Commentaries on Bob Cobbing - The Argotist Online

Sub Voicive Poetry Bob Cobbing Celebration Opening Remarks at Camden
People’s Theatre
(14th March 2005)
Those of you who were at the Boat Ting Celebration of Bob Cobbing may remember a few words I
spoke. It was to do with alcohol, in part; and Bob’s liking for good whiskey. But more importantly it
was to do with the kind of artist that Bob was.
I’d looked at the bill and realised that someone attending who didn’t know Bob’s work might have
assumed that he was a musician.
And I’m not saying he wasn’t a musician.
I quoted then his reply to a question as to whether or not he was a poet or a musician; and he
replied that it depended who was paying. A fine answer.
The same problems might be said to arise if we view Bob as a graphic artist. It doesn’t quite fit.
And yet he certainly was.
This is not Bob’s fault. It derives from the frequent narrowness of the vocabulary and behaviour of
public curation, a word cognate with the noun “curare”, which I believe paralyses and kills those at
whom it is targeted.
At Boat Ting, I asserted Bob’s “poetness” whilst acknowledging his indebtedness elsewhere. I
meant it, but I also advanced it that way as a debating point. Unfortunately, five minutes after, I
don’t know if anyone there could have repeated what I said or been sure I hadn’t done conjuring
tricks.
Tonight, at alertly freedom-loving Sub Voicive, where we are able to exercise choice, we celebrate
without categorising Bob with three creative artists with whom he was happy to be associated,
who are, between them, practitioners in graphics, poetry and music.
They may or may not speak of Bob. I leave that to them.
I have nothing more prepared to say about Bob now, though I am more than half way through an
extended piece of commentary which I hope to bring to the light of your day shortly.