 bob cobbing (30 july 1920 â 29 september 2002) was a british sound, visual, concrete and performance poet who was a central figure in the british poetry revival. ==early life== cobbing was born in enfield and grew up within the plymouth brethren. he attended enfield grammar school and then trained as an accountant. he later went to bognor training college to become a teacher. during the second world war, he was a conscientious objector. ==early involvement with poetry and performance== his involvement with performance began with the hendon experimental art club and the hendon-based magazine and in 1951. this led to his setting up writers forum, which began publishing in 1963. in 1964 he published abc in sound, a book that combined his interest in sound and concrete poetry in an exploration of the visual and auditory possibilities of the english alphabet. ==better books== he left teaching around this time and managed better books on charing cross road, london. better books was more than a mere bookshop. once described as a âmini arts labâ it served as stage, cinema and gallery. its cross-disciplinary approach welcomed new art forms like assemblage, performance art, and radical poetry. together with other alternative galleries such as 26 kingly street and indica bookshop, better books was one of the hot spots of the london underground scene. this shop was the venue for a number of events and happenings associated with what cobbing's friend jeff nuttall termed the bomb culture, the british version of the 1960s counterculture. as an evolution of the earlier hendon film society he began avant-garde film screenings under the title cinema 65 which led to the formation of the london film-makers' co-opthe pre-history of the london co-op: from hat film club to cinema 65 ==1970s== during the first half of the 1970s, cobbing was able to use the facilities of the poetry society to produce writers forum books. in all, the press published over 1,000 titles between 1963 and 2002. as well as fostering the younger poets of the british poetry revival, writers forum also published works by john cage, allen ginsberg and ian hamilton finlay. writers forum also ran a regular saturday afternoon writers' workshop at which poets read and discussed each other's work. in the early 1970s the poetry society did not have any printing facilities. cobbing had his own equipment elsewhere throughout the 40 years of his (largely solo) operation of writers forum. in the mid-1970s, against tremendous opposition of the rump of the old guard on the poetry society general council, cobbing and others opened a public prin
1920_births 2002_deaths British_Poetry_Revival British_conscientious_objectors English_poets People_educated_at_Enfield_Grammar_School People_from_Enfield_Town Signalism Sound_poets