“Packedwith a kind of fertile obscurity.” - JHPrynne, . “Here is something I can study all my life,and never understand.
” - SamuelBeckett, Rarely do creativeartists become more productive as they grow older. Moreusually, after a brief period of youthful efflorescence intheir twenties and thirties, they either die or slowlyflatline into a condition of comfortable mediocrity, restingon their youthful laurels and releasing compilations oftheir ‘Greatest Hits.’ This is hardly the case with theEnglish poet and master-craftsman JH Prynne who, rather thanbottoming out in his ‘declining’ years, has only becomemore prolific, achieving the kind of sharp angle ofinclination that jetliners encounter preceding theturbulence that can inflict traumatic damage on the shape oftheir contents, often disfiguring them beyond recognition.
Much like Pablo Picasso and musicians such as Miles Davis,Joni Mitchell, and Paul Weller, Prynne has constantlyreinvented his corpus, continually evolving from his initialpoetic density toward ever greater obscurity. Afterretiring from his posts teaching English Literature as aLecturer and University Reader in English Poetry atCambridge University and Librarian at Gonville & CauisCollege in 2006, Prynne has only become more productive andabstruse, with a prolix spate of lovely individualpublications issued by Ian Heames’ Face Press. Thelong-awaited appearance of the second volume of hiscollected by Bloodaxebrings together all the limited edition .
