This is the second in a series of blogs outlining my research on Jeff Nuttall with a particular (but not exclusive) focus on his archive at the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester. By no means definitive, there are some gaps and unanswered questions about his activities so I welcome any comments or additional information that might help to build a more complete story. Although this is not an academic text there’s a full list of resources at the end alongside a working catalogue of Nuttall publications and of periodicals in which he appeared. Again, any help in adding to the lists would be much appreciated. You can contact me by commenting at the end of the blog or via email (bruce.wilkinson@manchester.ac.uk).
We left Jeff Nuttall at the end of the first blog dramatically burning all his previous artworks and vowing that he would: ‘stop producing art that dulls the sensibilities’. According to Nuttall’s book Bomb Culture (1968) he’d created ‘a hundred or so big paintings, seven novels and a number of sculptures’ which had all been rejected by art and literary institutions. Nuttall saw the way forward as bypassing mainstream galleries and publishers to produce and disseminate his own work to a wider audience without the refracting lens of commercialism, freeing his art from the boundaries of conventional taste and censorship. He continued to work with the group of artists who had connected through Peter Currell Brown’s July 1962 letter in Peace News who were collaborating on an interactive installation they hoped to construct in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields church in central London.
Nuttall’s next few years would be remarkably productive across several different artistic fields but it is difficult to separate these activities from the influence of the Scottish author Alexander Trocchi and the Situationists. Spending the early 1950s in Paris where he wrote pornography under the pseudonym Frances Lengel, Trocchi edited Merlin literary magazine (which broadened the recognition of Samuel Beckett), joined the Letterists and then the Situationists and developed a heroin addiction which he enthusiastically maintained for the rest of his life. His 1954 novel Young Adam was hailed as innovative by Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs with an amoral lead character and a narrative which plays with time and space. Trocchi migrated to the US later that decade where he became involved with the Beat scene. His second novel Cain’s Book featured explicit renderings of sex and addiction and although well-received in America it was banned in some parts of Britain and sparked an obscenity trial for publisher John Calder. Charged with supplying drugs to a minor, Trocchi escaped punishment by the US authorities, smuggled across the border into Canada by friends and then returning to Britain where he settled in London.
A reaction to the avant-garde movements of Surrealism and Dada, Lettrisme was initially a text-based concept developed in 1940s Paris by the Hungarian Isidore Isou. Its ideas grew to encompass all art forms including ‘actions’ such as the invasion of a televised Easter Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral during which the group declared that ‘god is dead’. Guy Debord joined in the early 1950s but quickly split becoming the Letterist International. At a 1957 conference an alliance of European groups formed the Situationist International which combined radical art theories with anti-authoritarian Marxism (some describe as anarcho-syndicalist). Debord saw late-twentieth century consumerism as destroying people’s ability to truly experience life and set about creating texts, actions and moments in order to shock the individual awake to the dangers of capitalism. Although Situationism was constructed with intellectual rigour it also contained elements of subversive playfulness, a Dadaist tone not without humour which made it particularly attractive to those seeking a new revolutionary post-socialist idealism after the Soviets crushed the Prague and Budapest uprisings.
Although influential, Situationism remained relatively obscure until its ideas brought together student activists and trade unionists almost bringing down the French government in May 1968. The Angry Brigade, a British group formed in reaction to the Paris events bombed the Spanish Embassy in London and attempted to blow up the Post Office Tower. At their trial the prosecution focused on the accused’s Situationist leanings which along with publications like Heatwave and the activities of the King Mob group gave Situationism caché within the British counterculture. Those ideas were later used and popularised by Malcolm McLaren’s promotion of the New York Dolls and Sex Pistols; through Tony Wilson’s management of Factory Records and in the provocative actions of the KLF’s Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, bringing Situationism to the attention of the mainstream media.
