REALITY STREET

The Sound Of Writers Forum from openned on Vimeo.

Writers Forum (yes, it's spelt like that, no apostrophe) is synonymous with one man: Bob Cobbing (1920-2002). From 1963 until his death it was a regular poetry workshop in London championing and encouraging experimental work, AND also a small press with a no-holds-barred approach. 
Steve Willey's new 36-minute documentary is a fascinating introduction to the man and the press by way of interviews with eleven living poets who were all published by Writers Forum.

My first memories of the poetry scene in London are of the era when Bob was ensconced in the Poetry Society's then headquarters in Earls Court, where his printing equipment was available for all poets to use. I also have vivid memories of Bob's extraordinary sound poetry in performance, both solo and in collaboration - for example, with Paula Claire, whose wonderfully bonkers performance style is evoked in her eloquent contribution to this film, and the late Bill Griffiths, in Konkrete Canticle, and later with Lawrence Upton - who has kept WF alive since Bob's death - in the Domestic Ambient Noise duo.

Like so many poets willing to experiment, I was encouraged by Bob, who was good enough to produce two fugitive Writers Forum titles of mine. I only ever attended the workshops a couple of times. When I did, I was intrigued by the apparently unjudgemental ethos: anybody could bring work in progress to read, and nobody was criticised. In the documentary, John Rowan reveals that overt criticism was encouraged in the early days, but soon dropped when people got upset. That said, Robert Sheppard once told me that with practice you could gauge exactly where you were going wrong or right by the quality of the silence that followed your contribution. And a grunt of approval from Bob was always highly prized.