The atmosphere of the Victoria pub, Mornington Terrace, London, on these occasions is unique, as well as convivial: unlike a reading (though books are launched regularly) and a million miles away from the stylistic fascism of so many ‘creative writing’ ‘workshops’. You can read, perform, show anything you wish. You can be an absolute beginner or a seasoned old hand. The lack of critical response you’ll receive (other than “Read it again, slower” from Bob) is, I believe, intentional. Bob facilitates, offers yet another structure for experiment, but allows the participant to learn from his or her own experience, to develop personal (or non-standard) criteria, essential in the alternative poetries. If it’s rubbish you’ll learn to hear that it is. I always take something new and it nearly always feels like I’m giving my first public reading again. On the edge, where I believe Bob wants us to be. “A morning mucking around with prose passages to read at Bob’s workshop, which I did and realised that my texts were rubbish.” Aaron Williamson panting after his volcanic roaring . . . Miles Champion, a whispering patter, his first reading in public . . . Scott Thurston’s second book launched, earnest and assertive . . . Adrian Clarke’s latest rapid section from the latest sequence, the black spring back binder . . . Harry Gilonis saves a beer glass from the pool table as George Villeneau dances around his flute . . . Hugh Metcalfe throws a banana which hits unperturbed 15 year old Aimée-Shirin Daruwala, reading in public for the first time . . . “It’s fucking Charles Dickens up there.” . . . June 19 1994 . . . Bob and Adrian being Maggie O’Sullivan and Bruce Andrews for the launch of ‘Excla’ . . . Connie Sirr reeling from the whisky, as she eulogises the latest blend . . . Canadian Lisa Robertson’s ‘XEclogue’: passing through London . . . “The risk of such an enterprise is astonishing”

. . . Jennifer Pike, dressed in her own computer graphic, holding a large sheet of magnifying perspex before her, distorts the text individually for each member of the audience . . . “it makes me tremble” . . . Bob and Hugh turn Betty Radin’s postmodern adverts into soundtracks for their own unlikely broadcast . . . “Nervous it’s so raw” . . . Cris Cheek makes us all read his text, the effect too dense; he laughs, and we stop . . . Patricia Farrell, at Bob’s request, performs her prints as visual poems, continues each session . . . Rantin’ Ritchie’s outrage at the liberties of soundtext performance . . . Eamer O’Keefe, busily revising a word-processed script up to the moment she reads . . . Paul Dutton, from Toronto, hands clasped before him, a barrel of sounds . . . Gabi Tyrell performing - often improvising - with gestures: mid-poem, she almost strangles me . . . Nicholas Johnson’s fascinating ‘Loup’, leaving out the line “fuck off you” as he reads, in deference to Stephen . . . Ulli Freer’s occasional sample from the developing ‘TM’ . . . Mottram’s ‘Motley’ launch: “Very crowded. Very friendly, and bridges built (I think)”, December 17 1994 . . . John McRae’s ‘Poetry of’ (alphabetic) sequence, humour invading, week by week, the formal austerity of its system . . . Stan Trevor’s sexual exploits, 1948 . . . “Bob denting the chair with his Flexitone” . . . Keith Musgrove, from the pages of Nuttall’s ‘Bomb Culture’, re-appears: his dream of Eric’s wooden leg . . . Peter (“it’s good to have no words in your first book”) Manson, with a text structured on the 12 vowels of his Glaswegian ideolect . . . Thelonious too shy to read . . . Dimitri Prigov, Russian yell-poet, with the story of what to do with a maquette of Stalin, April 15 1995.

Robert Sheppard, excerpt from ‘Far Language’ (Exeter: Stride Books, 1999)

BOB PUB

Published to coincide with the exhibition Bob Cobbing: Bill JubobeCHELSEA space, London 19 November – 19 December 2014

Curated by William Cobbing and Rosie Cooper

Director of Exhibitions: Donald SmithProgramme Curator: Karen Di FrancoChelsea Arts Club Trust Research Fellow: Sinead BlighGallery Assistant: Esther Merinero CanoTechnical: Mike IvesonWebsite: Shoko MaedaPublished by CHELSEA spaceISBN: 978-1-906203-79-5

Thanks to: Clive Fencott, Alex Hepburn, Jennifer Pike

No reproduction in any form is permitted without the express consent of the publisher and copyright holders.

Every effort has been made to identify copyright holders where possible.

Text: Robert Sheppard, William Cobbing and Rosie CooperDesign: Modern ActivityPrinted in the UK

CHELSEA space16 John Islip StreetLondon, SW1P 4JUinfo@chelseaspace.orgwww.chelseaspace.org

Cover: Contact sheets from a performance by Bob Cobbing, Clive Fencott, Jeff Nuttall and Lol Coxhill at the Gypsy Queen Pub, London, 25 February 1983. Photography © Jennifer Pike. Various flyers for Writers Forum workshops, Klinker and Biryak gigs, London, c. 1990s. Reproduced courtesy of the estate of Bob Cobbing. ‘A Further Choice of Whiskies’, Connie Sirr (London: Writers Forum, 1990) ‘A Third Choice of Whiskies’, Connie Sirr (London: Writers Forum, 1993). Reproduced courtesy of the estate of Bob Cobbing.

Bill Jubobe is part of Bob Jubilé, a series of events and displays that celebrates the life and legacy of Bob Cobbing. www.bobjubile.org

Bob Cobbing (1920-2002) was a concrete, sound and visual poet, as well as a prolific organiser, collaborator and publisher.

Most of Cobbing’s creative life was spent outside of traditional or institutionalised cultural spaces. He was to be found printing and compiling Writers Forum publications at his home studio in North London, arranging Hendon Arts Together exhibitions in suburban libraries in the 1950’s, or organising multimedia installations, including ‘The sTigma’ with John Latham and Bruce Lacey, in the dingy basement of Better Books where he was the manager from 1965-7. These spaces hosted democratic social gatherings of people who, together, experimented with new forms of music, performance, and visual poetry, often forming cultural co-operatives and manifestos. In the latter part of Cobbing’s life, the function rooms of London pubs such as the Trolley Stop in Dalston became the locus of these activities. He organised open poetry readings, which attracted a diverse and often raucous gathering of those interested in the latest experimental text and sound works. Hugh Metcalfe’s anarchic Klinker nights hosted Cobbing’s thrash noise quintet Birdyak, which featured Lol Coxhill’s saxophone improvisations, Metcalfe’s pairing of atonal guitar and gasmask, and feral dancing by Jennifer Pike. Cobbing read his whisky tasting poems under the pseudonym Connie Sirr, in which he toyed with the terminology of the enthusiast, at the same time continuing to carve out out a subversive space for performance and poetry.