Cutting-Edge Poetics: Roy Fisher's 'Language Book'

Chapter six, written by Marjorie Perloff, focuses on the patterns in language, form and structure found in Fisher’s The Cut Pages. Perloff describes the uniqueness of the collection and defines its status as ahead of its time within both the American and British poetry sphere. Perloff additionally points out the potential insularity of Fisher’s poetry and outlines the difficulties he faced when attempting to bring in an American audience. The chapter also comments on Fisher’s prose and makes comparison to the American poet, William Carlos Williams.

The Work of a Left-Handed Man

In chapter three, John Lucas describes the UK jazz scene following the Second World War. Lucas describes the free and unlimited qualities of jazz and makes comparative reference to Fisher’s own personal interest in the genre. The chapter goes on to state that Fisher’s writing style can arguably be linked to the many styles of jazz piano, in that the two both adhere to imaginative thought and liberation from formal constraints. As well as music, the chapter also focuses on the significance and impact of the themes of location and belonging found in Fisher’s poetry.

A Furnace and the Life of the Dead

Chapter eleven, written by Clair Wills, provides a close reading of Fisher’s A Furnace. In this chapter, Wills unpacks the poem’s most significant recurring motifs, including the mention of ghosts, politics, memory and immortality. She also focuses closely on the attention Fisher places on the burial of the dead, and analyses the poem’s portrayal of both religious and literary boundaries.

'The Secret Laugh of the World'

The title of chapter eight, written by Ian Sansom, is inspired by a line in one of Fisher’s poems, ‘Toyland’. The chapter itself focuses on Fisher’s lighter and more comedic work and asks the question, has Fisher’s work been taken too seriously in public and critic opinion? To answer this question, Sansom explores the critical understanding of Fisher and takes a look at the poet’s use of self-awareness and humour in order to provide an analysis of the successfulness of Fisher’s comedic writing. Sansom focuses mainly on poems found in the Consolidated Comedies collection, and makes particular comment on ‘“Other Titles by Roy Fisher”’, ‘North Wind Harrying the North’, ‘One World’, and ‘Toyland’.

'Making Forms with Remarks': The Prose

Chapter five, written by Robert Sheppard, focuses on Fisher’s work in prose. The chapter describes the reasons for Fisher’s renunciation of the use of lyric in his poetry from the mid-1950s, and explains the origins of his use of daring and experimental ‘freedom forms’. The chapter concentrates in particular on ‘Starting to Make a Tree’, Interiors with Various Figures, The Ship’s Orchestra, The Cut Pages, and the sixteen passages of prose in City. On the whole, the chapter pays close attention to Fisher’s ability to de-familiarise and de-Anglicise in order to find freedom from the constraints of British lyric poetry.

Last Things

The final chapter in this text, written by Peter Robinson and aptly titled ‘Last Things’, focuses on Fisher’s volume of Collected Poems 1968. Robinson begins his analysis with a breakdown of the work’s original title, The Ghost of a Paper Bag, a sentence labelled by Fisher as ‘expressive’. The chapter also focuses on Fisher’s literary style, including his unusual use of the first person, and references the writer’s block experienced by Fisher in the late 1960s. The chapter concludes with a commentary on Fisher’s preoccupation with ‘last things’, including death and childhood illness, across the poems present in Collected Poems 1968.

'Exhibiting Unpreparedness': Self, World, and Poetry

Chapter nine, written by Michael O’Neill, discusses the significance of Fisher’s varied poetic style and use of rhetoric, and analyses the ways in which empiricism and representations of the Self impact on Fisher’s poetic narrative. O’Neill also discusses Fisher’s preference to move away from formalism and the use of symbols to convey meaning, and highlights his decision to adopt conversational free verse. The chapter concludes with a closer reading of A Furnace and A City.

A Burning Monochrome: Fisher's Block

Chapter seven, written by Simon Jarvis, explores the nature and consequences of blockage in Fisher’s work, mainly concentrating on the titles The Cut Pages, Interiors with Various Figures, and Ceremonial Poems. The chapter focuses on the period immediately before and after the writer’s block Fisher experienced in the late 1960s, and examines his attempts to dissolve the block. In Jarvis’s analysis, he brings into focus Fisher’s avoidance of concept, copula and cognition, as well as outlining the difference between a ‘block’ in both literary terms and also in personal and societal terms.

'Menacing Works in my Isolation': Early Pieces

In this second chapter, James Keery closely reads Fisher’s early poetry from the 1950s. In his analysis, Keery explores the poetry’s historical context and interrelations, in order to develop a well-rounded perspective on the period. While the chapter focuses mainly on work produced in the 1950s, Keery also discusses later poems written by Fisher that adopt the themes previously established in the 1950s.

Roy Fisher on Location

In this first chapter, John Kerrigan describes the documentary, Birmingham’s What I Think With (1991). Kerrigan places focus on Fisher’s discussion of Birmingham within this documentary, and includes a commentary on Fisher’s recollections on the ways in which the city has become a significant role in the shaping of his poetry. The chapter also more broadly considers Fisher’s interest in location in general and assesses the ways in which spatial awareness in his poetry results in the questioning of perceptual and psychological limits.