Commentaries on Bob Cobbing - The Argotist Online

in colour, it would enrich the performance quite a lot’.
but then: ‘One could almost say that working in black and white is richer than working in colour in
some ways. There are tremendous subtleties in black and white which can get lost in colour’.
He had had colour printing machines. His Gestetner A3 ink duplicator, the one in the famous print
shop of the Consortium of London Presses in the mid-1970s used colour; but it was potentially a
lot of work to change the colour.
Incidentally, as I have mentioned the print shop, I’ll depart briefly from my script on that account. I
recently reread Robert Sheppard’s review in Jacket magazine of Peter Barry’s book about The
Poetry Society [1]. Not long ago, some people sent me a letter telling me their opinions on the
“world of poetry” which reminded me in a quite odd way of the Poetry Round manifesto. That, by
association, took me back to Robert’s article where I was struck by his quotation from Peter Barry:
‘the reluctance... to make the print-shop facilities available to poets beyond a narrow circle of likeminded
radicals’, which he says ‘was a recipe for resentment that would inevitably backfire, but it
was emblematic of the refusal on the parts of the radicals to countenance their work as part of a
possible plural poetry scene, which might have emerged if they had behaved differently”. (p. 172)
The only problem with the statement and the conclusion which Professor Sheppard draws from it
is that the reluctance was not there. I do not doubt that it was reported; but I do not think it was
checked with anyone who was involved with the print shop. The accusation may have been useful
to malcontents; but that does not make it true.
A conclusion drawn from a false or invalid assertion is likely to be false or invalid.
And, being a member of the group he calls “the Radicals”, unlike Professor Sheppard and Barry, I
can say that what many of us, Cobbing included, were seeking was a plural poetry scene. Yes, there
were refusals to oblige a number of people, but there were reasons for those, contingent rather
than ideological, such as, short notice, unreasonable time demands or their lack of skill to use the
equipment. The print shop was open.
In some ways, it always has been special pleading that has been the problem. Those making the
special pleas are responsible for them; but it is a pity when others believe them without checking.
I digress, but it is worth saying. Confidently stated but untrue statements can stick, as I keep
finding in a variety of contexts nowadays; and it is of little comfort to know that, as in this case,
they were not repeated with any malice.
In the mid to late 1990s, Cobbing had an expensive to use, slow and awkward colour photocopier
on which, for instance, he and I made Fuming (Writers Forum 1997) one page at a time, one colour
at a time.
And then a year or two later, he obtained a three-in-one machine, scanner, printer and copier; and
he went to town.
Concepts like “Good” and “Better” can be troublesome because one needs to know the underlying