the word “poetry” is that to those unfamiliar with the field, it deceives. For all of poetry’s possible forms, the visual or concrete are not commonly acceptable as poetry at all by most people. But then, we know where that leads, or has lead before: abstract art is not “real” art, etc. Ironically, in the “gallery without walls” (the internet) the Concrete Formalist Poetry page on Facebook is where most people see my work. Labels, ultimately, mean little. I have called my work “text art” before, but I decided that was a little pretentious and tends to be used with reference to Fine artists who incorporate text in their work. I must say, however, that I do consider what I do to be art because there’s usually very little writing involved.

Nelson: Could you tell us about your process? Your author photo has you sitting beside an old Imperial typewriter. 

Tomens: The Imperial, or “The Beast” as I call it, is the typewriter used for all the pieces in You Would Say That. The key feature of this model is its wide carriage, which allows A4 sheets to be manipulated so as to create any kind of angle for the text, thus opening up far more possibilities than regular typewriters. In the past and even now, occasionally, I have used a computer to generate text, but these days I prefer the imperfect results from slugs hammered onto paper. I think people enjoy the look of something that is imprecise and has a handcrafted as opposed to digital feel. In a world where we seem to be dominated by the digital in one way or another, it’s a symbol of our precarious nature as humans. Typing aside, I do use carbon paper to create marks and texture or shapes with which the text interacts. Some pieces call out for additional lines using an ink pen since I enjoy drawing too.

Nelson: One of the things I love about You Would Say That is the circle motif. There is a strong sense of unity from that recurrent shape. I like how the linear typed text contrasts with the round red and black circles. It suggests so many organic forms: sun, cell, egg, eclipse. In his commentary on the book Derek Beaulieu invites readers to “read differently.” How do you “read” the motifs in your poems—or more broadly, what role do you think reading has in enjoying visual poetry? 

Tomens: The circle motif occurs regularly simply because I like the shape and the solid contrast it provides compared to type. Since the circle is something we’re all familiar with, people will read it as representational, but in my work it never, or very rarely, represents anything but itself. People do sometimes say, “Oh, that looks like whatever,” which doesn’t bother me. It’s a common tendency to look for, perhaps even crave, something recognizably “real” in abstract work. Dom Silvester Houedard said, “each word [in concrete poetry] is an abstract painting,” and that’s something to consider when looking at my visual poetry. In a way, the pieces are comparable to abstract art and photomontage on the same page—the legible (photo) and the abstract (random letters). My work usually involves both meanings of the word “read” because I include words to be read and their components, which can be read in multiple ways, merely as shapes or patterns, but also as a disruption of the orderly world of letters. Without wanting to psychoanalyze myself (!), rendering collective letters nonsensical may well be my ultimate destination as someone for whom writing a novel proved an unsatisfactory goal decades ago, as did writing and performing conventional poetry. The latter did, at least, satisfy me for a few years in the early ‘80s. Then I began experimenting with cut-ups, even to the point of collating hundreds of sampled texts which I hoped to edit into a Burroughs-like novel. Now I’ve reduced words to a minimum and reconfigured letters in the name of abandoning “sense” or even “meaning.” My visual poetry demands to be both read and “unread.” If anything, it’s about unlearning to read in the conventional sense.

Nelson: “Unread”—that’s evocative. Do you mean enjoyed or experienced without concern for semantic meaning? 

Tomens: I mean unread in the sense that Mark E Smith wanted his musicians to unlearn what they knew, to wipe the slate clean and build again, something new, hopefully. I don’t think of my poetry in an any intellectual sense whatsoever; it’s all instinctive, not worked out with semantics in mind, but anything can be viewed in multiple ways. All art is a mirror, isn’t it? What we see in it is what we bring to it as individuals. Perhaps some people will see letters differently after looking at my work. For me they become marks, small abstract designs in themselves, the accumulative effect of which can be either chaos or order, beautiful or “ugly.”

Nelson: You haven’t used a typewriter in all of your books. In some, graphics and collage dominate. Yet in each of your books there is such a unified style. When you embark on a project, do you have a book in mind? I’m thinking of conventional poetry, which has the book as its ultimate form. Your work seems both more free and its fate less certain, in that it could take so many possible shapes—framed art in a gallery, pages in a book, meme on a screen. 

