The Matrix (1970) The Matrix, 1970 (Primary Information, 2021). N.H. Pritchard, The Matrix. New York, New York: Primary Information and Ugly Duckling Presse, 2021. 113 pages. THE MATRIX is one of the most radical—and most important—books of poetry of the 1960s. It’s also one of the most mysterious. A new facsimile reissue of N. H. Pritchard’s first collection—along with DABA press’s republication of his only other book, EECCHHOOEESS (1971)—provides an opportunity to re-examine an extraordinary and extraordinarily neglected poet whose work continues to evade capture. Born in New York and of West Indian descent, Norman Henry Pritchard II considered attending Columbia on a sports scholarship but ultimately studied art history at NYU, where he wrote an MA thesis on Eastman Johnson’s paintings on “the Negro theme” under art historian Robert Goldwater. Discovering the bohemian and artistic life of the East Village, he befriended artists including Philip Guston and Allen Ginsberg and joined the Umbra Poets Workshop, a proto–Black Arts Movement collective, where he found a natural home alongside experimental writers such as Oliver Pitcher and Lloyd Addison. Like theirs, Pritchard’s work was invariably political, but almost never in expected ways. Early, uncollected poems feature dedications to civil-rights activist James Meredith and allusions to Billie Holiday. But Pritchard’s work is radical beyond simply writing