As a didactic art tutor Nuttall may have been aware of the Situationists in the late-1950s or learnt about them through Gustav Metzger and the other radical artists and authors he met campaigning for nuclear disarmament or perhaps via Resistance, the magazine connected with the Committee of 100 which contained traces of Situationist theory. The other possibility is that his knowledge came entirely via Trocchi who retained his membership of the Situationist International until, like most other participants, he was eventually expelled by Debord for anti-revolutionary misdemeanours. It appears that Nuttall didn’t see Trocchi’s ‘A Revolutionary Proposal: Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds’ when it was initially published in New Saltire Review in 1962 or as ‘Technique du coupe du Monde’ within Internationale Situationniste issue 8 in January 1963 (later appearing in Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Journal number 2). We know this because in Bomb Culture he recalls receiving (seemingly for the first time) the English language version of the ‘Manifesto Situationiste’ through the post in early summer 1964 as part of a package from Trocchi who had started mailing out details of what he called ‘Project Sigma’:
…with the world at the edge of extinction,…the cultural revolution must seize the grids of expression and the powerhouses of the mind. Intelligence must become self-conscious, release its own power [and] dare to exercise it. History will not overthrow governments; it will outflank them. The cultural revolt is the necessary underpinning, the passionate substructure of a new order of things…
Nuttall replied by return of post, asking: ‘What do you want me to do?’ It was the spark that he was searching for and which would ignite a frenzy of global networking. Some 1960s commentators (e.g. Barry Miles) are dismissive both of Trocchi and Sigma claiming that it was merely a distraction from the fact that Trocchi’s drug intake meant that he was no longer able to write. Although Sigma did fail to ignite a cultural revolution, it sparked several disparate elements of the 1960s British underground to network, the Sigma Portfolios (some printed by Nuttall) bringing together key individuals many of whom had operated in isolation since the latter part of the previous decade.
Nuttall created sculptures or assemblages, disturbingly lifelike often sexualised effigies made from a variety of materials including lingerie and even human skin and hair. These were sometimes left in public spaces contained within suitcases, found to the shock of unsuspecting passers-by – one turning-up in a left luggage locker at a London train station while others were used as part of Group H exhibitions. Alongside the provocation of this unsettling art Nuttall intended humour both via the aesthetics of his constructions but also through the ‘performance’ that the reaction of the finders would create. The employment of innocent members of the public as an element within the art meant that the human response to his work effectively replaced the conventional canvas.
Although ‘happening’ quickly became a clichéd term for a gathering of beatniks or hippies, it was originally coined by the artist Allan Kaprow to convey the transformative power of an often improvised artistic action or moment. In 1963 the American Jim Haynes set up the experimental Traverse Theatre in the Scottish capital which encouraged freeform performance and in August he co-organised the Edinburgh International Drama Conference which featured debates about and the performance of happenings. The concept caused a schism between the traditional theatre world and the more radical, with The Scotsman journalist Magnus Magnusson describing the divisions it caused as a positive process of artistic renewal. Nuttall was in attendance and, inspired by what he’d seen alongside the influence of New York’s Living Theatre and theorist Antonin Artaud, he quickly engaged with the process and put on happenings at Better Books just off Charing Cross Road. In December 1964 Ken Dewey and Charles Marowitz, two of the originators of the concept gave a talk about it while Nuttall, Heather Richardson, Bruce Lacey and Keith Musgrove staged a ‘happening about happenings’ in the shop.
Although Nuttall had been in Salzburg at the time it may well be that he read reports of the Edinburgh Writers’ Conference in 1962 at which Trocchi made quite a stir, arguing with the Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid who denounced Trocchi as ‘cosmopolitan scum’ and who was called ‘a fossil’ in return. More importantly Burroughs attended the event (staying in the same digs as Trocchi) where he explained the cut-up technique to a large audience of over 2,500 writers. Beyond the process Burroughs also expounded on his belief that cut-ups create a passage beyond the temporal and that his experiments had in fact downed a passenger jet. When combined with the paganism Nuttall saw through his renewed pantheistic vision, the occultism of cut-ups would have a profound impact on his creativity, offering him new channels through which to explore his metier.
At that point in the early 1960s there was a huge explosion of little magazines spurred by the desire to distribute innovative poetic forms largely ignored by a conservative British literary media and aided by newly available and relatively cheap printing technology. We know from correspondence in his archive at the John Rylands Library that Nuttall had connected with key experimental poets and publishers within the British Poetry Revival which included Cavan McCarthy, dom sylvester houédard, Dave Cunliffe, Lee Harwood, Jim Burns and Michael Horowitz whose New Departures had been running since 1959. The little magazine scene had quickly developed a network distributing publications particularly via readings in the pubs and clubs of Industrial England and Scotland. Importantly these connections also stretched across the Atlantic, engaging a cross-fertilisation of literary experimentalism and radical ideals that would help ferment the US and British countercultures.
Nuttall continued to work with the Writers Forum press contributing verse, illustrations and cover designs to several early editions. Teaching with Bob Cobbing at Alder Secondary Modern they had free access to a duplicator and ran-off WF publications in their lunch hour or after school. The vicar at St Martin-in-the-Fields turned down the installation planned for the crypt as ‘unsuitable’ for his church. During the delay in finding an alternative venue Nuttall sought new ways in which the group might express its ideas and the free publishing offered by the school gave it a new outlet (described here in Bomb Culture):
I turned out My Own Mag: a Super-Absorbant Periodical [sic] in November 1963, as an example of the sort of thing we might do. My intention was to make a paper exhibition in words, pages, spaces, holes, edges, and images which drew people in and forced a violent involvement with the unalterable facts. The message was: if you want to exist you must accept the flesh and the moment. Here they are. The magazine…used nausea and flagrant scatology as a violent means of presentation. I wanted to make the fundamental condition of living unavoidable by nausea.
