Nichol published separate but parallel mini-series of chapbooks, pamphlets, postcards etc alongside grOnk. There was also the Ganglia Concrete Series, the Singing Hand Series, the 5¢ Mimeo Series, Tonto or Series, and the 35¢ Mimeo Series (just to name a few). The Singing Hand Series is particularly interesting as it was published from 1965 to 1966 and so pre-dates grOnk by several years. Nichol used this series to publish work by David Harris and d.a. levy as well as a couple works by himself.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 17:34.
Title: "Hazardous Connections": bpNichol's Poetics of Chain
By: Geoffrey Hlibchuk
“Book V was structured on the idea of the chain—chain of thot, chain of images, chain of events—so that in writing when a branching of thot occurred i would try to follow all the chains that opened up” (Martyrology 5, n.p.). So writes bp Nichol in reference to Book 5 of The Martyrology, a book which eschews linearity and instead allows for a multiplicity of different reading paths. Numerical superscripts within the text allow the reader to jump forward or backward to other specified parts of the book.
A shorter version of this essay appeared in the Spring 2008 special issue of Open Letter: bpNichol + 20.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Tue, 04/08/2008 - 16:10.
The following poem is from the split 7” single Appendix, published in 1978 by Black Moss Press (BM 101) (Windsor, Ontario); this was issued as part of Sean O’Huigin’s POE TREE: A Simple Introduction to Experimental Poetry. Recording by R. Hindley-Smith and Starborne Productions.
bpNichol's The Martyrology is a long poem begun in 1967 and continuing until Nichol's death in 1988. It includes Books 1 & 2 (1972), Books 3 &4 (1976), Book 5 (1982), Book 6 (1987), gifts: Books 7 & (1990), and Ad Sanctos: Book 9 (1992). Ad Sanctos is a piece of music theatre written with composer Howard Gerhard.
"After bpNichol" is a composition for audio track and the robotic
instruments of the Logos Robot Orchestra. The audio track is a montage of samples of bpNichol's voice, mostly with no or little processing. The Logos Robot Orchestra is an orchestra consisting of over 40 robotic musical instruments, some of which are automated existing instruments,others are completely new inventions. A lot of this instruments have very fine expressive control, which I use in this composition, to imitate, extend and complement the voice sounds on the tape.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Mon, 06/01/2009 - 19:37.
The following poem was recorded by bpNichol in Torino, Italy in April 1987 and was released on a cassette tape in 1990 as part of Paté de Voix 4 (an imprint of Offerta Speciale, published by Carla Bertola and Alberto Vitacchio).
The following piece was read by bpNichol during the launch in Toronto of Zygal: A Book of Mysteries and Translations (Coach House Press, 1985) on February 20th, 1986.
The following piece was read by bpNichol during the launch in Toronto of Zygal: A Book of Mysteries and Translations (Coach House Press, 1985) on February 20th, 1986.
The following poem comes from the 7 ¼ floppy record borders included in the box bp, published in February 1967 by Coach House Press (Toronto, Ontario). Also included in the box are Journeying & the Returns, a flip-book WILD THING, and Letters Home (14 leaves and a pamphlet in an envelope). The entirety of borders is available from Coach House Books (http://www.chbooks.com).
The following piece was read by bpNichol during the launch in Toronto of Zygal: A Book of Mysteries and Translations (Coach House Press, 1985) on February 20th, 1986.
The following poem is from the split 7” single Appendix, published in 1978 by Black Moss Press (BM 101) (Windsor, Ontario); this was issued as part of Sean O’Huigin’s POE TREE: A Simple Introduction to Experimental Poetry. Recording by R. Hindley-Smith and Starborne Productions.
The following piece was read by bpNichol during the launch in Toronto of Zygal: A Book of Mysteries and Translations (Coach House Press, 1985) on February 20th, 1986.
The following piece was read by bpNichol during the launch in Toronto of Zygal: A Book of Mysteries and Translations (Coach House Press, 1985) on February 20th, 1986.
The following piece was read by bpNichol during the launch in Toronto of Zygal: A Book of Mysteries and Translations (Coach House Press, 1985) on February 20th, 1986.
bpNichol published grOnk Magazine (through his Ganglia Press) from 1967 to 1988 - it was one of the most innovative, rare, and important small-press publications dedicated to Canadian Concrete poetry. This Ganglia Press Index was published as grOnk Magazine series 8 number 7 in 1972 and includes an author index for grOnk and SYNAPSIS magazines.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Mon, 09/12/2011 - 21:17.
bpNichol's The Martyrology is a long poem begun in 1967 and continuing until Nichol's death in 1988. It includes Books 1 & 2 (1972), Books 3 & 4 (1976), Book 5 (1982), Book 6 Books (1992), gifts: Book(s) 7 & (1990), and As Sanctos: Book 9 (1992). The text in this volume is a facsimile, with minor corrections, of the 1990 edition of Gifts.
Issue 3 consists of Phone Book, by Gerry Gilbert, with a found prose insert (I assume also by Gerry Gilbert but attributed to “Gerry Carrier”). Phone Book is a typewritten book of poetry published in association with Nelson Balls’ Weed Flower Press in 1969. The cover design is by the painter Barbara Caruso, with whom Nichol worked collaboratively on a number of occasions (the most stunning, beautiful example is, in my opinion, The Adventures of Milt the Morph in Colour).
Submitted by lori.emerson on Mon, 12/26/2011 - 22:07.
