Michael Horovitz

Life and career Horovitz was born in 1935 in Frankfurt, then in Nazi Germany. both of whom were part of a network of European rabbinical families, and from London Dr Horovitz helped organise routes for other Jewish families to flee the Holocaust. publishing authors such as William S. Burroughs, Samuel Beckett, and Stevie Smith. Horovitz continued to edit New Departures for 50 years. Though initially associated with the British Poetry Revival, Horovitz became known by his appearance at the International Poetry Incarnation at the Royal Albert Hall on 11 June 1965, alongside Allen Ginsberg and Alexander Trocchi.

Horovitz stood for election as Oxford Professor of Poetry in 2010 (supported by Tony Benn). Contributing to The Guardian, Horovitz wrote then:

I would most likely pitch some of my lectures around the legacies of my closest comrades in the broad continuum of poetry, from David and Solomon to James Joyce, Sappho to Bessie Smith, Beowulf to Lead Belly, medieval troubadours to the beat generation, Keats to Bob Dylan and Blake to Beckett. In the event. Horovitz came second, in a field of 11, to Geoffrey Hill.

In January 2011, Horovitz contributed to an eBook collection of political poems entitled Emergency Verse – Poetry in Defence of the Welfare State, edited by Alan Morrison. An eccentric and colourful part of the UK poetry scene, Horovitz fronted the William Blake Klezmatrix (one his heroes being the 19th-century poet and painter William Blake), featuring trombonist Annie Whitehead, pianist Peter Lemer, and often, in later years, his companion, poet and singer Vanessa Vie, where he played his "anglo-saxophone", an updated and extended eunuch flute of his own devising.

Personal life and death Horovitz was married to the English poet Frances Horovitz (1938–1983),

Michael Horovitz's home was in Notting Hill, London. In his later years, it became a notoriously chaotic repository of his personal papers and archives. "Indoor skip it may seem to you, but compared to Francis Bacon's studio, my pad here is Versailles", he said in a 2010 Evening Standard interview. He was also recognised for his artwork and at the time of his death a two-week exhibition of his "Bop Art paintings, collages and picture poems" was opening at the Chelsea Arts Club (6–25 July).

Michael Horovitz is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery next to Harold Pinter, Eric Fried, Anthony Trollope, Wilkie Collins, William Makepeace Thackeray, among other renowned contributors to the worlds of literature and the arts.

Publications

Books Declaration (1963) Strangers (with Maria Simon; 1965) Nude Lines for Larking in Present Night Soho (Goliard Press, 1965) High Notes from when I Was Rolling in Moss (Latimer Press, 1966) Poetry for the People (Latimer Press, 1966) Bank Holiday: a New Testament for the Love Generation (Latimer Press, 1967) Growing Up: Selected Poems & Pictures 1951–79 (Allison and Busby, 1979) .

As translator Europa by Anatol Stern (with Stefan Themerson) The Egghead Republic by Arno Schmidt

On art Alan Davie (1963) Michael Horovitz Goes Visual Michael Horovitz: Bop Paintings, Collages & Picture-Poems