Nuttall again stresses the importance that maintaining his independence offered; removing the need to worry about editorial censorship or sales gave him the freedom to take the journal in whichever direction he liked:
I circulated the first mag to twenty or so people who I thought might be interested. Better Books took the rest and sold them at a penny each. I determined then, and kept to it, that I would run the project as I had painted and played jazz, within the capacity of my earnings as a teacher, utterly independently, ultimately printing, editing, assembling, drawing, writing largely, and distributing the thing myself, always at a deliberate loss so as not to form a dependence of the smallest kind.
This is important because in interviews I conducted with poets and small press publishers several stressed the same point. They often worked other jobs not necessarily because they had to (although many did) but primarily in order that they weren’t reliant on turning a profit from their verse or journals. This freed them to experiment with their poetry or in selecting material for their magazines. For the same reason many did not apply for funding or Arts Council grants in order that they could maintain total artistic independence and control.
Although its mix of art, prose and verse was different to many of the small press publications then sprouting-up around the UK (which primarily focused on poetry) Nuttall used its network to distribute My Own Mag sending the first issue to the key figures of Finnish poet Anselm Hollo and the journalist/activist Ray Gosling. A simple and rather brief affair, issue 1 featured suggestive ink drawings and cartoons by Nuttall alongside verse by Keith Musgrove. There are some photographs of My Own Mag covers accompanying this blog and you can see good quality scans of each page of every issue alongside bibliographic research and related essays at the excellent Reality Studio website via the link below:
A copy of the first issue was also sent to Burroughs, at that point living in Tangiers where he continued to work with cut-ups, a method that he had picked-up from Brion Gysin. Burroughs created many experiments using the technique but found it difficult to locate a publisher able to put them out due to cut-ups’ unusual page layout and the sheer volume of the material he was producing so the arrival of Nuttall’s publication was nicely timed. In fact at that point the little magazines were often Burroughs’ only means of distributing his writing (Tina Morris and Dave Cunliffe’s Poetmeat (issue 2, undated but probably published June/July 1963) and New Departures both featuring extracts from Naked Lunch) and the American now saw an outlet for his cut-ups.
Still only four pages long, December’s second MOM, ‘an odour fill periodical’, featured the first of what would be a series of cut-ups by Burroughs alongside verse by Anselm Hollo and more Nuttall drawings and cartoons. Although Burroughs’ work doesn’t appear in every issue, it is at its heart, his experiments radiating outwards encouraging other contributors (including Nuttall) to engage with the technique. There’s something subversive and a little disturbing about what’s seeping from its pages, Nuttall’s drawings and his use of found objects, stains, cuts and burns reflecting the occultism which drove Gysin and Burroughs towards the cut-up/fold-in praxis. By issue 4 it has stickered, cut and burnt pages and a complex four column Burroughs cut-up which developed into a sub-paper entitled ‘Moving Times’. One of Trocchi’s ideas was to paste-up pages of Moving Times on the walls of Tube stations and Nuttall’s archive contains correspondence from Beba Lavrin outlining London Transport’s reaction to the concept.
In January 1964 Burroughs travelled to London to record an interview for a TV documentary and he met Nuttall in a pub for a few drinks and then visited a local café for a fry-up. Although very different people from alien backgrounds the pair got along, Burroughs seeing My Own Mag as a pragmatic choice of outlet for his writing. There’s some detailed descriptions of the Burroughs My Own Mag cut-ups in one of my previous blogs viewable here:
In interviews I conducted with Cunliffe I was told that he and Morris had been offered some of Burroughs’ cut-ups to publish within Poetmeat due to the sheer volume Nuttall was receiving but which they’d turned down for lack of space. Tina has no recollection of this and denied that she would have refused them as they would have undoubtedly boosted sales. However correspondence in the Nuttall archive does confirm that they were offered ‘William Burroughs Time/Space experiments’ and that Cunliffe did refuse but asked for Burroughs’ address in order to collaborate on other projects. Interestingly this is the only letter in the archive which Morris didn’t countersign so perhaps she was never told about the proposal.
The intriguing question is whether Nuttall offered the cut-ups to other small presses and, if he did, to whom and with what result? Several little magazines including Residu edited by Daniel Richter and Edinburgh University’s Cleft feature Burroughs cut-ups from that period. There is correspondence between Nuttall and Richter in the John Rylands Library archive and, although the letters don’t make it entirely clear, it is worth noting that Residu features work by Burroughs, Nuttall and Trocchi so this seems strong evidence that the Residu cut-ups came via Nuttall.
