Manchester: August 16th & 17th 1819

'Manchester: August 16th & 17th 1819' is a poem sequence constructed from historical witness statements of those two days in Manchester. This edition has illustrations from contemporary newspapers as well as an afterword by John Seed. 'There is surely no more radical decentring of the subject/author in modernist writing,' John Seed remarks of Charles Reznikoff's Testimony, in the 'Afterword' to this book. The first part of 'Manchester: August 16th & 17th 1819', written in 1973 but previously unpublished, applies Reznikoff's method to historical materials on the so-called 'Peterloo Massacre'. The second part reflects on this method, noting convergences to some recent discussions in the United States around 'uncreative writing' and 'conceptual writing'.