Publisher's Synopsis
Rockdrill is a series of unusual audio CDs commissioned by the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre at Birkbeck College, London, & produced by Colin Still and Birdie Hall of Optic Nerve.
The series includes the work by British and American poets, and combines new and archival recordings. Each CD is remarkable for the scope and range of material included, and the quality of production. This unique sound library is scheduled to grow in directions suggested by the initial list, which included Robert Creeley (two CDs), Lee Harwood, Tom Raworth (two CDs) and Jerome Rothenberg (two CDs).
'Sooner or later everything drifts downstream. Blocks of unattended masonry hurl themselves through the pre-shattered windows of Deptford recording studios: blood, literally, on the tracks. Forgotten routines move across the Thames; a walk on the north shore, in the early days of ruin, is remastered in one of those new minted quays. The skull at the entrance to the church is voiced: stone ventriloquism, a duet with Christopher Marlowe. If words don't come back to haunt us, we are gone.'