There was some disagreement about how many issues of MOM were published and in what order, Ray Gosling and author/rare book dealer Iain Sinclair both attempting to catalogue the sequence. This was finally resolved by the collector Jed Birmingham who used the storyline of Nuttall’s Perfume Jack cartoon, the narrative of which runs through the issues assisting with its chronology. Although it probably seems unusual not to number or date a periodical, within the little magazine scene it was common on the basis that issues would quickly be seen as out of date if given a month of publication on the cover. Having spent many hours cataloguing the BB Books press publications, I can testify as to how frustrating this is from an archival perspective. However, scan through the hundreds of journals within the bibliographic listings of British Poetry Magazines 1914-2000 (2006) and you quickly become aware of many quirky numbering systems and how publication dates were often not printed on volumes.
The Nuttall Papers at John Rylands contain a good deal of the original material used in MOM with related correspondence and it also holds work submitted but not featured in the publication. It includes unused verse, prose and art by Douglas Blazek, Burroughs, John Latham, Charles Marowitz, Claude Pélieu, Mary Beach, Charles Plymell and Karl Weissner from the US, Europe and around the UK illustrating the growing size of Nuttall’s artistic network. Although its circulation was tiny within those numbers it reached many of the most influential figures of the burgeoning counterculture who then amplified its message far beyond the publication’s initial reach. Nuttall also used the magazine to spread ideas, encouraging others to become involved by re-printing Currell-Brown’s letter asking for more collaborators and advertising the Sigma Portfolio – boosting important contacts in the days long before the internet and when most Britons didn’t even have a telephone or TV.
At the behest of Trocchi, Nuttall organised a meeting in July 1964 to facilitate work on Sigma, archive correspondence confirming that he contacted a range of possible venues which included a large pottery studio in Hertfordshire. Braziers Park, a country house still operating as an Intentional Community in rural Oxfordshire (which now hosts the Supernormal Festival) founded by Marianne Faithfull’s mother Baroness Erisso, Eva von Sacher-Masoch, eventually became the venue on the 2nd-5th July. The event had ‘disaster’ written all over it from the moment Nuttall sent out invites to a mixture of experimental artists and members of R D Laing’s anti-psychiatry group who would shortly become the Philadelphia Association. Half the attendees were using powerful drugs while others drank heavily in order to cope with the creeping madness of the situation. Things came to a head when John Latham carried out one of his SKOOB experiments destroying a priceless 400 year old book. Latham also shot Super 8 film of the weekend, clips from which you can view here:
The Alexander Trocchi archive at Washington University, St Louis, has a page of Tactical Notes for the meeting along with a great deal of Sigma material and correspondence with Nuttall.
In a letter dated 13th October 1964 in the Eric Mottram Archive at King’s College London, Nuttall talks about leaving London for Norwich. He was already tiring of the pace of life in the capital which probably shouldn’t be a surprise considering how he combined numerous artistic endeavours with a full-time teaching position and raising a young family. Perhaps this is the first sign that he was already becoming disillusioned with the counterculture and was tired of organising a network of artists.
In collaboration with the artists Nuttall had connected with via Peter Currell-Brown’s Peace News letter they each designed their own sections of the interactive installation they had planned for the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields church. After much delay an application to display it at the Whitechapel Gallery was completely ignored. A fire in the basement of Better Books (by now managed by Cobbing) opened up a new space which would eventually become the venue for the sTigma installation and which I’ll explore in the next blog.
In an interview conducted by Richard ‘Dick’ Wilcocks with Priscilla Beecham shortly before her death (a copy held in the John Rylands archive) she had seen Nuttall at several CND marches but she first met him properly at the Peanuts Club, a poetry and music venue based in the Kings Arms in Bishopsgate which Wilcocks helped to organise. Although she was then Wilcocks’ girlfriend, Beecham quickly became both Nuttall’s lover and his artistic collaborator and, as we shall see, she would have a major influence on both his art and life in the coming years.
Special Thanks to:
Angela Bartie, Doug Field, Jay Jeff Jones, Janette Martin, Jim Pennington, Jess Smith, Gillian Whiteley, Richard Wilcocks.
