Selected readings:
Support for OPEN BOOK:
Claire Beynon already has standing both as a poet and as a visual artist working in a variety of media. But she is rare in being one of the few able to bring their own words and images together in a striking and memorable way. If there is one word I would use for her work, it is 'innovation' and her new book has that in spades.
Philip Temple
Here is a project that is adventurous in both conception and execution: the absence of pagination suggests one continuous page that will enchant the audience. In Claire Beynon’s OPEN BOOK the artifice of wit is set alongside (not against) the unsteady pressure of the personal. Here words are historical burs that, like the rough edges of lines made by an engraving tool, catch the world and turn it around. They enlarge our sense of what's possible. As she observes of earth and air: ‘Theirs is a relationship refined by this curiously lyrical insistence.'
David Howard
This is poetry that is assured, confident and rich in imagery. It is poetry with a sense of both what is present, on the surface of things, and of what is imagined in undercurrents and layers. Claire’s writing has a lyrical, musical and sensory quality. She has an enviable ability to vividly recall and evoke place and sensations...
Kay McKenzie Cooke
Poems to carve on the palm.
Penelope Todd
Claire Beynon already has standing both as a poet and as a visual artist working in a variety of media. But she is rare in being one of the few able to bring their own words and images together in a striking and memorable way. If there is one word I would use for her work, it is 'innovation' and her new book has that in spades.
Philip Temple
Here is a project that is adventurous in both conception and execution: the absence of pagination suggests one continuous page that will enchant the audience. In Claire Beynon’s OPEN BOOK the artifice of wit is set alongside (not against) the unsteady pressure of the personal. Here words are historical burs that, like the rough edges of lines made by an engraving tool, catch the world and turn it around. They enlarge our sense of what's possible. As she observes of earth and air: ‘Theirs is a relationship refined by this curiously lyrical insistence.'
David Howard
This is poetry that is assured, confident and rich in imagery. It is poetry with a sense of both what is present, on the surface of things, and of what is imagined in undercurrents and layers. Claire’s writing has a lyrical, musical and sensory quality. She has an enviable ability to vividly recall and evoke place and sensations...
Kay McKenzie Cooke
Poems to carve on the palm.
Penelope Todd
A wall-mounted installation of the original pages for OPEN BOOK was a finalist in the 2005 National WALLACE ART AWARDS and winner of the Peoples' Choice Award.
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