Abstracts - Softcover

O'Loughlin, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1500348996 ISBN 13: 9781500348991

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

The essayistic introduction to this little collection of abstract poems attempts to point up a distinction between poetry and antipoetry, and then to contrast both of these with what has been termed superpoems - the abstract poetry of a transcendental age or civilization which strives to dissolve grammatical appearances into a non-descriptive essence. Whether or not John O'Loughlin was successful in this or even correct in his overall theorizing at this time (1983), Abstracts is a collection of poems which, whilst mostly readerly (or capable of being read), is devoid of conventional significance, and therefore has to be read or, rather, understood in relation to the underlying significance, where apparent, of the form, which lifts each poem above the usual phenomenal realm of descriptive poetry towards a transcendent realm of pure abstraction.

About this title

About the Author:

John James O’Loughlin was born in Salthill, the seaside suburb of Galway City, County Galway, the Republic of Ireland, of Irish- and British-born parents in 1952. Following a parental split while still a child, he was brought to England by his mother and grandmother (who had initially returned to Ireland with intent to stay) in the mid-50s and subsequently attended schools in Aldershot (Hampshire), and, following the death and repatriation of his grandmother, Carshalton Beeches (Surrey), where, despite an enforced change of denomination from Catholic to Protestant in consequence of having been put into care by his mother, he attended a state school. Graduating in 1970 with an assortment of CSE’s (Certificate of Secondary Education) and GCE’s (General Certificate of Education), including history and music, he moved the comparatively short distance up to London and went on, via two short-lived jobs, to work at the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in Bedford Square, WC1, where he eventually became responsible, as a clerical officer, for booking examination venues. After a brief flirtation with Redhill Technical College back in Surrey, where he had enrolled to study history, he returned to his former job in the West End but retired from the ABRSM in 1976 due to a combination of factors, and began to dedicate himself to writing, which, despite a brief spell as a computer tutor at Hornsey Management Agency in the late '80s and early '90s, he has continued with ever since. His novels include Changing Worlds (1976), Cross-Purposes (1979), Thwarted Ambitions (1980), Sublimated Relations (1981), and Deceptive Motives (1982). From the mid-80s Mr O'Loughlin more or less exclusively dedicated himself to philosophy, his true literary vocation, and has penned more than sixty titles of a philosophical order, including Devil and God – The Omega Book (1985-6), Towards the Supernoumenon (1987), Elemental Spectra (1988-9), and Philosophical Truth (1991-2). John O’Loughlin lives in Crouch End, north London, England, UK, where he continues to regard himself as a kind of bohemian intellectual.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1500348996
• ISBN 13: 9781500348991
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 51
• Editor: O'Loughlin John J.