Michael Horovitz

{{Short description|English poet, artist, and translator (1935–2021)}}

{{About||those of a similar name|Michael Horowitz (disambiguation)}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Michael W. Horovitz

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|OBE|size=100%}}

| image =

| caption =

| birth_name = Michael Yechiel Ha-Levi Horovitz

| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1935|04|04}}

| birth_place = Frankfurt am Main, Nazi Germany

| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2021|7|7|1935|04|04}}

| death_place = London, England

| occupation = Poet;
Editor of New Departures; Artist

| spouse = {{marriage|Frances Horovitz|1964|1980|end=div}}

| children = Adam Horovitz

| notableworks = Children of Albion (editor)

}}

Michael W. Horovitz {{post-nominals|country=GBR|OBE}} (4 April 1935 – 7 July 2021) was a German-born British poet, editor, visual artist and translator who was a leading part of the Beat Poetry scene in the UK. In 1959, while still a student, he founded the "trail-blazing" literary periodical New Departures, publishing experimental poetry, including the work of William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and many other American and British beat poets.{{cite web|url=https://www.jazzwise.com/news/article/michael-horovitz-obe-04-04-1935-07-07-2021|title=Michael Horovitz OBE (04/04/1935 – 07/07/2021)|first=Jon|last=Newey|magazine=Jazzwise|date=8 July 2021}} Horovitz read his own work at the 1965 landmark International Poetry Incarnation, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, deemed to have spawned the British underground scene, when an audience of more than 6,000 came to hear readings by the likes of Ginsberg, Burroughs, Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/michael-horovitz-obituary-llthjj0ll|title=Michael Horovitz obituary|newspaper=The Times|date=10 July 2021}}

Characterised as an early champion of oral and jazz poetry,{{cite web|url=https://poetryolympics.com/torchbearer|title=Torchbearer {{!}} Introducing Michael Horovitz|date=25 October 2009|publisher=Poetry Olympics|access-date=10 July 2021}} Horovitz in the following decades organised many "Live New Departures" events featuring poetry and jazz performances by a range of writers and musicians, including Adrian Mitchell and Stan Tracey.{{cite news|url=https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/europe-news/michael-horovitz-obituary-poet-beats-8134652|title=Michael Horovitz obituary: A hero of British radical poetry|first=Simon|last= Warner|newspaper=The New European|date=10 July 2021| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210710163821/https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/europe-news/michael-horovitz-obituary-poet-beats-8134652| archive-date=10 July 2021}} Horovitz also devised the Poetry Olympics festival, held for the first time in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in 1980, with participants over the years including Linton Kwesi Johnson, John Cooper Clarke, Paul McCartney, Eliza Carthy and Damon Albarn.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/29/archive-1980-first-poetry-olympics-held-in-westminster-abbey|title=Archive, 1980: first Poetry Olympics held in Westminster Abbey|first=Mick|last=Brown|newspaper=The Guardian|date=29 September 2020}}

Life and career

Horovitz was born in 1935 in Frankfurt, then in Nazi Germany. He was the youngest of ten children who were brought to Britain in 1937 by their Jewish parents, Rosi (née Feist) and Dr Avraham Horovitz,{{cite news | last = Willis | first = Tim | title = Portrait of the beatnik as an old poet | url = http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23845044-portrait-of-the-beatnik-as-an-old-poet.do | access-date = 16 November 2010 | newspaper = Evening Standard | date = 15 June 2010 | url-status=dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100722124655/http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23845044-portrait-of-the-beatnik-as-an-old-poet.do | archive-date = 22 July 2010 }} both of whom were part of a network of European rabbinical families, and from London Dr Horovitz helped organise routes for other Jewish families to flee the Holocaust.

Michael Horovitz attended William Ellis School in north London, and went on to read English at Brasenose College, Oxford, from 1954 to 1960. In 1959, while still a student, he founded the periodical New Departures,John-Paul Pryor, [http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/21273/1/michael-horovitz-grandfather-of-albion "Michael Horovitz: Grandfather of Albion"], Dazed, March 2010. publishing authors such as William S. Burroughs, Samuel Beckett, and Stevie Smith. Horovitz continued to edit New Departures for 50 years. He coordinated many poetry events such as "Live New Departures", Jazz Poetry Super Jams and the Poetry Olympics festivals.{{cite web|url=https://realitystudio.org/bibliographic-bunker/new-departures/|title=New Departures|first=Jed |last=Birmingham|website=RealityStudio|date=12 December 2007|access-date=9 July 2021}} Though initially associated with the British Poetry Revival, Horovitz became known by his appearance at the International Poetry Incarnation at the Royal Albert Hall on 11 June 1965, alongside Allen Ginsberg and Alexander Trocchi.{{cite encyclopedia | editor1-last = Noel-Tod | editor1-first = Jeremy | editor2-last = Ian Hamilton |title =Horovitz, Michael (1935– )| entry-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=XZKcAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA274 | encyclopedia = The Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry in English | date = 2013 | isbn = 978-0-19-964025-6 | page = 274 }}

