Sunday 17 January 2010

BILLY CHILDISH TO BURN PENGUINS


Last weekend I watched Julie Christie in Fahrenheit 451, the 1966 film of Ray Bradbury’s novel where books are banned and burned by the authorities.

It’s not a stance you’d expect from a book publisher but that’s the one being taken by Penguin over Billy Childish’s Selected Poems. The ungrateful suits have been none too amused by Billy’s contribution to L-13’s Infiltrations series. Copies of his book were produced in the style of an old Penguin paperback, given DH Lawrence’s ISBN number, and were to be snuck onto bookshop shelves. How did Penguin react to this generous act of homage and free advertising? By ordering their destruction, that’s how.

This Thursday you can witness Billy giving a send-off reading before the burning ceremony at the L-13 Gallery in Clerkenwell (click on flyer above). A limited, hand bound, Tangerine Press edition of Uncorrected Poems will rise from the flames.

L-13 Light Industrial Workshop and Private Ladies and Gentlemen's Club for Art, Leisure and the Disruptive Betterment of Culture

Tangerine Press

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