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

Collage concrete poem Stencil Stencil on card, 2023

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, 2023

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

Collage Poem, 2022

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

Visual Poem, 2020

My black-out poem ‘UK Government you take…’ featured in Strukturriss magazine, buy it here.

Concrete poem ‘The River Ravensbourne…”

concrete poem, 2021

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

Visual Poem, 2021

Three of my visual poems were featured in the wonderful, much-missed, Beir Bua Journal.

2016 ‘Mixed Borders’ installation

Poetry Presentation, 2016

‘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.

2017 ‘Mixed Borders’ installation

Poetry Presentation, 2017

‘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’

Poetry Collage, 2019

Hand-out to accompany one-day residency at London Open Garden Squares Weekend 2019, Nomura International.

‘Untitled’

Collage Poem, 2019

Collage translation of a collage poem by Herta Müller from the book Die Blassen Herren mit den Mokkatassen.

‘A versatile pointer’

Stencil on paper Stencil on wood, 2020

‘Contained within limits – No way’

Stencil on wood, 2020

‘Contained within limits – Constrained, with a way through’

Stencil on card, 2020