Oasis Poetry Journal

Oasis Poetry Journal

As part of ourĀ Art School Counterculture event on Thursday 5th March 2015 at Kingston Museum, it was a great pleasure to feature poetry fromĀ Oasis, a poetry and art journal that was edited by Ian Robinson and began life in 1969 at Knights Park.

Ian Robinson was a complementary studies tutor at the art school, bringing poetry and ideas from literature into art and design student’s practice. He founded Oasis in November 1969 to be an eclectic, high quality periodical featuring a range of writing and art – including concrete poetry, experimental countercultural writing, prose, works in translation, and contributions from artists.

The header image above is a word collage created by Ian Robinson himself for Oasis #9 in 1973. Such word art hybrids were a regular feature of the magazine whilst it was being published using the facilities at Knights Park campus, over roughly the first 6 years of its existence. The journal went from strength to strength and continued to be published elsewhere until Ian Robinson’s passing in 2004.

The whole run of issues produced during the title’s time at Knights Park has been digitised by the team at the Saison Poetry Library at the South Bank. They are available online here:

http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/index.asp?id=13

Thanks to Chris McCabe at the Saison Poetry Library.