Chris Torrance (born 1941) is a poet and musician associated with the Briti… Read Full Bio ↴Chris Torrance (born 1941) is a poet and musician associated with the British Poetry Revival.
Born in Edinburgh, Torrance grew up in London and moved to remote rural Wales in 1970. He taught creative writing at the Cardiff University from 1976 to 1998. He performs with the poetry and music group Poetheat, which he co-founded in 1985 and which is now called Heat Poets.
Torrance is a self-styled 'hippie' and his work shows the influence of the Beats, especially Gary Snyder and an interest in the matter and monuments of ancient Britain, including such 'magical' or religious phenomena as ley lines. He has also expressed an admiration for the writings of Charles Olson and David Jones.
Torrance has featured in a number of key Revival anthologies, including Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain (1969), Conductors of Chaos (1996) and Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970 (1999). His major work is the ongoing Magic Door sequence, of which seven books have been published to date.

Chris Vine studied fine art in Britain and the USA, working as a painter and performance artist. He began playing improvised music in his teens as part of the UK “free jazz” movement and was associated with the “downtown” music scenes of New York and Washington D.C. in the 1980’s, working with composers such as multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp and drummer Bobby Previte. The Heat Poets were formed in partnership with the Anglo-Welsh poet Chris Torrance in 1985. Chris was guitarist with Ted Milton’s cult punk jazz group Blurt during the 1990’s, touring Europe extensively, and has also been engaged as composer and performer with dance theatre groups such as Earthfall (Wales) and Verve (Brazil). With mezzo soprano Phillipa Reeves and composer Simon Thorne, Chris formed the Canton Opera Company in 1998, which collaged Baroque arias with abstract soundscapes, both composed and improvised.