Using repetition or varying spatial gaps and pauses to convey emotion,
atmosphere and a sense of time, the poems of painter and poet Fabian
Peake are surprising and disquieting. Peake draws on nature, memory and
everyday life to create works that, although concrete in look, are
distinct from the hard abstraction of concrete poetry. Comprising 41
works in verse, shape poems and abstract pieces written over a 20-year
period, the volume's design is sensitive to the unique visual look of
each poem. The writing grows from his background as an artist and is in
a tradition of painter-poets like Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters and Paul
Klee. Peake says that 'there is an unavoidable parallel between how I
build a poem and the way I construct a painting.' To introduce the book,
editors Jeremy Akerman and Eileen Daly discuss with Peake the
relationship between art and writing; the poem's underlying themes and
subject matter; as well as poetic form and abstraction.