Chris Torrance

Chris Torrance
Biography

Photo: Chris Torrance at home (2004)

Chris Torrance encountered poetry properly for the first time in his mid twenties, stimulated by becoming an editor of and a contributor to Carshalton, Surrey based magazine ORIGINS DIVERSIONS. Each issue was launched with a live reading, emphasising the concept of poem as performance. The audience empowered the poet on stage, or not as the case may be. The poem had to be got "all the way over" to its audience - to use words of Charles Olson. Followed a first collection GREEN ORANGE PURPLE RED, from Ferry Press, and an appearance in Penguin CHILDREN OF ALBION (ed. Michael Horovitz).

Torrance moved to Wales in 1970. Urban hippie living in the country for the first time. Discovery of miraculous nature. Learning the names of things: insects, birds, plants, trees. Weather systems. Geological layers. All of which fed into the never-ending long poem THE MAGIC DOOR, many books of which appeared from Albion Village Press, Galloping Dog Press, Stone Lantern Press & Cwm Nedd Press over 30 years.

Since withdrawing PATH from Heaventree Press, it seems the muse has taken a hand. I now find myself rewriting the final section of the book (A BOOK OF NUMBER / GOSDIARIES).

What is still on offer,, to any publisher who may be interested is a volume representing over 25 years work on the continuance of THE MAGIC DOOR series,& which runs to about 200 pages. Is there anyone out there?

My first ever reading at Hay on Wye (with David Greenslade) will take place at the Oriel Gallery, Salem Chapel, Bell Bank, on Saturday May 30^th, starting at 7.30 pm. Admission £5. There will be six other events at the Gallery between May 23^rd & the 30^th, & there will be an exhibition of paintings by Tim Rossiter. For details phone 01497 521451

I’m sad to record the death of Don Bodie, a close friend “back in the day”, & a core founder of the Carshalton Mob. It is hoped a collection of his poems will appear in the near future.

I will be reading at the launch of THREE LYRIC POETS by William Walton Rowe (Northcote House Publishers Ltd 2009) alongside Lee Harwood, & Ric Hool reading some of Barry MacSweeney's poems. 7.30 -9.15 on Saturday 24th October 2009 at Hen and Chickens, Flannel Street, Abergavenny.

A reading in Hay, while not perhaps the highest of my ambitions, was certainly going to be a first for me. There was every excuse I could muster for pre-reading tension, programming graft, bluster & a touch of biting anxiety.

Needing to rehearse, I prayed for a guitarist to appear, to give me an opportunity to air my pipes.

Need to get the right material lined up, for this audience as I imagine it. Gotta get all my ducks in a row.

Speedy, rushy early mood. Mutterings. Stuttered part-rehearsals. I abandoned ship 30 seconds into CLASS ONE.

Recast & retyped CLASS ONE in 2 line stanzas again but with shorter lines, to dovetail more with the conversational pace of the poem, which is supposed to represent the thoughts of a student freshly enrolled at a creative writing class -slightly paranoid, maybe a bit resentful even spiteful. Pace quite rapid. But dont push it too hard, just let it rrrolll.

HER, from Up There - The Muse - makes arbitrary appearances. A marble, taloned, cool hand gripping my shoulder. She has the white stone eyes of a Maenad, which she surely is.** You wouldnt refuse her a favour. If I do glimpse her pupils they are strangely pinned, etheric. More & more she manifests, as I wrestle with the parameters of the Hay gig.

"You'll be alright," she assures me, her grip tightening a little. I found red marks there later . . .

She's gone. The apparition of her robes of dolomite columns falling straight down fading back into crazed plaster, peeling paint.

Apprehension. I have to believe the "tunes" of the poems will bubble up, even where I have doubts

Working the material up slowly. Trying to do the poems I feel most engaged with at the present time. That will arouse my various beats & pauses, islands & archipelagoes.

As if in answer to my prayer - a knock at the door -& there was Bob, complete with guitar. & a sixpack of Speckled Hen. We jammed for 5 hours, during which I was able to go through most of my programme.

Amazing how the "tune" of a poem comes rocking back once I get on it. Each poem has its own unique music & variety of pace & tone - but I forget those things, in the time between gigs. Then worry how I am going to handle it when the next reading comes along - can I bring it back? Trying to recover future memory.

