Dom Sylvester Houédard

Infobox Artist
bgcolour = #fff
name = Dom Sylvester Houédard


imagesize = 191
caption =
birthdate = birth date|1924|2|16|df=y
location = Guernsey
deathdate = death date and age|1992|1|15|1924|2|16|df=y
deathplace =
nationality = British
field = poetry, concrete poetry, literary criticism, theology, translation, spirituality
works =

Dom (Pierre-)Sylvester Houédard (16 February 1924–15 January 1992), also known under the acronym dsh, was a Benedictine priest, theologian and noted concrete poet.

Life

Born on Guernsey, Houédard was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, served in British Army Intelligence from 1944 to 1947, and in 1949 joined the Benedictine Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire, being ordained as a priest in 1959. [http://collection.britishcouncil.org/html/artist/artist.aspx?id=17691 British Council website] ]

Concrete poet

Houédard was a leading exponent of concrete poetry, with regular contributions to magazines and exhibitions from the early 1960s onward. His elaborate, typewriter-composed visual poems ("typestracts") were scattered across many chapbooks, including "Kinkon" (1965) and "Tantric Poems Perhaps" (1966). Among his best-known works is the poem "Frog-Pond-Plop", his English rendition of a zen haiku by Matsuo Basho. [http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/news/0310hou.html Archives Hub: dom silvester houédard Papers] ]

Bible translator

Houédard became literary editor of the Jerusalem Bible in 1961.

Other interests

Houédard cultivated an interest in multiple religious traditions; he wrote commentaries on Meister Eckhart and was a founder member of the Eckhart Society, as well as an honorary fellow of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society. [ [http://www.besharapublications.org.uk/authors/Eckhart.html Beshara Publications author info] ] He published a fair amount of literary criticism, often with eccentric typography,Richard Kostelanetz, H. R. Brittain: "A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes", p. 291] and corresponded widely with leading poets, artists, theologians and philosophers of the day, including Robert Graves, Edwin Morgan, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Mark Boyle, John Blofeld, Michael Horovitz and Ian Hamilton Finlay.

References