Bob Cobbing (1920-2002) was a British concrete, visual and sound poet and a central figure in the British Poetry Revival movement. His press, Writers Forum, published over 1000 pamphlets and books between 1963 and 2002, many of them Cobbing's own work, on virtually no budget. These included '15 Shakespeare Kaku' which first appeared in 'Poems for Shakespeare' published by the Globe Playhouse Trust in 1972. The work marked a departure for Cobbing in that the words that make up each of the 15 poems it contains have been visually distorted; individual letterforms have been sliced through, partially erased and overlaid making them illegible but still recognisable as words. The resulting poems are also abstract, visual compositions. This dual effect of the verbal and the visual is referenced by the use of 'Kaku' in the title from the Japanese which means both 'write' and 'draw or paint'. As Cobbing was known both for his counter-cultural tendencies and for the humour and playfulness of his work a possible further interpretation is the contention that Shakespeare is 'kak'. Cobbing read all of his works as performances or 'soundings' and hence the text of '15 Shakespeare Kaku' also serves as a score for a performance. The work was recorded in a collaborative venture with Lawrence Casserley during 1972 and 73. Cobbing made the original vocal sounds which Casserley then processed, adding electronic sounds to complete the piece which was first heard at an international poetry festival at Earl's Court in London in 1973.

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