PRYNNE, J.H. Brass. London: Ferry Press. 1971.
Large 8vo. Original printed cardwrappers; pp. 41, [3]; discreet owner's signature to verso of front wrapper; very minor creasing to front cover title, bubbling to rear pastedown, otherwise fine.
First edition, number 239 of a limited edition of 250 copies.
"Days and weeks spin by in / theatres, gardens laid out in rubbish, this / is the free hand to refuse everything" writes Prynne in "L’Extase de M. Poher". A prolific creative who continually exhibits the possibility of poetry to express what can no longer be spoken within a society in which the self is valued according to his or her profit. Brass investigates the "rubbish" of the bureaucratic world and what material society is allowing it to become. In the same poem, Prynne writes, "Rubbish is / … the most intricate presence in our entire culture".
J.H. Prynne is arguably the most daring character of Postwar Poetry and yet copies of his extensive body of work remain exceedingly rare and greatly desirable. He currently holds a position as honorary professor at the University of Sussex and has also taught at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. He studied at Jesus College, Cambridge, from 1957 to 1960 and in 1962 was appointed to a fellowship at Gonville and Caius College. During this time, he contributed to the avant-garde poetry magazine The English Intelligencer which accompanied the British Poetry Revival and is said to have originated from The Cambridge Intelligencer, a political newspaper which published the works of radical poets from 1793 to 1803.
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