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Ithell and her
husband Toni del
Renzio, during
their short
marriage, gave
poetry readings at
the International
Arts Centre
between 1942 and
1944, mixed with
some prose and her
translated work -
covering Blake,
Breton, Carrroll,
Dali, Maddox,
Picasso, Rimbaud
and many others.
There was
considerable
barracking from
those who had
aligned with the
group from which
she had been
expelled, and at
this distance the
well documented
literary infighting
of the time seems
savage.

In effect, although
then invisible, there
was a doubling of
the chance that
posterity via many
influences within
this alignment
would not later
present or represent
her in the public eye
in accordance with
her achievements
and dedication to
the surrealist phase
of painting. This
possibly was first
her expulsion from
the London group,
and secondly a
rather natural bias
against the
newcomer Toni,
who was engaged in
literary hostilities in
the surrealist scene.

As well as her two
booklet collections,
others were used in
Ore magazine and
the Sword of
Wisdom; her prose
poems appeared in
Fantasmagie, The
Fortune Anthology,
The Glass, the
Scillonian and
Springtime. In 1971
and

1973,
Transformaction
published six of her
poems and an article
on the chain poem, a
device sometimes used
by surrealists to
initiate a stream of
work which owed
nothing to logical
progression via the
conscious mind and
was used to explore
and exercise the
unconscious.

Of many other poems
found randomly in
the archive, it was
impossible to allot
publication. There
were an imperfect
sequence of poems
based on magical
images used for
meditation, many
personal poems,
"Songs for Oriental
Settings" &c,
altogether a testament
to

the author's interests
in yet another facet of
expression.

A separate chapter on
the poetry of Ithell
Colquhoun

will be found in the
biography.

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