Sources/Resources
Jeff Nuttall Papers held at the John Rylands Library Special Collections
Dave Cunliffe Archive held at the John Rylands Library Special Collections
Eric Mottram Archive at King’s College London
Alexander Trocchi Archive at Washington University, St Louis, USA
Reality Studios website
Jeff-nuttall.co.uk which contains much of Gillian Whiteley’s brilliant research for a Mid-Pennine Arts Jeff Nuttall retrospective exhibition
GREEN, J., 1998. All Dressed Up – The Sixties and the Counterculture. London: Pimlico
GREEN, J., 1988. Days in the Life: Voices from the English Underground 1961-1971. London: Random House
HOME, S., 1991. The Assault on Culture: Utopian Currents from Lettrisme to Class War. Stirling: AK Press
HOME, S., 1996. What is Situationism? A Reader. Stirling: AK Press
KESHVANI, R., 2019. Better Books/ Better Bookz: Art, Anarchy, Apostasy – Counter-Culture and the New Avant-Garde. London: Koenig Books
MAYER, P., (ED). 2004. Bob Cobbing & Writers Forum. London: Writers Forum
MILES, B., 2014. William S Burroughs: A Life. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson
MILLER, D., & PRICE, R., 2006. British Poetry Magazines 1914-2000. London: The British Library and Oak Knoll Press
NUTTALL, J., 1968. Bomb Culture. London: MacGibbon & Kee
NUTTALL, J., 2019. Bomb Culture. London: Strange Attractor Press
RADCLIFFE, C., 2018. Don’t Start Me Talkin’: Subculture, Situationism and the Sixties. London: Bread & Circuses Publishing
WHITELEY, G., 2011. Sewing the ‘subversive thread of imagination’: Jeff Nuttall, Bomb Culture and the radical potential of effect. The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture. Vol 4 (2). P.109-133.
Jeff Nuttall Publications List
1949 or 1950 Poetry appears in issue 22 of Dock Leaves
1963: The Limbless Virtuoso with Keith Musgrave – Writers Forum Poets 1
1963: The Massacre of the Innocents – Poems by Bob Cobbing & John Rowan – Cover design by JN – WFP 2
1963: Tombstones – Poems by Derek Roberts & Michael McGrinder WFP3 – JN cover design
1963: We Just Wanted to Tell You -Poems David Ball & Anselm Hollo JN cov design
1963: The Change – By Allen Ginsberg, WFP5 JN cover design
1963: My Own Mag: Issue 1 – November 1963
1963: My Own Mag: 2 – December 1963
1964: The Human Dress – Poems by Lois Hieger – JN cover design
1964: Rock Pot: JN edits poetry from Class 4C Alder Secondary Modern in Barnet
1964: Barnet Poets – Barnet schools anthology JN cover design (Arts Tog) WFP10
1964: My Own Mag: 3 – February 1964
1964: My Own Mag: 4 – March 1964
1964: My Own Mag: 5 – May 1964
1964: My Own Mag: 6 – July 1964
1964: My Own Mag: 7 – July 1964
1964: My Own Mag: 8 – August 1964
1964: My Own Mag: 9 – November 1964
1964: My Own Mag: 10 – December 1964
1965: My Own Mag: 11 – February 1965
1965: My Own Mag: 12 – May 1965
1965: Poems I Want to Forget published by Turret Books
1965: The Cage – photomontage album includes work by JN, Evelyn Reifen, Vassos Demetriou, Don Priston, Tomazos, Trace, R Wilcocks
1965: My Own Mag: 13 – August 1965
1965: Son of Rock Pot More poetry from Class 4C edited by JN
1965: The Ten Plagues by John Rowan illustrated & design by JN – WFP 12
1965: The Selected Works of Alfred Jarry Methuen JN illustrations
1965: My Own Mag: 14 – December 1965
1966: My Own Mag: 15 – April 1966
1966: Pieces of Poetry – published by WF as WFP 17
1966: Group H – Publication accompanying Group H exhibition at Drian Galleries edited by Cobbing – JN & 16 GH members prepared a page each
1966: My Own Mag: 16 – May 1966
1966: Come Back Sweet Prince: A Novelette WFP 21
1966: My Own Mag: 17 – September 1966
1966: Approches – L’erotisme dans la Poesie Materielle (French anthology of erotic poetry with drawings)
1967: Turret Poets Read – Booklet accompanying a reading by Turret poets including JN, Christopher Logue, Edward Lucie-Smith etc.
1967: Swift Scripts, Notes and After Effects – Claude Pelieu – JN cover des WFP22
1967: The Case of Isabel and the Bleeding Foetus published by Turret Books
1967: Songs Sacred and Secular – self published? – no date included
1968: Oscar Christ and the Immaculate Conception – WFP23
1968: Pamphlet One – Writers Forum Pamphlets no1 – JN et al
1968: Mr Watkins Got Drunk and Had to be Carried Home: WFP24
1968: All Gods Must Learn to Kill: Published by Analecta Press, Edited by Douglas Blazek includes JN, Robert Crumb, d a levy etc.
