Commentaries on Bob Cobbing - The Argotist Online

themselves and not a completion in themselves.
In the hands of Cobbing they went a long way; but he was never the only one involved, he was
never consciously leading, and they were not really an end in themselves.
I have spoken to people who were at Eyerhymes in Canada who have spoken of the shock of
hearing Cobbing perform what they had taken to be purely visual pieces; and recently the same
has been said at the Writers Forum workshops. In performance the poem, in Cobbing’s words,
‘becomes more like itself’.
From another point of view, Cobbing was one among many. The kinds of material he was using
were being used by others. That is not to try to lessen his importance. If I avoid applying the word
“great” to the poet Bob Cobbing, it is only because I try not to apply it to any poet for reasons
quite outside of these arguments.
What is so important about Cobbing is the links that he made and the emphases that he put, and
the commitment. He synthesised a multitude of activities and techniques in a way that no other
poet I know has done. But he was not alone; and from some directions he was one among equals.
So his death stops nothing and no one except him.
That we do not have the graphical manipulations in the work of someone like Dufrêne, for
example, does not alter the importance of Dufrêne, or many others one might mention. He/they
were doing slightly different things.
I would prefer to ask two questions:
One How far do you want to go with the manipulation of images? (And I prefer that to Where do
you want to go? because I am more interested in those who go in unmapped directions)
Two Do you really want to abandon the link between the visual and the sounded? The energy that
sustained Cobbing through decades of excellent work derived I believe from that interface between
the I and the ear and the eye and the thou in collaboration (terms deliberately cross-linked).