Eecchhooeess (Contemporaries)

Pritchard, N.H.

New York University Press

A bold, pioneering, "free-souled" and long-rare classic of concrete poetry, available for the first time in 50 years Originally published by Doubleday and Company in 1970, N.H. Pritchard's The Matrix was one of a tiny handful of books of concrete poetry published in America by a major publishing house. Sadly, the book was given little support and was not promoted, and it has long been out of print. However, it remains a cherished item for fans of poetry due to its unique composition, and difficult but rewarding poetics. Forcing the reader to straddle the line between reading and viewing, the book features visual poems that predate the experiments of the Language poets, including words that are exploded into their individual letters, and columns of text that ride the edge of the page. Praised as a "FREE souled" work by Allen Ginsberg, The Matrix feels as fresh and necessary today as when it was first published. This new facsimile edition, copublished by Primary Information and Ugly Duckling Presse, makes the book available to a new generation of readers.

The Matrix: Poems 1960–1970

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Primary Information/Ugly Duckling Presse

Review\nTh[is] poetry collection exemplif[ies] the literary innovation of this era―a commitment to the pursuit and study of sound and a symbolic resistance to legibility. -- Erica N. Cardwell ― Brooklyn Rail\nThis recognition via fresh publication restores the author to his proper place in the avant-garde lineage that includes Concrete poetry, typewriting, and Visual Poetry. In addition to that important fact, having these books is an opportunity to experience the sheer pleasure of an elegantly venturesome mind at serious play. -- Albert Mobilio ― Hyperallergic\nAn exacting facsimile of Umbra protagonist Norman H. Pritchard’s long-rare 1971 collection of visually kinetic poetry 
American poet Norman H. Pritchard’s second and final book, EECCHHOOEESS was originally published in 1971 by New York University Press. Pritchard’s writing is visually and typographically unconventional. His methodical arrangements of letters and words disrupt optical flows and lexical cohesion, modulating the speeds of reading and looking by splitting, spacing and splicing linguistic objects. His manipulation of text and codex resembles that of concrete poetry and conceptual writing, traditions from which literary history has mostly excluded him. Pritchard also worked with sound, and his dynamic readings―documented, among few other places, on the album New Jazz Poets (Folkways Records, 1967)―make themselves heard on the page.\nEECCHHOOEESS exemplifies Pritchard’s formal and conceptual sensibilities, and provides an entryway into the work of a poet whose scant writings have only recently achieved wider recognition. DABA’s publication of EECCHHOOEESS is unabridged and closely reproduces the design of the original 1971 volume.\nNorman H. Pritchard (1939–96) was affiliated with the Umbra group, a predecessor to the Black Arts Movement. He taught writing at the New School for Social Research and published two books: The Matrix: Poems 1960–1970 (Doubleday, 1970) and EECCHHOOEESS (New York University Press, 1971). His work was anthologized in publications including The New Black Poetry (1969), In a Time of Revolution: Poems from Our Third World (1969), Dices or Black Bones: Black Voices of the Seventies (1970), Ishmael Reed's 19 Necromancers from Now (1970), Text-Sound Texts (1980) and others.

Eecchhooeess

DABA

The Mundus

Literary

Primary Information

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