In 1969, Penguin Books published Horovitz's Children of Albion anthology. Introducing him to New York City in 1970, Ginsberg characterised him as a "Popular, experienced, experimental, New Jerusalem, Jazz Generation, Sensitive Bard".

In 1971, Horovitz published The Wolverhampton Wanderer, an epic of Britannia, in twelve books, with a resurrection & a life for poetry united, with an original dustjacket by Peter Blake. The book is a collection of British artists of the period, with illustrations and photographs by Peter Blake, Michael Tyzack, Adrian Henri, Patrick Hughes, Gabi Nasemann, Paul Kaplan, John Furnival, Bob Godfrey, Pete Morgan, Jeff Nuttall, David Hockney, as well as Horovitz and others. It is a visual and literary elegy to the culture surrounding association football up to the 1960s, celebrating not only Wolves and its supporters, but also Arsenal, Spurs, and teams from the North. Horovitz's Growing Up: Selected Poems and Pictures, 1951–79 was published by Allison & Busby in 1979.{{cn|date=August 2022}}

In 2007, Horovitz published A New Waste Land: Timeship Earth at Nillennium, described by D. J. Taylor in The Independent as "a deeply felt clarion-call from the radical underground", and by Tom Stoppard as "A true scrapbook and songbook of the grave new world".{{cite journal | last = Neale | first = Greg | title = In the Beginning Were the Words | url = https://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article4637-in-the-beginning-were-the-words.html | journal = Resurgence | date = May 2015 | access-date = 8 July 2021}}

Horovitz stood for election as Oxford Professor of Poetry in 2010 (supported by Tony Benn).{{cite news | last = Flood | first = Alison | title = Michael Horovitz looks to 'shake up' Oxford poetry professor race | url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/apr/29/michael-horovitz-oxford-poetry-professor | newspaper = The Guardian | date = 29 April 2010 | access-date = 8 July 2021}} Contributing to The Guardian, Horovitz wrote then:

I would most likely pitch some of my lectures around the legacies of my closest comrades in the broad continuum of poetry, from David and Solomon to James Joyce, Sappho to Bessie Smith, Beowulf to Lead Belly, medieval troubadours to the beat generation, Keats to Bob Dylan and Blake to Beckett.

In the same article he emphasised the connections between art media, stage and page poetry, and his wish to extend "communal paths my bardmobile has struck over the last five decades."{{cite news | last = Horovitz | first = Michael | title = Out of the poetic mire | newspaper = The Guardian | date = 28 May 2010 | url = http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/may/28/artsandhumanities-arts-policy | access-date = 9 July 2021 }} In the event. Horovitz came second, in a field of 11, to Geoffrey Hill.{{cite news | last = Flood | first = Alison | title = 'A poet of great eminence': Geoffrey Hill's landslide victory restores prestige to Oxford professorship | url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jun/18/geoffrey-hill-oxford-professor-poetry | newspaper = The Guardian | date = 18 June 2010 | access-date = 8 July 2021}}

