Comment
'illusory points of rest in the pursuit of infinity'
Peter Dale
'Absence is a compelling sequence'
Dana Gioia
'coolly elegant'
Alan Ross Editor London Magazine
Vitae
Born in Taiping Malaysia and now living in London, Christopher Truman travelled extensively in classical Europe and Mitteleuropa. His paternal grandfather lived in the International Settlement in Shanghai. After an early childhood in Malaya and North-Rhine Westphalia he was educated in Albion. At Marlborough College Art School he studied under Simon Brett, Maurice Percival and Richard Shirley-Smith, all of whom were radical Catholics in an 'Onward Christian Soldiers' school.
Perciival told Truman he wanted Picasso executed. Percival made Truman draw a half-shaded old brick ad infinitum. He was introduced to 'Die Brucke' of Dresden and Roman Villas and David Jones. Truman experienced Oxford in the 1970s and his best experiences therein can be read in his published prose-poem 'Lunch with John Wain' on www.sundialzen.com. His outcome at Oxford fell foul of Stasi penetration of a Viva board. His ground-breaking work on T.S. Eliot and Baudelaire was thrown into the waste-paper bin, unread. The Viva board refused to read an approved and well typed submission.
As a result of alleged French intrusion in the English School, which never read French poetry. Chaucer, anyone? His truly admirable tutor at BNC was not at all Stasi and an Americaphone enthusiast for the 18th. century.
The wife of the Principal in his College at Oxford ran a Stasi cell. In later years Truman beat the Stasi in the GDR, a key for much of his later line art, apart from Durer and the surrealist William Hogarth.
Blake kept a copy of 'Melancholia' on his desk throughout his life. Truman has achieved the greatest ever penetration of Germany by a part-time SOE Agent. His father had worked for British Military Intelligence in Italy during WWII. His mother became engaged in special operations in early Cold War Germany. His favourite film is 'The English Patient'. (Weinstein must be spared.)
In recent years, given the passivity of M16, Truman sought to destabilise The Chancellorship of Merkel. He transmitted a tirade of couplets in Jpeg format from a laptop in Camden Town.
He succeeded in his SOE mission. his greatest achievement, inspired by Jean Cantlie Stewart, daughter of Sir James and Lady Cantlie and a traditional MI5 Agent or operative. Jean also became a proxy mother figure for Truman.
Military Intelligence 6 owes him a stipend, if not a pension, for weakening Merkel via the Frankfurt Press and the CDU/CSU in Bavaria. MI7 (tutored by) Truman was truly 'Die Brucke' for an SIS asleep at the wheel as a result of the naivety and essential ignorance of at least three British Prime Ministers. At one point Truman worked profoundly to further the nascent Ostpolitik of Margaret Thatcher, who was betrayed by The British Establishment in her funeral oration at St. Paul's.
Truman will eulogise the planet-saviour in due course and Oxford University will celebrate St. Margaret Thatcher. Henry Kissinger, that celebrated Bavarian, knows the truth. The truth is out there! and the X Files.
Truman studied Dada and Op Art to his own agenda. Photography was not thought to be an art form when he was at Art School. He went on to study Brassai and the abstract photography of Guy Bourdin, in 2014, at Arles.
Expected by his family to become a Cavalry Officer in the 9th/12th Royal Lancers, otherwise he has pursued a private war against Prussia. He fought as a de facto SOE operative in The Battle of The Arun Valley (2004-2010 aprox.) on the side of Queen and Albion. His father once told him the greatest thing a man could do was to die for King and Country.
His finest extended text is the Latinate 'Waiting' (1988 revised 2018) which is to be found on the top bar on this site.. His finest published lyric is 'Parallel Light' (c.2003) which is to be found on www.sundialzen.com.
From 2005 onwards Truman experienced major publication success in Italy with 3x 60 line texts, one of which was translated into Italian by Laura de Matteis in 2006. This was in the context of his photo exploration of Sicily, an anti-world to that of quasi-Prussian East Germany and his upbringing. All this work is featured on www.sundialzen.com.
In 2001 he began to explore Catholicism after a near partner began to die from a brain tumour. Truman now believes Albion is in a state of savagery not far removed from the world of 597 A.D. Brexit must be balanced by a reversal of The Break with Rome and the return of high style in all the media, not least on the BBC apart from Radio 3.
Truman believes Schama was entirely wrong about Civilisation. as in part was Sir Kenneth Clark. The first 40 Portfolios on his fourth web site have been planned as an extended riposte to Schama. Please note that all of Truman's work is all rights reserved and Copyright reserved.
Truman is deeply grateful for all the support given by Foliolink and their Copyright protected software partner, with whom he has a de facto joint venture based in Maine New England. Given the ruling Police State furthered by the entirely stifling Theresa May in Albion, Truman has had to effect emigrate to the U.S.A in 2005 to further all his and his jv art projects including one with the crucial muse HG, a Celtic Goddess in counterpoint to the near-Prussian Truman.
Every image in the Portfolios has Jpeg image file back up burnt to offline DVD+Rs for possible MOMA et al purchase and site revival in case of a total apocalyptic melt-down and even the partial end of the world. Were NASA to send a spacecraft on a 500 year mission, Truman hopes his DVDs would travel through space to revive the citizens of space.
Credits
The Editors of the Journals or Reviews Acumen, Agenda, Envoi, Isis, Littoral, Magma, Orbis,Private it, Sea of Faith (sofia) and South are thanked for publishing poems or images.
The Editors of the Anthologies Plant Care: A Festschrift for Mimi Khalvati (Linda Lee Books) and Hortus Conclusus and Stranger (Poetry on the Lake Orta Piemonte Italy) are thanked for publishing a combination of texts and images.
Also credits to Opus Dei and John Rety and William Cookson. The Interface portfolios on www.sundial.com tell more. They lead on to the best of Truman's Literary Criticism.
Credit is due to Lady Caroline St. Erskine for constantly luring me to Biarritz and Aquitaine. The octosyllabic couplet 'Counter Reformation' is dedicated to her and a powerful memory never to be completed.
Credit is due to Barclays Bank, not least for supporting the GDR. Credit is due to the 8 and a half Fellini.
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