1968: Journals published by Unicorn
1968: Snow – Anthology pub by X Press editor Paul Buck includes JN, Harold Norse, Brian Patten, Penelope Shuttle etc.
1968: Bomb Culture published by MacGibbon & Kee
1968: The Eighteen-Fifteen Murders by JN et al (Date unsure) pub by The Wild Pigeon Press Norwich (in Eric Mottram archive)
1969: Penguin Modern Poets 12: JN with Alan Jackson and William Wantling
1969: And Five – WF anthology edited by Cobbing & Rowan includes JN
1969: Love Poems anthology includes JN pub by Restiff Press
1969: Counter Culture – Anthology Ed by Joseph Berke pub by Peter Owen
1969: Pig published by Fulcrum
1969: George: Son of My Own Mag – Issue 1 November 1969
1969: George: Son of My Own Mag – 2 December 1969
1970: George: Son of My Own Mag – 3 January 1970
1970: George: Son of My Own Mag – 4 Easter 1970
1970: George: Son of My Own Mag – 5 Easter 1970
1970: George: Son of My Own Mag – 6 ? 1970
1970: George: Son of My Own Mag – 7 September 1970
1970: Poems 1962-1969 published by Fulcrum
1970: Then She Bore Pale Desire – ‘From a manuscript fragment by William Blake; illustrated by JN’ pub by Kavanagh (or poss Eothen Books) Brighton (Held Uni of Liverpool Library)
1970: Environmental Forum ed by Criton Tomazos etc includes JN contribution.
1970: For Bill Butler – Anthology in support of Butler tried for obscenity published by Wallrich Books including JN, Roger McGough, Tom Raworth etc.
1970: Inside the Whale by Eric Mottram – illustrations & cover design by JN WFQ7
1970: Anatomy of Pop – edited by Tony Cash including contributions from JN, Peter Cole, Meirion Bowen, Ray Connolly, Richard Mabey & Richard Gilbert pub by BBC Broadcasting accompanying series first broadcast BBC1 10th Jan 1971
1970: Tramps edited by JN and Ulli McCarthy pub by Prison Clothes Press
1971: (?) Zusammen ed by JN and Ulli McCarthy published by Prison Clothes Press
1971: Erire by Ulli McCarthy with JN illustrations pub Prison Clothes Press
1971: 25 Writings from Leeds Polytechnic edited by JN pub by Art & Design Press
1971: (?) Forwards! – A Phantom Captain Book edited Neil Hornick includes JN
1971: Mondstrip: Neue Englische Prosa pub by März Verlag anthology inc JN
1971: The Wolverhampton Wanderer – Poetry by Michael Horovitz pub by Latimer includes artwork by JN, David Hockney, John Furnival etc.
1971: In Dark Mill Shadows: An Anthology of Bailrigg Poems – pub by Continuum edited by Graham Taylor including JN, Adrian Mitchell, Adrian Henri etc.
1972: Foxes’ Lair – published by Aloes Books
1972: Horsetalk – Ulli McCarthy Joe DiMaggio Press Cover by JN
1973: All Bull: The National Servicemen – edited by BS Johnson published by Allison & Busby and including JN, Alan Sillitoe and David Hockney
1973: Bone Songs – Ulli McCarthy – WF4’s 3 – Illustrations & cover by JN
1973: WF100 – Anthology edited by Cobbing & Rowan including JN
1973: Junk Sculptures – Mike Dobbie Prison Clothes Press cover by JN
1974: Open Door – Anthology ed by Christopher Reed pub by Symposium incl JN
1974: Bob Cobbing & Writers Forum– Book accompanying Ceolfrith Press WF exhibition in Sunderland edited by Peter Mayer including Cobbing, JN etc.