In January 2011, Horovitz contributed to an eBook collection of political poems entitled Emergency Verse – Poetry in Defence of the Welfare State, edited by Alan Morrison. An eccentric and colourful part of the UK poetry scene,{{Cite web |title=Michael Horovitz OBE (04/04/1935 – 07/07/2021) |url=https://www.jazzwise.com/news/article/michael-horovitz-obe-04-04-1935-07-07-2021 |access-date=2024-03-29 |website=Jazzwise |language=en}} Horovitz fronted the William Blake Klezmatrix (one his heroes being the 19th-century poet and painter William Blake),{{cite news |last=Warner |first=Simon |date=10 July 2021 |title=Michael Horovitz obituary: A hero of British radical poetry |url=https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/europe-news/michael-horovitz-obituary-poet-beats-8134652 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210710163821/https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/europe-news/michael-horovitz-obituary-poet-beats-8134652 |archive-date=10 July 2021 |newspaper=The New European}} featuring trombonist Annie Whitehead, pianist Peter Lemer, and often, in later years, his companion, poet and singer Vanessa Vie,{{Cite web |title=Michael Horovitz OBE (04/04/1935 – 07/07/2021) |url=https://www.jazzwise.com/news/article/michael-horovitz-obe-04-04-1935-07-07-2021 |access-date=2024-03-29 |website=Jazzwise |language=en}} where he played his "anglo-saxophone", an updated and extended eunuch flute of his own devising. To celebrate Horovitz's 80th birthday, a limited-edition album was produced of a 2013 recording of his poem sequence "Bankbusted Nuclear Detergent Blues", on which he is accompanied by Paul Weller, Graham Coxon and Damon Albarn.[http://www.herbiemartinmusic.de/_p/prd14/4574641781/product/michael-horovitz---12%22-lp-(limited-edition) "Michael Horovitz 12" LP (Limited Edition)"], 2016.

Personal life and death

Horovitz was married to the English poet Frances Horovitz (1938–1983), their son Adam Horovitz (born 1971) is also a poet, performer and journalist.{{cite web | last=Stevenson | first=Anne | title=Frances Horovitz | website=Poetry Magazines | date=6 July 2016 | url=http://poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/recordcc5a.html?id=29862 | access-date=9 July 2021}}

Michael Horovitz's home was in Notting Hill, London.[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-10899768 "British beat poet Michael Horovitz still writing and performing"], BBC News, 6 August 2010.[http://ypn.poetrysociety.org.uk/features/poetry-happenings-with-michael-horovitz/ "Poetry Happenings with Michael Horovitz"], The Poetry Society, Young Poets Network, 2012. In his later years, it became a notoriously chaotic repository of his personal papers and archives. "Indoor skip it may seem to you, but compared to Francis Bacon's studio, my pad here is Versailles", he said in a 2010 Evening Standard interview. Horovitz was a loyal supporter of Arsenal Football Club.

Horovitz met the British-Spanish artist Vanessa Vie in 2012 with whom he sustained a personal and creative partnership until his death.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/11/michael-horovitz-obituary|title=Michael Horovitz obituary|first=Douglas|last=Field|date=11 July 2021|newspaper=The Guardian}}

Horovitz died at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, on 7 July 2021, at the age of 86.{{cite web|url=https://poetrysociety.org.uk/news/michael-horovitzs-final-new-departure/|title=Michael Horovitz's final New Departure|publisher=The Poetry Society|date=8 July 2021}}{{cite news|title=Michael Horovitz, performance poet in the 1960s Beat tradition renowned for his quirky musical improvisations – obituary|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2021/07/08/michael-horovitz-performance-poet-1960s-beat-tradition-renowned/|work=The Telegraph|date=8 July 2021}} {{subscription required}} He was also recognised for his artwork and at the time of his death a two-week exhibition of his "Bop Art paintings, collages and picture poems" was opening at the Chelsea Arts Club (6–25 July).{{cite web|url=https://chelseaartsclub.com/exhibitions/|title=Exhibitions|publisher=Chelsea Arts Club|access-date=8 July 2021}}

Michael Horovitz is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery {{Cite web |title=Funeral Service: Michael Horovitz (1935-2021) - James Hughes-Onslow |url=https://www.theoldie.co.uk/article/funeral-service-michael-horovitz-1935-2021-james-hughes-onslow |access-date=2024-03-29 |website=The Oldie |language=en-gb}} next to Harold Pinter, Eric Fried, Anthony Trollope, Wilkie Collins, William Makepeace Thackeray, Alice Maynell, in among other renowned contributors to the world of literature, and the arts.

