Synopses of Poetic Works

SYNOPSES OF POETIC WORKS BY JOHN O'LOUGHLIN

01. DOSSHOUSE BLUES: My first real collection of poems, written on and off during 1973-5, reflects the lyricism and formal simplicity of youth, showing the influence of poets like Rimbaud, Ezra Pound, Adrian Henri, and Doors lead singer Jim Morrison on my formative years as a writer. - A modest but by no means insignificant start to my literary career, which began pleasantly enough in Merstham, Surrey, before progressing first to Finsbury Park and then to Crouch End in North London (where I got the inspiration for the title poem), DOSSHOUSE BLUES will intrigue those who have personal experience of solitary life in cheap lodgings.

02. STRESSING THE ESSENTIAL: This little collection of twenty-five mainly philosophical poems, written during 1982, should confirm, more than anything, that I had considerably deepened my approach to and concept of poetry since DOSSHOUSE BLUES, and the result should not prove displeasing to anyone who would prefer to see me, as I myself do, primarily as a philosopher (albeit a self-taught one) who occasionally dabbles in other things, poetry not excepted. Doubtless the fact that I am an Irish citizen who, brought to England as a young child, has spent the greater part of his life in exile from his native country ... has something to do with this paradoxical state-of-affairs, since one is often exposed to contrary influences and predilections, both natural and artificial, neither of which greatly ingratiates one to less complex or, perhaps I should say, paradoxically confused people? Be that as it may, I accept that I have, at various times in my life, been prepared to dabble in poetry, even if from a philosophic rather than a strictly poetic standpoint, since the adoption of alternative genres makes for variety both in the presentation and conception of one's thought, and that can be most beneficial to the writer himself, who could otherwise bog down in one mould and grow stale or bored, as the case might be. STRESSING THE ESSENTIAL, the first of four collections of philosophical poems written in successive years, precluded me from experiencing such a stultifying fate, and was thus of indirect benefit to my philosophical will. It was not, however, any the less easy to write!

03. SPIRITUAL INTIMATIONS: Comprised of thirty-four poems, this collection of verse is slightly freer, overall, than the previous one, and ranges across a wide variety of topics ... from politics and sex to literature and money ... in what I prefer to regard as a loosely poetic way, though not one devoid of stylistic methodology or thematic consistency!

04. ABSTRACTS: The essayistic introduction to this little collection of abstract poems attempts to clarify a distinction between poetry and antipoetry, and then to contrast both of these with what I have termed superpoems - the abstract poetry of a transcendental age or civilization which strives to dissolve grammatical appearances into a non-descriptive essence. Whether or not I was successful in my clarifying endeavour, or even correct in my theorizing at this time (1983), ABSTRACTS is a collection of poems which, whilst mostly readerly, is devoid of conventional significance, and therefore has to be read or, rather, understood in relation to the underlying significance, where apparent, of the form, which lifts each poem above the usual phenomenal realm of descriptive poetry towards a transcendent realm of pure abstraction.

05. THE MODERN DEATH: Dating from 1984, this collection of forty-four poems continues in the free-verse style of SPIRITUAL INTIMATIONS, albeit the verse is at all times prevented from degenerating into prose through the application of a methodological consistency which continues to favour the definite/indefinite article at the expense of lesser words. More significant of this collection is its greater concern with metaphysics, or subatomic theories, which, though far from definitive, enabled me to dig beneath the surface of my themes to what I hoped would be their spiritual depths. In retrospect, I can see how much ground I still had to cover, or perhaps I should say unearth? in order to arrive at the Truth. But this was still a significant stage in my progress as a metaphysician, even if it took a poetic turn.

06. EVOLUTION: The sixteen prose poems here should be ideally suited to those who prefer their poetry prosy and mainly concerned with philosophical issues or, at any rate, with a philosophical treatment of issues and subjects that could be treated more frivolously, if one lacked the intellectual machinery and moral insight with which to tackle them in this way. I suspect that my first attempt at prose poems, back in DOSSHOUSE BLUES (1973-5), was more poetically frivolous than is to be found here, though that would be in keeping with my work of the period. Ten years later and the results are far more interesting, with perhaps a little hint of Baudelairian influence here and there, albeit without conscious intention on my part. However that may be, these prose poems are not essays, whatever appearances might suggest to the contrary, but painfully contrived pieces which never part company with the context in which they were conceived.

07. TREES: It seems that I add ten poems to each new volume of free verse, for this collection has some fifty four, dating from 1985, which carry on, both stylistically and thematically, from approximately where those in THE MODERN DEATH leave off, with, if anything, a slightly deeper metaphysical and ideological bias. The title derives, as usual, from one of the poems, and has to be read to be believed!

08. CONTEMPLATIONS1: Unlike my previous collection of abstract poems, simply called ABSTRACTS, this project, which dates from 1985, is non-readerly and hence abstract in a patterned and completely formal way such that requires nothing more than contemplation, as suggested by the title, of its monosyllabic structures. Thus all 130 of the lower-case poems in volume one of CONTEMPLATIONS are intended to assist one in developing a contemplative frame-of-mind at the expense of readerly norms, thereby transcending the intellect in what could be regarded as a mode of literary salvation.

09. CONTEMPLATIONS2: Likewise all 120 of the lower-case poems in volume two of CONTEMPLATIONS are intended to assist one in developing a contemplative frame-of-mind at the expense of readerly norms, thereby transcending the intellect in what could be regarded as a mode of literary salvation.

10. CONTEMPLATIONS3: Similarly all 140 of the lower-case poems in volume three of CONTEMPLATIONS are intended to assist one in developing a contemplative frame-of-mind at the expense of readerly norms, thereby transcending the intellect in what could be regarded as a mode of literary salvation.

11. SUPERCONTEMPLATIONS: This little collection of non-readerly abstract poems, dating from 1993, is comprised of sixty poems utilizing a combination of lower and upper case monosyllabic words, thereby extending beyond the lower-case scope of the third volume of CONTEMPLATIONS (1985) into more complex and aesthetically-gratifying examples of the genre.

12. ULTRACONTEMPLATIONS: Another and more structurally advanced example of my non-readerly style of abstract poetry, ULTRACONTEMPLATIONS (1994) is comprised of some sixty-four poems which have been entirely constructed, along monosyllabic lines, with the use of upper-case characters, thereby passing beyond the mixed-case style of SUPERCONTEMPLATIONS to what I regard as a conceptual plateau of poetic abstraction.