1974: Wolves at the Door by Mike Dobbie illustrated by JN & Nick James
1975: Krak published by Jack Press
1975: The House Party published by Basilike Toronto
1975: You Always Remember the First Time – edited by BS Johnson & Giles Gordon published by Quartet Books and including JN
1975: Fatty Feedemall’s Secret Self: A Dream published by Jack Press
1975: Snipes Spinster published by Calder & Boyers
1975: Man not Man published by Unicorn Books
1975: The Anatomy of My Father’s Corpse published by Basilike Toronto
1976: Victims JN & Tony Jackson pub by WF Press
1976: Sun Barbs published by Poet & Peasant Books 19/05/76
1976: Poetry, Sculpture and Performance Arts at Lumb Bank 27th Jul – 1st Aug with JN, Roland Miller & Shirley Cameron – publication to accompany
1976: Objects published by Trigram
1977: Common Factors, Vulgar Factions with Rodick Carmichael published by Routledge & Kegan Paul
1977: Beowulf: Parallel Text by John Porter (JN illustrator) pub by Pirate Press
1978: Footfalls includes JN, Samuel Beckett, John Grillo & AF Cotterill pub by Faber
1978: The Gold Hole – novel published Quartet Books
1978: The Patriarchs: an early summer landscape – Arc Publishing
1978: King Twist: a portrait of Frank Randle published by Routledge & Kegan Paul
1978: What Happened to Jackson? Published by Aloes Books
1979: Sculptures published by Aloes Books
1979: Performance Art Memoirs Volume 1 published by Calder
1979: Arc Publications Calendar feat visual poetry by JN & others
1979: 14th July JN’s Guardian poetry review column begins
1980: Performance Art Memoirs Volume 2 published by Calder
1980: The Usual Stringency published by Arc
1980: Scrapyard – published byPrison Clothes Press
1980: Grape Notes, Apple Music published by Rivelin
1981: The Kilpeck Anthology edited by Glenn Storhaug including JN (and many others) pub by Five Seasons Press Madley Herefordshire
1981: 5×5 includes JN, Glen Baxter, Ian Breakwell, Ivor Cutler & Anthony Earnshaw published by Trigram
1981: Dance in your Own Language by Kevin Crum – unknown publisher JN possibly contributing artwork
1982: Arc Publications Calendar feat visual poetry by JN & others
1982: The Final Academy – William Burroughs celebration includes JN, John Giorno, Terry Wilson etc.
1982: Fifth Last Song – By Carol Ann Duffy – Headland Publications: JN amongst several illustrators also inc. Adrian Henri
1983: Muscle published by Rivelin
1983: Liverpool Polytechnic Fine Art Degree Show 1983 – Exhibition catalogue with intro by JN
1984: Violent Silence: Celebrating Georges Bataille – Booklet accompanying event Illustrated by JN
1985: Two Tails by Tony Jackson illustrated by JN
1985: Knuckleduster Funnies Issue 1 Summer 1985 edited by JN (AKA Lydia Hesse) and Robert Bank
1985: Knuckleduster Funnies 2 – date uncertain
1986: Knuckleduster Funnies 3 – date uncertain
1986: Knuckleduster Funnies 4 Easter 1986 *Most sources maintain that there were only 4 issues but there are references to Issue 5 on the internet
1986: The Usual Stringency Arc Press
1987 Visual Alchemy JN with Bohuslav Barlow pub by Babylon Todmorden
1987: Mad with Music published by WF Press
1988 JN guest edits Tak Tak Tak 3 published in Nottingham
1988: The Pleasures of Necessity published by Arrowspire Colne
1989: Michael Horovitz: Bop Paintings, Collages, Picture-Poems 1962-1971 to accompany exhibition – JN & John McEwen (eds?)
1989: The Bald Soprano: A Portrait of Lol Coxhill published by Tak Tak Tak
1989: Scenes and Dubs published by WF Press
1991: Mother Country/ Fatherland anthology published by Tak Tak Tak includes JN, Geraldine Monk, Mike Horovitz, Nick Toczek etc.
1992: Verbi Visi Voco – Writers Forum 500 edited by Cobbing & Bill Griffiths inc JN
1994: 22 Poems published by RWC
1994: The World One Day Cup Winner includes JN et al Images publishing
1997: Sub Voicive Poetry #11 WFP with Lawrence Upton
1998: Estate – JN intro in Catalogue to Ian Hinchcliffe retrospective Oct-Nov 98
1999: Karen McCracken Was a Very Dynamic Child – no publisher or date included
2000: Marketing Revolt – unknown publisher or date (became Art & the Degradation)
2000: for Bob Cobbing: A Celebration – Anthology pub by Mainstream Poetry Pamphlets includes JN, Maggie O’Sullivan, Sean Bonney etc.
2001: Art and the Degradation of Awareness published by Calder
2002: Weasel published by Jack Press
2002: Helga De Luxe published by Jack Press
2002: Jeff Nuttall’s Work (possibly ‘Two Nice Legs’) WF Press
2002: Supper Moves Unlight (possibly Sunlight) WF Press
2003: Selected Poems published by Salt
2003: Poor Malcolm published by Jack Press
2003: The Arachnophile published by Jack Press
2004: Jeff Nuttall’s Wake on Paper – anthology pub by New Departures
2004: Jeff Nuttall: A Celebration – edited by Robert Bank & Tony Ward pub by Arc
2004: Jeff Nuttall’s Selected Poems and Wolf Tongue by Barry MacSweeney edited by Peter Finch published by Poetry Wales Press
2005: Ballads and Bedlam Text by Chris Hall images by JN New Century Press
2014: Bob Pub – Anthology accompanying Bob Cobbing exhibition published by Chelsea Space and including Cobbing, JN, Lol Coxhill etc.
