Commentaries on Bob Cobbing - The Argotist Online

ut eye elements! A notional alien not conversant with English language and literature might not
notice a difference between Cobbing’s Sound Poems and a book of Georgian verse. Yet as soon as
one knew even a little, the difference would be obvious.
There is little visual variation from an apparent norm between typescripts. You have to know the
code. The initial interest of his poetry for the eye is painterly.
Cobbing was always an interesting reader of poetry and that applies to his reading of others’ work.
Not for him the semi-audible drone, words half swallowed. He read the layout intelligently and
sensitively so that when, on occasion, he pointed to areas of a visual text and said, to sceptics, that
here and here he saw rhymes; this might be a half-rhyme; and here it was clearly to be uttered
loudly, it carried conviction.
In Sound Poems, the poems are presented, as I say, in typescript; but the notes that comes with
them are strongly directive:
and
Monotonously rhythmical, louder in the middle [H]
Two heavy accented beats per line except last liners in each stanza which are much
quicker [X]
Thus, the idea of scoring the poem is there in 1964 (the year of Sound Poems’ composition) even if
what was in the poet’s mind was more like hearing the poem so that it sounds as the poet
imagines it ought to sound rather than stimulating others into their own responses. (Cobbing says
little or nothing about how a group of performers coordinate their readings of a score. Again, as
always, he put faith in others’ creative resources)
In these typescripts, the poet has chosen his words, to a considerable extent, for their sonic values
and qualities, not restricting himself to English; but it is clear that their semantic meaning, or
something akin to it, is being engaged by the poems’ processes:
Adventure
Aventure
Aventureux
Adventure
Aventure
Aventureuse
Adventurous
A L’aventure
Dire la bonne aventure
Aventurier
Aventuriere
Aveugle
Aveugle