Tomens: I never know whether a book will result from what I’m doing, although some pieces, such as those in Too Much To Bear, quickly became book-specific once the publisher showed an interest. I tend to favor cohesion in the books, regarding medium or style. Rearrange Yesterday was always going to be a book as soon as I’d created a few pieces from old newspapers. The dimensions of the book were clear to me and the pages were created with those in mind. It’s one of the books I’m most pleased with. Once I got over the Fine Artist’s craving to be exhibited in a conventional gallery, books became the logical medium for my art; they’re affordable, and with online printing, relatively easy to produce in an amount that’s right. Visual poetry naturally lends itself to being collated in book form, although I have sold a few pieces individually.

Nelson: Who are some artists and writers you find inspiring? Are there any that have shaped your style? 

Tomens: Dieter Roth, Eduardo Paolozzi, and Robert Rauschenberg have all inspired me, along with the Dadaists and Pop Art movements. Music—Jazz in particular—has inspired me for decades, the latter because it involves improvisation, and I improvise all the time when typing. So in that sense I’d also have to name players like Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, along with the maverick genius, Sun Ra. He once said, “Why don’t you do something right and make a mistake?,” which, in essence, is a concept I hold dear. No one can force mistakes, but imperfections arising from “mistakes” are appealing to me. Visual poetry-wise, I’m not impressed by perfect alignment and form as a demonstration of how skillful someone is anymore than I am by musos overindulging themselves. No visual poet has shaped my style, but the collective evidence of works made since the ‘60s inspires me and suggests a few ideas. If I had to name one visual poet though it would be Bob Cobbing. I can’t claim to be truly “original,” but as I work there are no ghosts of poets past sitting on my shoulder. In that respect, I’m mercifully free of the burden of influence.

Nelson: I love the Sun Ra quote. Do you write—create—with a sensitivity to allowing mistakes? If so, how do you cultivate that in your practice? 

Tomens: Mistakes come naturally to me (ha-ha); I’ve grown to embrace them. As previously stated, I’m not really interested in precision, which is not to say I don’t aim for it when typing, but that typewriting, as I do it, is bound to be a bit ragged. I may aim to align letters or symbols perfectly when, say, overtyping, but they rarely are. A block of symbols can be either aligned with each other or given alternate spacing. Sometimes I get the alignment wrong and they do both. It doesn’t affect the finished piece in a detrimental way, to my eyes, although perfectionists might think otherwise. I’m guessing most viewers won’t even spot the mistakes, and if they do, I would hope they get the point of their inclusion. To throw a piece away because of one or two alignment issues is something I would never do, but seeing some concrete poetry, I imagine they do. So, mistakes aren’t cultivated, they happen, and I don’t start again when they do, unless they constitute a terrible beginning, then I scrap it.

Nelson: I know we’re both active online and probably do a lot of our reading there. You work in a bookshop in London, right? I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the fate of print media. Do you think its intimacy, its physicality will save it from future demise? Is preference for the printed book largely nostalgia? Environmentally speaking, should we all be reading on screens? 

Tomens: I’ve only worked in second-hand bookshops, so regarding environmental issues, it’s recycling anyway. Besides, aren’t most contemporary books printed on recycled paper? Those that aren’t still uphold a worthy tradition, the book being one of the greatest inventions of all time, not just as a medium, but as either mass-produced works of art, design-wise, or artist’s books. Naturally, the latter are particularly important to me. Some of my most treasured books are those produced by Paolozzi, such as Abba Zaba, Kex, and The Metallization Of A Dream. In terms of design, Irma Boom did a great job recently for Ray Johnson c/o. The best books on visual/concrete poetry are Marvin and Ruth Sackner’s Typewriter Art and Barrie Tullett’s Typewriter Art: A Modern Anthology. My favorite book about books is Holbrook Jackson’s The Anatomy of Bibliomania, the title and style of which comes from Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy. Now you’ve got me talking about books I could go on forever. I don’t see books disappearing any time soon; it’s too good a format. We spend so much time reading from screens, but nothing beats a book in your hands if you care about the tradition and love them as objects. Yes, I grew up with books, but my love of them is not nostalgic since I don’t inhabit a world where they represent the past. I was pleasantly surprised whilst working at a Camden Market bookshop to see the amount of young people buying books. It gave me hope for their future existence. The continued existence of second-hand booksellers is another matter. Tragically, they’re a dying breed now that the last great generation of book hounds is retiring. Ironically, what pushed shops towards the precipice is now a lifeline, namely selling online as well as in a physical shop.

Nelson: Thank you, Robin, for the conversation, and congratulations on the publication of You Would Say That. 

Interview

Herb Ogretush: How long have you been making art?

RT: Since I was a child.

HO: How long does it take you to make a piece?

RT: It depends, I may spend more than an hour on some! (laughs)

HO: Do you work that quickly?

