Selected Early Poems

One evening in 1961, in the Greyhound pub in Carshalton, Surrey, 20-year-old Chris Torrance - solicitor's clerk with novelistic ambitions - encountered a volatile Mob of nascent artists, writers and musicians. For Torrance, this was "the most important day of my life". Dazzled, he was soon joining in their activities: wild weekends in the country, his first scary public readings, and, from 1963, co-editing the poetry and jazz magazine Origins/Diversions.

In literary terms, Torrance's greates...