Collected Poems of a Painter

In later life, while living in London, George Claessen returned to poetry, often interrogating the same metaphysical themes he explored in his abstracts. The fruits of these endeavours resulted in a number of volumes, including, Poems of a Painter published in 1967, Poems about Nothing (1981), Collected Poems, (1995) and subsequent inclusion in various poetry anthologies. Describing his desire to use poetry as a creative alternative to his visual artistic work, he memorably said that it was, '...the outcome of an urge for expression in another form - a phenomenon not uncommon in painters, just as the same would and does apply in reverse to essential poets'.