I've been getting mileage out of FRINITE for 22 years. Started wanting a "fast" poem for the POETHEAT situation, getting that launched inspired by Anne Waldman's reading of her poem PRESSURE; & increasingly listening to rappers/ hiphoppers on Jeff Young's (Def Jef)Rl show on Friday nights, late 80s, early 90s. & often working with Chris Vine as the POETHEAT gigs came along. But the real hard graft on FRINITE was done by me & Bob in intense sessions that lasted up to 8 hours at a stretch, me ending up hoarse, sore throat, & Bob with blackened, sometimes bleeding fingers.

We perfected a short, succinct FRINITE at first, but later on I trawled years of notebooks & journals to get the lines & riffs I wanted & ended up with a long version of the poem that takes about 15 minutes to read.

Reading Clark Coolidge on Kerouac. It was Kerouac's improvisational flow in ON THE ROAD, & the jazz I was listening to, that made me want to become a writer. & the reading styles of Ginsberg, Fainlight & Harwood & co in the London poetry readings of the 1960s that encouraged me to treat every poem as an enactment of the moment of the poem brought live into the context of the present. Every poem I wrote then, at the start, had to be read out loud, to be heard, before it was truly settled. Energised by the dynamic of an audience there to listen, chips down, everything down to me, the reader, for 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 minutes.

was spent in usual pre-reading mode. Antsing around picking at things, checking & rechecking the programme, loading up the rucker - folder, books, the pre-opened 11.5 proof bottle of West Australian white wine, plus drinking mug. Choosing clothes - white linen jacket, black trousers & charcoal grey shirt, light shoes.

Lonely hermit paranoia about the big gig coming up fast in my rear-view mirror. A big rig, 18 wheeler.

Mike Greenhough picked me up at 5.30 & we navigated our way to Hay. Took a bit of doing. Hundreds of day trippers round the Beacons. Many motorcyclists: one guy snarled past us at about 120 mph, his engine howling at its utmost limits.

Into red earth, Old Red Sandstone country, always more fertile than the wilder wetter slopes of the Fforest Fawr to the south. Flatter, too, as you move NW past Brecon & the little settlements of Glasbury, Bronllys, Aberllynfi along the way. On a dazzling evening in a long fine spell, very little cloud, a long expanded contrail the only high cloud.

"literary" crowds in summery clothes, though I didnt spot the tented area. We found the car park, & met up with main organisers Lyn Davies & Graham Hartill in the back garden of Kilvert's pub. Soon so many names shooting at me as people gathered, as always happens at gigs.

The Oriel Gallery, Salem Chapel turned out to be quite small, & made friendly & intimate by the exhibition of Tim Rossiterfs exuberant paintings. Door open onto the street but perfectly quiet as I kicked off.

I tend not to do very much in the way of intros or inbetween stuff, so I went straight into THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE WRITING TUTOR,including the new poem CLASS ONE, & followed by some of THE GARDEN BOOK, & culminating with a soft-rock paced CIRRUS. Good enough, apart from one or two froggy throat moments early on. When I sat down again a woman next to me offered me a cough lozenge. . .

David Greenslade took the rest of the 1st half, & also began the 2nd half. It was a bonus that both of us have completely different styles. He uses more humour than me, props & more intros, well handled. His sets went down just fine.

& then I was on again. I did the last 20 minutes, first DREAMIN' VIV, my poem to Vivienne Eliot; then the inevitable FRINITE. By now the Ozzie white wine was well kicking in & I fell into the groove, moving around a lot more, projecting the poem as much through the body as through the voice. Singing FRIDAY NIGHT, COLD & CLEAR FRIDAY NIGHT, COLD & CLEAR loud. Audience completely silent, listening. Good long applause at the end.

Talked with people until thrown out. More social interaction back at Kilvert's Pub. A miracle ride back home along deserted roads, under a yellowy half moon. Home around midnight. Collapsed straight into bed.

All yesterday, all week, all the hyping up before a reading - "I'm going to be good. I've got to be good. Hey, this is HAY!" & so on.

Did I do as well as I would have liked? Almost. I delivered. With as much conviction as possible. The slower, meditative stuff. The empathic. The weary tutor. The hardwork CLASS ONE. By the end, I was rocking. Bodypopping. But not as violently as at the Morden Tower, Newcastle, some years back, when I was practically bouncing off the walls!

"Don't think I've finished with you yet . . ." The talons were gripping my other shoulder now . . .

Clark Coolidge NOW ITS JAZZ. WRITINGS ON KEROUAC & THE SOUNDS, Living Batch Press 1999

For a list books and CDs which feature Chris Torrance's work click on Publications

Poems

Biography and mission statement.

Beneath the Underground Poetry Festival 2008 - a record of the day with words by Chris Torrance and photos by Val Maillard

Publications - a list of CDs and books and link to order form

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