Details

Subject(s)

• Torrance, Chris [Browse]
• Torrance, Chris—Correspondence [Browse]
• English poetry—20th century [Browse]
• Experimental poetry, English [Browse]

Author

• Maillard, Phil [Browse]
• Pilcher, Barry Edgar, 1943- [Browse]
• Pilcher, Evelyn T. [Browse]
• Torrance, Val [Browse]

Related name

• Wyatt, Bill [Browse]
• King, Robert, 1947- [Browse]

Publisher

• Galloping Dog Press [Browse]
• Albion Village Press [Browse]
• Cwm Nedd Press [Browse]
• Pig Press [Browse]

Library of Congress genre(s)

• Poetry [Browse]
• Personal correspondence [Browse]

Rare books genre

• Little magazines [Browse]

Biographical/​Historical note

Chris Torrance (1941-2021) was a poet associated with the British Poetry Revival of the late 1960s and 1970s. Born in Edinburgh, Torrance spent his early years in London before moving to the rural Neath valley in Wales, where he lived and worked for the remainder of his life. His major work, the "Magic Door" sequence, was published in several volumes throughout the course of his life; the sequence explores the history of his home of Wales, drawing on geology, alchemy, astronomy and other subjects. Torrance released books with key small presses such as Albion Village Press and Galloping Dog Press, and Cwm Nedd Press, and he taught creative writing at Cardiff University. During the 1980s he collaborated with musican Chris Vine in the poetry and music performance group Heat Poets.

Summary note

Collection consists of poetry books, periodicals, correspondence, and ephemera by poet Chris Torrance, dating from 1968 to 2015. Included are key early chapbooks by Torrance, such as "Aries Under Saturn and Beyond" (1969), works forming part of Torrance's "Magic Door" sequence, and books and audio recordings by his "Heat Poets" performance group. Multiple copies of many of the chapbooks are present, and many of them are inscribed by the author to Bill Wyatt and others. The collection also contains works by fellow poets Phil Maillard, Barry Edgar Pilcher, Evelyn T. Pilcher, and Val Torrance (Chris Torrance's spouse from 1968 to 1976). A substantial amount of personal correspondece by Torrance is included: a set of letters, cards, and a typescript addressed to Bill Wyatt (dating from 1976-2014); over 100 letters and cards to Torrance's publisher and friend Robert King of Cwm Nedd Press; and an illustrated letter to poet Jeremy Hilton.

Contents

• [Box 1] Acrospirical meanderings in a tongue of the time / Chris Torrance
• Aries under Saturn and beyond / Chris Torrance
• The attic tapes / Chris Torrance
• The book of Brychan / Chris Torrance
• Citrinas: the magic door book II / Chris Torrance
• The cloud book / Chris Torrance
• Cylinder fragments of the twentieth century / Chris Torrance
• The diary of Palug's cat / Chris Torrance
• The Florentine sonnets / Chris Torrance
• Green orange purple red / Chris Torrance
• Hare pie / Chris Torrance
• Heat sonnets / Chris Torrance
• The magic door: a cycle. Book one / Chris Torrance
• Mirages: a chronicle / Chris Torrance
• Mumbles sands / Chris Torrance
• The rainbringer & other poems / Chris Torrance
• The slim book/wet pulp / Chris Torrance
• Southerly vector: the book of heat / Chris Torrance
• Wobbly chair / Chris Torrance
• The tempers of hazard / Chris Torrance et. al.
• Slipping the leash / Chris torrance et. al.
• Hermits / Chris Torrance et. al.
• Snowy mountains, big skies & jellyfish / Dragon's Blood
• A book of number / Heat Poets
• Fri nite / Heat Poets
• RORI: a book of the boundaries / Heat Poets
• The book of heat / Poet Heat
• [Small framed artwork] / Chris Torrance
• Swansea Festival Fringe Poetry Seventy Seven
• The Park 4/5
• Interstate 19
• Anglo-Welsh Poetry 1480-1990
• Poetry Information 9/10
• Poetry Information 18
• Bezoar vol. 14 no. 3
• Lobby Press newsletter 7
• The atlantic review new series no. 1
• Wonderful remark: a celebration of Chris Torrance.
• [Box 2] Beneath the Underground Festival Anthology 2008
• Beneath the Underground Anthology 2010
• Coming up from silence: poems 1972-99 / Phil Maillard
• Grazing the octave / Phil Maillard
• Keeping still / Phil Maillard
• A North American journal / Phil Maillard
• Plot 20 & other stories / Phil Maillard
• Portraits / Phil Maillard
• Quartz: a winter book / Phil Maillard
• Sweet dust & growling lambs / Phil Maillard
• A staircase in the Sierra / imágenes: poems & pictures / Phil Maillard and Val Collett
• do re mi fa so la ti do / Barry Edgar Pilcher
• Fingers of wind / Barry Edgar Pilcher
• Liberty caps from the coast / Bary Edgar Pilcher
• The conjuror and his dog / Barry Edgar Pilcher and Mark Williams
• Skyrocket / Barry Edgar Pilcher
• Gathering together / Barry Edgar Pilcher
• Cradle hill / Barry Edgar Pilcher
• The Barry Edgar picture book / Barry Edgar Pilcher
• Saxophone stanzas/tumbling texts / Barry Edgar Pilcher
• Dharma notes 2
• Wrapt in dreams / Evelyn T. Pilcher
• The dazzle: poems October 1975 to July 1976
• Earth heart almanack: poems summer solstice 1974 to summer solstice 1975
• Hallow flute (poems 1977-1979) / Val Torrance
• The white palace and the blue eye of the lake / Val Torrance
• Earth of light, sky of earth / Federico García Lorca, translated by Val Torrance
• [Letters from Chris Torrance to Bill Wyatt]
• [Letter from Chris Torrance to Jeremy Hilton]
• [Correspondence from Chris Torrance to Robert King].

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OCLC

1285721455

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