Notes from the Cosmic Typewriter

Dom Pierre-Sylvester Houédard (1924 – 1992), also known by the initials dsh, was a British Benedictine priest, theologian and noted 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 (1967). Among his best-known works is the poem "Frog-Pond-Plop", his English rendition of a zen haiku by Matsuo Bashō. He also edited 4 issues of the magazine Kroklok (1971-1976), a periodical devoted to research into the history of sound poetry.

In 2012, Occasional Papers published Notes from the Cosmic Typewriter, a book devoted to Houédard, edited by Nicola Simpson, with essays by Gustavo Grandal Montero, Rick Poynor, David Toop and Charles Verey.