Dom (Pierre-)Sylvester Houédard (16 February 1924"“15 January 1992), also known under the acronym dsh, was a Benedictine priest, theologian and noted concrete poet. Born on Guernsey, Houédard was educated at Jesus College, Oxford. 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. Houédard was a leading exponent of concrete poetry, with regular contributions to magazines and exhibitions from the early 1960s onward. His elaborate, typewriter-composed visual poems ("typestracts") were scattered across many chapbooks, including Kinkon (1965) and Tantric Poems Perhaps (1966). Among his best-known works is the poem Frog-Pond-Plop, his English rendition of a zen haiku by Matsuo Basho. Houédard became literary editor of the Jerusalem Bible in 1961. Houédard cultivated an interest in multiple religious traditions; he wrote commentaries on Meister Eckhart and was a founder member of the Eckhart Society, as well as an honorary fellow of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society. He published a fair amount of literary criticism, often with eccentric typography, and corresponded widely with leading poets, artists, theologians and philosophers of the day, including Robert Graves, Edwin Morgan, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Mark Boyle, John Blofeld, Michael Horovitz and Ian Hamilton Finlay. Houedard was one of signers a Times Advertisent to remove cannabis from the dangerous drugs in UK. A paper expressing his views, "Official Mentality Over Last 40 years Since Russel Pasha" is held by the Sackner Archive. He also was very supportive of gay and lesbian rights. Wikipedia: Houedard was appointed the co-literary editor of the Jerusalem Bible (JB or TJB), an English-language translation of the Bible which first was introduced to the English-speaking public in 1966 and published by Darton, Longman & Todd. As a Roman Catholic Bible, it includes the deuterocanonical books along with the sixty-six others included in Protestant Bibles. It also contains copious footnotes and introductions. Excerpts from the Jerusalem Bible are used in the Lectionary for Mass that was approved by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales and that is used in most of the English-speaking world. Other translations have also been approved for use in the Liturgy by the English and Welsh bishops. The translation itself uses a literal approach that has been admired for its literary qualities, perhaps in part due to its most famous contributor, J.R.R. Tolkien (his primary contribution was the translation of Jonah). The introductions, footnotes, and even the translation itself reflect a modern scholarly approach and the conclusions of scholars who use historical-critical method. As examples, the introduction and notes reject Moses' authorship of the Pentateuch, as well as the Book of Wisdom having been authored by King Solomon. The Jerusalem Bible was the first widely accepted Roman Catholic English translation of the Bible since the Douay-Rheims Version of the 17th century. The Jerusalem Bible was also used in the European liturgy and the Mass. This reference for The Jerusalem Bible can be found in the introduction page of the Roman Catholic Missals as the source reference for the readings. It has also been widely praised for an overall very high level of scholarship, and is widely admired and sometimes used by liberal and moderate Protestants. The overall text seems to have somewhat of a "Mid-Atlantic" nature, neither overwhelmingly British nor particularly American, making it acceptable to both groups in most instances. Overall, it has come to be considered as one of the better English translations of the Bible made in the 20th century. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.