Notes from the Cosmic Typewriter

Dom Sylvester Houédard, Figuur, 1964. Courtesy Ruth & Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry

Notes from the Cosmic Typewriter – The Life and Work of Dom Sylvester Houédard – the first book since the early 1970s devoted to the extraordinary British Benedictine monk, scholar, translator, concrete poet and artist Dom Sylvester Houédard (1924–92) – offers a broad and richly illustrated introduction to this major artistic and theological figure.

Besides many of Houédard’s ‘typestracts’ – the concrete poems produced entirely with his Olivetti typewriter – this book also includes examples of his lesser-known ‘poem-objects’, a selection of key texts, as well as never-before-published performance scores. In both his spiritual views and artistic output, Houédard stands out as a model of insatiable curiosity, building around him a vast network of enlightened poets, visual artists, performers, musicians and thinkers of all faiths and walks of life.