RT: I can. Sometimes an idea, the total image, will come to me very quickly. Then it's simply a matter of putting it together. I don't believe a piece is valid simply because it took months to make. Some of the worst albums ever made took months...you know, overdubs, multi-layering etc. Musos have made some terrible music. The exception is Jazz and Classical, of course, but even Jazz can be approached with a Punk attitude, as in Rip Rig and Panic. To use that analogy, my work is more Never Mind The Bollocks than Aja, if you get my drift. I'm still a punk, basically. I can't help it. I see art that's been laboured over, very intricate digital art, and it means nothing to me. 

HO: Are there any other contemporary artists that you do like?

RT: None that I can think of. I look around for people coming from the same place as me but find very few. Then again, I don't scour the internet in search of fellow travellers. The closest in the spirit is the old Zerox art of magazines like PhotoStatic. That's the spirit I'm talking about. 

HO: You use the term 'anti-Art' on your blog. Why is that?

RT: I'm uncomfortable with the notion of art as it is today, when things are more democratic, supposedly. When rules are there to be broken, new rules exist. Despite everything that happened in the twentieth century. It's as if Dada never happened. By which I mean the spirit of making things against the status quo, today's conservative radicalism. There are rules...expectations, such as 'Which Art school did you go to? Prove to us that you're qualified to exhibit!' 'Is your work of a professional standard?' Fuck all that. I've seen hundreds of perfectly produced, professional and totally vacuous so-called works of art. It's all professionalism and no content. 

HO: Perhaps that's the result of technology being available to so many. It's possible to achieve a lot just on a computer and a good printer.

RT: Quite. It is technology, to an extent. Because of what it can do people want to use it. They haven't one imaginative idea in their heads but 'Look what the technology can do!' So much art is the equivalent of all the perfect photos people take on their phones. Easy. It's easy to look professional.

HO: But isn't that a good thing? More democratic?

RT: Yes, and that was the joy of Punk, of course. The difference being that kids who weren't musicians in the proper sense made anti-music that proved a point and that was what made Punk Rock great, the awkward, angry, unprofessionalism of it. Likewise Reggae in the late-60s and early-70s. Those Upsetter tracks, the organ solos are both hilarious and brilliant...pure folk music. You can't reproduce that feeling. Digital art at its worst is technical complexity just because it can be done.

HO: Do you consider your work to be a political act?

RT: Only in the sense that as an outsider, working class, I still insist on doing it...without the blessings of any institution. There is political content in some of it, but non-partisan, because I don't support a political party. I'm more interested in the politics of social life, if you like. Money, capitalism, materialism...what they do to people. The nuclear family ideal that's shoved down out throats...that aspect of life.

HO: But some of your work is purely grounded in aesthetics.

RT: Oh yes, I like a pretty picture as much as the next person. Not that many of mine are pretty. The Patterns series, perhaps. I enjoy repeat patterns...pictorial serialism, if you like. The aesthetics of a piece come into play, if I want them to...colours working together. But I have no rules.

HO: Your work is incredibly diverse.

RT: I'm always exploring new ideas. Again, working digitally, that's made more feasible. More than that, I'd never trap myself in one style. I have preferred styles, that's it. I'll always be testing new ones. A painter can take years to perfect their technique, never mind changing it. I don't envy painters. It's a mucky job, all that cleaning brushes...the smell of oils. My partner, Jane Pearrett, paints. I love her work, but I've never been attracted to painting.

HO: What's the appeal of collage? 

RT: Recreating a pre-existing image in another context. I've thought about it recently and concluded that since so much of my life has consisted of awful, menial jobs, I'm driven to create alternate realities. If that makes sense. Perhaps that's rubbish, but altering the 'real', not that photos are real life, but representations of reality, is a powerful thing. I've sought refuge in music since I was a kid...escape from dull reality, lonliness. Now I escape into images.

HO: Old images, mostly.

RT: Yes, I'm drawn to old images more than any other. Getting back to politics, I'm intrigued by the age of post-war consumerism in America. It's the pinnacle of the capitalist dream, which has long since turned sour. It was always an illusion, a beautiful Technicolor illusion, the idea that all those new consumer goods would bring happiness. That dream is still being sold today, of course. Even though more people are wise to phoney politicians and corrupt financial behaviour...debt and mortgage loans they can't pay back...the dream is always there. Besides all that, it's the colours of those times that I love...the textures and tones of the images.

HO: I don't suppose you will tell me your working methods? I know you usually refuse.

RT: (laughing). Sorry, I'll never tell.