Spare Parts

by Charles Henri Ford

This is a book that works hard at defying description. A "cut-up" book, Ford has largely used advertizing copy cut out of magazines arranged on old style wax layout boards to create original poems. The poems themselves blend the "promotion" of a way of life with the actual living of a life both in- and out-of-tune with the cannibalized advertizing of which the poem is composed. Interspersed are various half-tone images of a vaguely sexual nature, implying the kind of pornographic nature that modernists like James Joyce considered endemic to advertising of any kind. This is a profoundly thought-provoking collection--half art, half poetry--distilled in a format in which it is nearly impossible to separate form from content. A revelation!

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Charles Henri Ford was an American poet, novelist, filmmaker, photographer, and collage artist best known for his editorship of the Surrealist magazine View (1940-1947) in New York City, and as the partner of the artist Pavel Tchelitchew. His very informative obituary of record is here.

"The simplest summation of Mr. Ford's life and work may be that he did exactly what he wanted, and seemingly knew everyone."