Dom Pierre-Sylvester Houédard /ˈwɛdɑːr/ WED-ar[1] (16 February 1924 – 15 January 1992), also known by the initials 'dsh', was a British Benedictine priest, theologian and noted concrete poet.
[2] He served in British Army Intelligence from 1944 to 1947, and in 1949 joined the Benedictine Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire, being ordained as a priest in 1959 and taking the religious name Sylvester.
[5] He published several works of literary criticism, often with eccentric typography,[4] and corresponded widely with leading poets, artists, theologians and philosophers of his day, including Robert Graves, Edwin Morgan, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Lionel Kearns, Mark Boyle, John Blofeld, Michael Horovitz and Ian Hamilton Finlay.
[6] Houédard collaborated next with Filipino poet and artist David Medalla in a modern ballet entitled The Yellow Wrinkled Pea, inspired by the life and scientific discoveries of the monk Gregor Mendel; the modern ballet, choreographed by Medalla, was performed in 1967 by members of the Exploding Galaxy at Middle Earth in Covent Garden, London, in 1967.
In 2012, Occasional Papers published Notes from the Cosmic Typewriter, a book devoted to Houédard, edited by Nicola Simpson, with essays by Gustavo Grandal Montero, Rick Poynor, David Toop and Charles Verey.