Jan Erik Vold 1966 - avantgardist, piratforleggar og offset-entusiast

In contrast to the prevailing attitudes in academic and radical circles in the 60s, the young Norwegian poet Jan Erik Vold was fascinated with the financial and graphic developments made possible by modern printing techniques. For a short period of time he also acted as a kind of pirate publisher in the underground enterprise Kommet forlag (Kommet publishing firm). His own book, blikket (the gaze), Kommet forlag 1966, is a poetic-mechanical “word-machine experiment” with permutative combinations of just five words spread across twenty pages and written on an electric typewriter with a replaceable type head imitating computer letters. The intense and strictly mathematical discipline of these varied combinations demonstrates how language is a subject that can be moulded, and thus, Vold’s verbal strategies offer a multiplicity of possible perspectives both on the language itself and the life-world of the reader. In the mid-60s Vold’s publishing practise was unique in Norway. Today, with the use of real computer technique, it is a preferred form of publishing for many poets all over the world. On one occasion Vold returned to this practise himself as Kommet forlag reappeared after almost forty years to publish some signed copies of his poetry collection Diktet minner om verden.