CREATIVE WORK

REVIEWS & INTERVIEWS

 

Interview with Leah Balagobal, Painted Spoken 40, 2024. Here

"In 2023, two Oo Press items were selected as case studies for students on the UCL MSc on Conservation of Contemporary Art and Media. The following questions were posed by the art conservator Leah Balagopal, who worked on the items for her research."

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Interview with Monika Szuba, Minute Review 2.13, 2024. Here

"In January 2024, Dr. Monika Szuba of the University of Gdansk interviewed the poet, artist, and editor of Oo Press (Oo-press.com) Greg Thomas about the delights and challenges of running a micro-press for concrete and object-based poetry in Scotland. The interview will be quoted in Polish translation in Teatr – Literatura – Zarządzanie (2024) but is reproduced here in full."

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Lisa Kelly on BODY, London Grip, 2024. Here

"It is hard to unravel our feelings for objects that become poems. They are not dependent on the monetary worth of the object, which I would suggest is closer to aesthetic display for public consumption. It is more often deeply personal and reflects a value scheme where the poem-object digs into a deep emotional vein.....Like the best poetry, a poem-object can elicit an imaginative response, and an impression of warping time with a view to eternity."

 

CD Boyland on Candle Poems, Glasgow Review of Books, 2024. Here

"Fire, and the idea of burning illuminate the final tension inherent in Candle Poems, which is between unrepeatable (and, therefore, ‘lost’) moments in time and their preservation (or freezing) as images on the page."

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Vik Shirley on Candle Poems, Spamzine, 2024. Here

"Each of the candles is a little guide and light, and in trying to think about them or work them out, we are, kindly, tricked into a meditative process where we can escape from our busy minds....Interpreting these poems feels like writing poetry."

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Maddie Beaulieu on cloud cover and moiré. In Reading the Poem-Object: Intimacy and Collaboration in Julie Johnstone's Essence Press. Here

"The reader’s role as active collaborator and participant in the creation of poetic meaning-making of each poem-object reveals the expansive potentials of poetics and materiality in both the small press and experimental poetry communities."

 

Mike Ferguson on threshholds, Gravy from The Gazebo, 2023. Here

"The opening poems...form a brief trio about ‘boundaries’, and in addition to the gentle pulse of their nuances, it is interesting how so many of the poems to follow will subvert this theme by working up to and past the boundaries of their individual pages. And this is emblematic of how the poems enact and search within, outside and beyond the words/language of their roots."

 

Matthew Tomkinson on from im and not this, Periodicities, 2023. Here

"With every expansive word of from im and not this, I can sense the very lung capacity of language being expanded to its utmost potential. Though many of these poems can be inhaled in a single breath, they work like a blast of pure oxygen, allowing us to dive deeper than one might have thought possible at first glance."

 

James Davies on from im and not this and particulates, Blackbox Manifold, 2022. Here

"Published in 2021 and 2022, the Spam collection from im and not this and particulates 

from Timglaset Editions demonstrate Greg Thomas as an important voice in the world of poetry and in particular as a specialist in minimalist and concrete poetry....Thomas’s work not only asks us to use our imagination but is concerned with imagination itself."

 

Derek Beaulieu on particulates, "Most Engaging Books of 2022." Here

"Building on the minimalist poems of Aram Saroyan and N.H. Pritchard, Particulates does a tremendous amount with very, very little. Here evocative poetic moment like 'tpyrc' and 'dreampth' stand on creamy fields of open pages, typewriter-like typefaces explore how the grid can evoke musical scores, pages unfold to twice their regular size to allow for graphic banners of full-bleed repetitions suggesting infinite wonders."

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JP Seabright on from im and not this and particulates, Full House, 2022. Here

"The words and our reading of them appears to dissipate and form new meanings the longer we immerse ourselves in them. I found an almost meditative quality in this book, far beyond the normal act of reading."

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Mike Ferguson on particulates, Gravy from the Gazebo, 2022. Here

"[W]riting that delights in playful and meaningful exploration of individual words as well as phrases – and more. As Stephen Bann explains it in his back-cover blurb, ‘moves from spare one-word poems to expansive typographical structures’. I am frankly dazzled by both poles, so the ascent of limbs engages as much as the ash washed ashore."

 

Maria Sledmere on cloud cover, SPAM Plaza, 2021. Here

"A concrete poetry of process and reversal, Cloud Cover is a portable talisman, a miniature tab that opens into the wider text of The Cloud of Unknowing. And that cloud without definition that halos each reading, containing all, not to be entirely held, unknown. As I write this, the light glints; it starts to rain. What I want to say is obscured."

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