Introduction by William Cobbing, Rosie Cooper, Andrew Hunt and Fraser Muggeridge. A compilation of statements, manifestos and chronologies of concrete, visual and sound poetries, together with numerous illustrations and an exhaustive bibliography. Chapters include the history of the word ‘concrete’, semantic poetry, and ‘concrete renewal’. The book includes examples of work by Henri Chopin, Brion Gysin, Dom Sylvester Houédard and Emmett Williams, related texts by Guillaume Apollinaire, Lewis Carroll and Man Ray, as well as precursors such as Rabelais’ ‘Bottle Oracle’, Giambattista Palatino’s ‘Sonetto Figurato’, Arabic Kufic calligraphy and the Cretan Phaistos disc. Previously published in a very limited run by Bob Cobbing under the Writers Forum imprint, it is re-issued to coincide with Bob Jubile, a celebration of Cobbing’s oeuvre through events, displays and publications. — From the publisher.