Chris Torrance (1941 – 21 August 2021)[1] was a poet associated with the British Poetry Revival of the 1960s, mainly known for long poetry cycle The Magic Door published as a series of volumes over 30 years.[2]
Born in Edinburgh in 1941, Torrance grew up in London and moved to Pontneddfechan, Wales in 1970. He taught an extramural creative writing course at University College Cardiff for 25 years. He performed literary cabaret with the poetry and music group Poetheat, which he co-founded in 1985 with composer Chris Vine, later called Heat Poets.[3]
His work shows the influence of the Beats, especially Gary Snyder and William Burroughs and an interest in the matter and monuments of ancient Britain, including such 'magical' or religious phenomena as ley lines. He also expressed an admiration for the writings of Charles Olson and David Jones. He is one of the poets discussed in William Rowe's Three Lyric Poets (Northcote House, 2009).[4]
Torrance has featured in a number of key Revival magazines including Poetmeat and the anthologies (1969), Conductors of Chaos (1996) and (1999).
His major work was the ongoing Magic Door sequence, of which eight books have been published to date by various publishers. The ninth volume, Path was prepared for publication in 2008 but was not released.[5] In 2017 Torrance noted that there were a further three volumes in the pipeline. A collected edition of the first eight books was published in 2017 as The Magic Door by Test Centre with an introduction by Phil Maillard. The sequence follows his life at Glyn y Mercher Isaf, recording his practical activities, his love life, and his engagement with nature, mythology, geology and history. He develops the concept of a landscape filled with powers - ley lines and standing stones, pagan gods and spirits, and focuses on the nearby standing stones of Maen Madoc and Maen Llia and the 19th century house of Glan yr Afon which incorporates geological oddities and an elaborate stone archway. Torrance died on 21 August 2021 at the age of 80. The Glasfryn Project plans to publish some of his work posthumously.
| Sequence | Title | Initial published numbering | Date of first publication | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Acrospirical Meanderings In a Tongue of the Time | none | 1973 | |
| 2 | The Magic Door | Book I | 1975 | |
| 3 | Citrinas | Book II | 1977 | |
| 4 | The Diary of Palug's Cat | Book III | 1980 | |
| 5 | The Book of Brychan | Book IV | 1982 | |
| 6 | Cylinder Fragments of the Twentieth Century | none | 1982 | |
| 7 | The Slim Book / Wet Pulp | Book V | 1986 | |
| 8 | Southerly Vector | Book VI | 1996 | |
| 9 | Path | planned as Book VII | Partly published in The Wobbly Chair (2003) | |
| 10 | not known | (not yet published) | ||
| 11 | not known | (not yet published) |
"Death of the poem?", A470: what's on in literary Wales, No. 26 (Nov.-Dec. 2003), p. 6.