Peter Philpott

Peter Philpott was born in 1949, in Martock, Somerset, and lived in Somerset until attending the University of Keele. Since then he has lived in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, retiring from teaching (mainly in Further Education Colleges) more than ten years ago. He ran Great Works Press and magazine in the 1970-early 80s, withdrew from such an active role in the innovative poetry community through the 80s and 90s, and then from 2000 set up greatworks.org.uk as a personal website. This grew into a huge magazine, and Philpott established a little later modernpoetry.org.uk, with a period when he ran too a reading & music series at Café Oto 2008-2009 (Sundays at the Oto, later Diverse Deeds). He started the online listing Innovative Poetry Readings in London at this point too. Philpott joined Writers Forum Workshop – New Series in 2010, and took on an emergency caretaker role with The Lockdown. We have set up the live workshop again as Writers Forum Workshop, and the online workshop he established during lockdown also thrives as Writers Forum Virtual Workshop.

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18. Tierra Hospitalaria a pražské mosty

“We act on earth as best we can, and do what it seems we must or ought to do; and by so doing we sometimes bring about redemptions—and defeats—that we never know of, in spheres we cannot perceive.” Crowley, op. cit., p 257.

Is all this then?

stopping me from

writing actual poems

the way this weather

stops the cat

from going out or

the trees from

keeping their leaves

or so many insects

even from their hustling

& their final life?

all these places summoned

from Westward Ho! to Albaícin

Vltava a pražské mosty

all that’s common

the non-literal &

these rectangles

of printed card

to all this anyway

the beach, the people

just before I make them out

dissolving into dots

I could be there

could have

                     been there

the neat white caravans

& then the little building

where the secondhand bookshop

might be had been?

                                      the one I bought

                                      the HG Wellses from

my memories

don’t register on the map

                  I am in the dots

a little entity

hunkered down

against the cold

& all the entropy

that would eat me

all memory up

just data heaped

or spread in a film on card

splashed against an electronic screen

scratched & scrawled

at the bottom of this page

staged noble

out statements

from the husks

of the sighs

in Albaicín

still

vacant – OK?

no attachment

sprawled diadems

of such words

that make up

all memory

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19bis. Poem to Start Again in this New Year

It’s my pen

here I write

sitting here

the sky open later

shining already

w/ the cold to come?

all at

opening of the year

born and urged

out of dead things

a live thing

still shall grow

as this ends

we’ll depart

early January, 2022

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20. “Comfort & Late Joy”: Magia di siepi montanari

“‘I so much wanted it to knit’, the other said. He interlaced his own fingers. ‘Past and present, then and now. The story of the thing lost, and how it was found. More than anything I wanted it to resolve. And all it does is ramify.” Crowley, op. cit., p 394.

Well – the seal is on

             the back of the armchair

             basking in the sunlight

             & the trees trace out

             their shapes in sharp lines

             all shades of grey brown

             against some pale blue

where are we now?

still under Johnson

disease-ridden & corrupted

people die

some are born

some creep in through walls

we lock them up or

watch them starve

worse places exist

some better

an ordinary place

this scene of writing

what places are we looking at

    what that we lean on

        just to keep us going

            as the sun sets on the cold again

San Jorge with his dragon on a pouffe

The Raft of George W Bush (a flyer

– much more aslant & falling over);

– some little paper card

my grandson allowed in after lockdown

+ 3 kings tying a father this time a present

some complex piling up

hurdles & straw across a space

gold & rich

                      in all the intoxications of decay

                                          but when

                                  are we in this

                       in real time & place

that is as we experience it now?

“stopping redemption hoped”

we said it was I thought:

now there’s a basis for utterance please:

stepping readoption hooped?

stabbing re-adopted hoopoes?

establishing ready-opted hoop-la?

that game of luck and skill

traditional in midwinter here?

experience it now!

explore its essence nicely!

explode essentials naively!

that's a route to take

open-eyed as any fine young poet

Jorge dragon pouffe

August drags on puffing

orgastic drug in perfidy

we need it to keep us sane

living the time we now deserve

sunset’s cold again

something’s called unguents

smithies called urgently

we need to make things

real things right here now

an ordinary place

undoing please!

extending pleasure

why didn’t we think of that

making our ways towards it now

seal armchair bask

soul & hair brush

solid hairbrush

                            – room for a seal

                               a creature bringing comfort

                               & late joy to many

                                                                                                        “behind this fence I will construct

                                                                                                        my house of corn bales

                                                                                                        in the living hedge

                                                                                                        the field mice will make their home”

from “Magia di siepi montanari”, poemcard by Frances Presley (Other Press, n.d.); January 13

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