Higgins, Dick, 1938-1998
Person
Biography
Dick Higgins was born in Cambridge, England in 1939 and died in Quebec in 1998. He was a Fluxus artist who studied with John Cage and Henry Cowell (1958-1959), and co-founded Happenings in 1958. He is credited with coining the phrase intermedia to describe his particular approach to artmaking that included (but is not limited to) his visual, musical and literary efforts. He was a theorist, poet, composer, performance artist, printmaker, filmaker, and book publisher. Most notably, Higgins founded Something Else Press (1963-1974), operated the Something Else Gallery (1966-1969) and founded Unpublished Editions (Printed Editions) in 1972.
Nationality
American
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
Pattern Poetry: Guide To An Unknown Literature, 1987
Item
Identifier: CC-36435-38228
Scope and Contents
Although his inscription alludes to a second edition, this was not meant to be. In this first edition, first printing, Higgins tells the history of pattern poetry, documenting more than 2000 works. He divides the book by chapters such as Language and Literature, e.g., Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, French, German, Scandinavian, Dutch and Flemish, British, Hispanic, Polish, and Slavic. He also has a chapter on Languages outside European such as Far East, Citrakavyas and other Indian languages, Islamic, and Languages in which no pattern poetry has been reported. In another chapter, he descibes Acrostics, Telestics, Mesostics, Lapidary Inscriptions, Leonine Verse, Magical Inscriptions and Formulae, Mathematical Arrays and Poems, Musical Analogues of Pattern Poetry, Proteus Poems, Rebuses, Shaped Prose, and Sound Poetry. De. Herbert Francke contributes a chapter on Chinese Pattern Texts and Dr. Kalanath Jha on Sandscrit Citrakavyas. Higgins' glossary of terms follows...
Dates:
1987