Poetry. Edited by Stephen Cain. While bpNichol (1944-1988) has attained iconic status in Canadian literature in recent years, particularly through his lifelong poem THE MARTYROLOGY, and his work in visual and sound poetry, there are numerous early "fugitive" sequences that are often referred to in critical studies, but are long out of print and only available in library special collections or in the hands of rare book collectors. BP: BEGINNINGS brings together these pre-Martyrology materials in one comprehensive collection, including such key texts as Nichol's first chapbooks Beach Head and Cycles Etc., the minimal lyric sequences The Other Side of the Room and The Journeying and the Returns, and various concrete and sound-texts such as Lament, The Year of the Frog and Ballads of the Restless Are. These collected sequences show nichol developing his talents in both visual poetry and lyricism, pointing the way towards the union of the two forms in the later MARTYROLOGY. Combined with THE CAPTAIN POETRY POEMS COMPLETE (published by BookThug in 2011), BP: BEGINNINGS now makes all of Nichol's major poetry sequences available to both the avid nichol specialists and to aficionados of innovative poetry everywhere.
Language
Place of publication
Product notice
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
ISBN-13
978-1-77166-035-8 (9781771660358)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
STEPHEN CAIN is the author of six full-length collections of poetry and a dozen chapbooks, including False Friends, I Can Say Interpellation, Zoom, Etc Phrases, American Standard/ Canada Dry, Torontology, and dyslexicon. His academic publications include The Encyclopedia of Fictional and Fantastic Languages (co-written with Tim Conley) and a critical edition of bpNichol's early long poems: bp: beginnings. He lives in Toronto where he teaches avant-garde and Canadian literature at York University.
bpNICHOL (Barrie Phillip Nichol) was born September 30, 1944, in Vancouver, British Columbia. His writing is, by definition, engaged with what he called 'borderblur': in his lifetime he wrote (somewhere between) poetry, novels, short fiction, children's books, musical scores, comic book art, collage/assemblage, and computer texts. In the mid-1980s, bpNichol became a successful writer for the children's television show Fraggle Rock. His early work in sound was documented in Michael Ondaatje's film Sons of Captain Poetry. A second film has been made on Nichol, bp: pushing the boundaries, directed by Brian Nash. bpNichol died in Toronto, Ontario on September 25, 1988.
