Michael Horovitz

Michael Horovitz

The twenty first person in our series of introductions to performers taking part in International Poetry ReIncarnation at the Roundhouse in Camden on 30th May 2015 is the poet, activist, visual artist and Poetry Olympics torchbearer Michael Horovitz.

Michael Horovitz founded New Departures publications & Live New Departures bandwagons in 1959 when still an Oxford undergrad. ND#1 published the first excerpts from Burroughs’s then still uncompleted Naked Lunch to appear in Europe. From hanging out with Beckett, Stevie Smith, the Beats et al in the ’50s to his last three years’ collaborations on song-poems & music with Vanessa Vie, he has been practising & preaching poetry worldwide all these years.

Dedicated shit-stirrer & Poetry Olympics torchbearer, Horovitz has published over forty books, the most recent of which, A New Waste Land, was welcomed in The Independent by D.J. Taylor as “A deeply felt clarion-call from the radical underground”, & “A true scrapbook and songbook of the grave new world” by Tom Stoppard. He recently recorded with Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon and Paul Weller for Gearbox Records, & is about to bring out recordings of his William Blake Klezmatrix band & a double disc DVD of the joyous POEM 2012 marathon in the QEH which featured many of tonight’s performers at the top of their games.

Allen Ginsberg pronounced him a “Popular, experienced, experimental, New Jerusalem, Jazz Generation, Sensitive Bard”, whilst Vogue dubbed him “The worst-dressed poet in Britain”.

Michael will be speaking about the impact of the first International Poetry Incarnation after the afternoon screening of Wholly Communion. To book tickets, click here.

Get your tickets for the evening’s star-laden performance here: The International Poetry ReIncarnation