Publications

=Books=

Declaration (1963){{cn|date=August 2022}}
Strangers (with Maria Simon; 1965) Barry Cole: [https://www.jstor.org/stable/44330431 Review: Of Relative Importance] Ambit Magazine 1966
Nude Lines for Larking in Present Night Soho (Goliard Press, 1965){{cn|date=August 2022}}
High Notes from when I Was Rolling in Moss (Latimer Press, 1966){{cn|date=August 2022}}
Poetry for the People (Latimer Press, 1966)Sicher, Efraim: [https://books.google.com/books?id=L5sbPgQ86CIC&pg=PA217 Michael Horovitz (born 1935)] in Beyond Marginality: Anglo-Jewish Literature After the Holocaust, Suny Press, 2012, pp. 217–218
Bank Holiday: a New Testament for the Love Generation (Latimer Press, 1967)
Love Poems: Nineteen Poems of Love, Lust and Spirit (New Departures, 1971)
The Wolverhampton Wanderer (Latimer, 1971; {{ISBN|978-0-901539-14-4}}){{cn|date=August 2022}}
Growing Up: Selected Poems & Pictures 1951–79 (Allison and Busby, 1979){{cn|date=August 2022}}
Midsummer Morning Jog Log (with Peter Blake; Five Seasons Press, 1986, {{ISBN|978-0-9504606-8-0}}){{cn|date=August 2022}}
Wordsounds and Sightlines: New and Selected Poems (New Departures, 1994, {{ISBN|978-0-902689-20-6}}){{cn|date=August 2022}}
A New Waste Land: Timeship Earth at Nillennium (New Departures, 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-902689-18-3}})

=As editor=

Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain, New Departures 1-24 (Penguin Books, 1969, {{ISBN|978-0-14-042116-3}}){{cn|date=August 2022}}

A Celebration of & for Frances Horovitz (1938–1983) (New Departures, 1984, {{ISBN|978-0-902689-12-1}})
The POW! (Poetry Olympics Weekend) Anthology {{ISBN|978-0-902689-17-6}}
The POP! (Poetry Olympics Party) Anthology {{ISBN|978-0-902689-19-0}}
The POM! (Poetry Olympics Marathon) Anthology (New Departures, 2001, {{ISBN|978-0-902689-21-3}})
The POT! (Poetry Olympics Twenty05) Anthology (New Departures, 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-902689-25-1}})
Jeff Nuttall's Wake on Paper: A Keepsake Anthology of the Life, Work and Play of a Polymath Extraordinaire {{ISBN|978-0-902689-22-0}}
Grandchildren of Albion: An Illustrated Anthology of Voices and Visions of Younger Poets in Britain (New Departures, 1992, {{ISBN|978-0-902689-14-5}})
Open Windows, Open Doors: Poems, Pictures, and Reflections by Vanessa Vie (New Departures 2020), {{Cite news |last=Field |first=Douglas |date=2021-07-11 |title=Michael Horovitz obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/11/michael-horovitz-obituary |access-date=2024-03-29 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}} ISBN 978-0-902689-27-5

=As translator=

Europa by Anatol Stern (with Stefan Themerson){{cite web | title=Anatol Stern. Europa | website=themersonarchive.com | url=http://www.themersonarchive.com/book8.htm | access-date=13 July 2021}}
The Egghead Republic by Arno Schmidt ({{ISBN|978-0-714525-91-4}}){{cite journal |last1=Parrinder |first1=Patrick |title=Review of 'The egghead republic: a short novel from the Horse Latitudes' by Arno Schmidt, Michael Horovitz |journal=Journal of Beckett Studies |date=1982 |issue=7 |pages=151–153 |jstor=44782697 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44782697 |access-date=11 July 2021 |issn=0309-5207}}

=On art=

Alan Davie (1963){{cite web | title=Horovitz, Michael | website=Encyclopedia.com | date=20 June 2021 | url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/horovitz-michael | access-date=13 July 2021}}
Michael Horovitz Goes Visual
Michael Horovitz: Bop Paintings, Collages & Picture-Poems

References

External links

{{Discogs artist}}
[http://www.poetryolympics.com/ Poetry Olympics official website]
[http://www.thegeneralist.co.uk/audio/mike.horowitz1.2007-11-16.mp3 John May interviews Horovitz: part 1] (audio). TheGeneralist.co.uk
[http://www.thegeneralist.co.uk/audio/mike.horowitz2.2007-11-16.mp3 John May interviews Horovitz: part 2] (audio). TheGeneralist.co.uk
[https://archive.today/20130222024007/http://www.london-student.net/play/literature/a-late-beat-flowering-interview-with-michael-horovitz/ "A Late Beat Flowering: Interview with Michael Horovitz"] in the London Student, 2012
John-Paul Pryor: [http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/21273/1/michael-horovitz-grandfather-of-albion "Michael Horovitz: Grandfather of Albion"], Dazed, March 2010
{{YouTube|WrGSBJcdnmI|Lines Against This Realpolitik Nillennium Zeitgeist by Michael Horovitz (2020)}}
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