2014: Concerning Concrete Poetry – Edited by Cobbing includes JN et al published by Slimvolume
2016: An Aesthetic of Obscenity published Verbivoracious Press
2016: Broken Frontier: Anthology – Collection of comic/cartoon artists published by Wave Blue World and including JN (?)
2018: The Edge of Necessary: An Anthology of Welsh Innovative Poetry 1966-2018 ed by John Goodby & Lyndon Davies – incl JN as Welsh resident (Aquifer pub?)
UNDATED: Klownz published by Arc
Jeff Nuttall List of periodicals contributed to
Alembic: 5,
Amarinth: 2,
Amazing Grace: 5,
Ambit: 18, 19, 23, 26, 34, 40, 44, 46, 48, 51, 58, 60, 67, 69, 79, 80, 88, 92, 105, 109, 114, 119, 121, 123, 124, 126, 139, 145
And: 3 (as ‘Peter Church’), 4, 5, 6,
Angel Exhaust: 4,
The Ant’s Forefoot: 1,
Black Country Meat Chronicle: 17,
Blue Pig: 7,
British Journal of Education Studies: Vol 22 No 2,
Chanticleer:
City Lights Journal: 3,
Contact: 1,
Contrasts: 8,
Cosmos: 1, 2, 3,
The Curiously Strong: 4,
Curtains: And Matching Curtains Too!, Velvet Curtains, A Range of Curtains, Split Curtains,
Cyclops: 1,
Disinherited: 3,
Diversion: 10,
Dock Leaves: 22,
Editor Anonymous: 3, 4,
Evergreen Review: Vol 9 No 38,
Expatriate Review: 4,
Extremes:
Fix: 1,
Gambit: 16, 31,
Good Elf: 5/6,
Greedy Shark: 1,
Grist: 11,
Gronk: 6/7,
The Guardian: 12/05/76: JN reviews the film ‘Scum’, 13/05/76: JN reviews Terry O’Malley concert. Bubble-Pack Culture 12/01/80, Control Calling 02/08/80, (Poetry in Print column: 14/07/79, 11/08/79, 06/10/79, 10/11/79, 15/12/79, 19/01/80, 09/02/80, 08/03/80, 26/04/80, 24/05/80, 21/06/80, 12/07/80, 23/08/80, 18/10/80, 29/11/80, 24/01/81, 21/02/81, 21/03/81, 09/05/81, 18/07/81), Obituary of Asa Benveniste 23/04/90,
Guerrilla: Vol 2 No 2,
How: 5,
The Human Handkerchief:
Iconolâtre: 11, 20,
Illustration: 50 Winter 2016/17,
Imprint: 3, 6,
Independent: Rotten Reason to Resign from the Poetry Society by JN & A Tunnicliffe 16/02/92, Letting it All Hang Out 12/08/95, Hating Iago 14/10/95, Suspicious of Beauty 16/12/95, Entrancements on the Local Bus 02/03/96, Too Much Honey for Tea 04/05/96, Tactics of Disarray 20/07/96,
Inherited: 1,
International Times (IT): 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 24, 25, 49,
Klactoveedsedsteen: 4, 23,
Labris: 3 & 4
The Last Times: 2,
The Little Word Machine: 4/5,
Long Hair: 1,
Mar: 1,
The Moon: 2,
Mugshots: 4
Murid:
New Departures: 7/8, 10/11, 13,
New Yorkshire Writing: 3, 6,
New Yorkshire Review: 6,
Not Poetry: 3,
Olé: 6, 7,
PALPI (Poetry and Little Press Info.): 1, 6, 7,
Pennine: 8/4
The Performance Magazine: 2 Aug-Sep 1979,
Poet & Peasant: 6,
Poetry: Vol 117 No 1,
Poetry Review: Autumn 1971, Vol 61 No 4, Vol 62 Nos 3 & 4
Radical Poetics: 1 Spring 1997,
Rayday: 2,
Residu: 2,
RWC: 21/22 1994,
San Francisco Book Review: 22,
San Francisco Earthquake: 2, 5
Saturday Morning: 1,
Sixpack: 1, 3/4,
Spectacular Diseases: 2,
Square One: 1,
Strange Faeces: 4, 8, 10,
Streetword: 1/2,
Styng:
Subvoicive Poetry: 9, 11,
Tak Tak Tak: 2,
Talus: 1, 9/10
Transatlantic Review: 17, 21,
Words:
Workshop: 10,
Yam: 1,
Yorkshire Review: 2,
Zip: 3,
Records
1973: Five Yorkshire Poets – Yorkshire Arts Association LP inc JN, George Kendrick, Mike Haywood, William Price Turner and Glyn Hughes
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