Issue 4 is another typewritten, concrete poetry-esque collection: Nelson Ball’s Force Movements. The digitized version I’ve made available here is actually a second edition, slightly revised, that Ball published in November 1990 in memory of bpNichol. It was first published by Ganglia Press as grOnk 3:4 in July 1969.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Mon, 12/26/2011 - 22:12.
Issue 7 is a long, narrow, typewriter-concrete poem Sprouds and Vigables by D.R. Wagner. I twas published in an edition of 250, also in July 1969. Note that the text of the first poem echoes a later Four Horsemen sound poem, “In the Middle of a Blue Balloon,” from their 1973 album CANADADA.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Mon, 12/26/2011 - 22:14.
Issue 8 is a short, untitled piece by John Riddell – like the others in the third series, this too is typewritten concrete but with the difference that here Riddell also explores, or explodes?, geometrical shapes and patternings which intersect and break up the typewritten language.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Mon, 12/26/2011 - 22:16.
The second series of grOnk was begun in September 1968 and the issues for this series were published irregularly. The fourth issue of the second series features Barbara O'Connelly's "THERE WERE DREAMS.' The cover is a sheet of 17 x 22" cream card-stock folded in half; inside are seven individual sheets of cream 8.5 x 11 paper stapled together. Curiously: while the first couple issues of the series were published in 1968, this work by Connelly was printed at Ganglia Press in July 1967.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Sat, 09/17/2011 - 00:18.
The sixth issue of the second series of grOnk Magazine was published in 1969, a year earlier than the fifth issue, and featured John Riddell's "POPE LEO: EL ELOPE" with drawings by bpNichol.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Sat, 09/17/2011 - 00:27.
In April 1969 bpNichol (along with David UU, John Riddell, Bill Bissett, and John Simon) published 300 mimeographed copies of the first issue of the third series of grOnk magazine. "QUOTE" by Gerry Gilbert, written in July 1965, is the most difficult, or impossible, of the grOnk issues to digitize since it consists of 23 separate slips of paper inside a standard letter-sized envelope.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 22:13.
We believe this poem (given to us by Frank Davey) is from 1970-1975. It is very similar to what bpNichol and Steve McCaffery called a "developer" translation or "developer" poem; an example appears in Rational Geomancy (p. 38) of one by Josef Hirsal & Bohumila Grogerova which takes the word "Svoboda" and runs it through 36 lines of permutations and substitutions that convert it to the word "Freedom" by the last line.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Fri, 05/01/2009 - 16:36.
The following poem is from the split 7” single Appendix, published in 1978 by Black Moss Press (BM 101) (Windsor, Ontario); this was issued as part of Sean O’Huigin’s POE TREE: A Simple Introduction to Experimental Poetry. Recording by R. Hindley-Smith and Starborne Productions.
Justin Stephenson did a short piece during summer 2008 that was composed entirely using code and a transcript he did of the recorded version of bpNichol's sound poem "Interrupted Nap." The idea was to somehow explore the effect of "marker bleed" in cinematic time.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Tue, 10/21/2008 - 18:50.
The following piece was read by bpNichol during the launch in Toronto of Zygal: A Book of Mysteries and Translations (Coach House Press, 1985) on February 20th, 1986.
The following poem is from the split 7” single Appendix, published in 1978 by Black Moss Press (BM 101) (Windsor, Ontario); this was issued as part of Sean O’Huigin’s POE TREE: A Simple Introduction to Experimental Poetry. Recording by R. Hindley-Smith and Starborne Productions.
My Adventures To & Fro Down Under the Town of Plunkett: By Captain M.L. Poetry as told to his alter ego Nichol St. Nichol
A Christmas Spectac
hand-writ Christ's Mass 1968 for MAL + for JUDY
love from beep
a MINNIE-MOO-HA-HA special
Title Nights on prose mountain; some scraptures sequences.
Publication Area Toronto, Ganglia Press, 1969.
8 ½ x 11 in.; side-stapled on white paper.
This scan was generously made possible by the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Mon, 04/14/2008 - 13:53.
The following poem comes from the 7 ¼ floppy record borders included in the box bp, published in February 1967 by Coach House Press (Toronto, Ontario). Also included in the box are Journeying & the Returns, a flip-book WILD THING, and Letters Home (14 leaves and a pamphlet in an envelope). The entirety of borders is available from Coach House Books (http://www.chbooks.com).
The following poem comes from the 7 ¼ floppy record borders included in the box bp, published in February 1967 by Coach House Press (Toronto, Ontario). Also included in the box are Journeying & the Returns, a flip-book WILD THING, and Letters Home (14 leaves and a pamphlet in an envelope). The entirety of borders is available from Coach House Books (http://www.chbooks.com).
The following poem is a live solo performance by bpNichol. This material comes from the archives of The Four Horsemen, courtesy Paul Dutton. This piece was performed with The Four Horsemen during the 99¢ Floating Theatre Festival at the Frick Fine Arts Building, University of Pittsburgh, on November 10th, 1978 (Day 2 of 3).
Attached are images of the program for the Vivaxis production of bpNichol's musical comedy "Group." The first is the cover, and the second is the interior with notes about the production and the list of songs. Most of the cast were professional actors who were part of the community. Rod Campbell appeared often with the Company.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Fri, 09/25/2009 - 21:49.
Title: Reviews of The Alphabet Game: A bpNichol Reader
From Eye Weekly: "One writer who never conceded defeat to the encroaching conventionality of the 1970s was the late bp Nichol. A poet in ways beyond the comprehension of most casual readers, Nichol set out from lyrical poetry to hinterlands where text is everything from unreadable sign to possible musical score and back again to a new kind of obsessive lyricism in his lifelong work The Martyrology.
Title Scraptures, tenth sequence / bpNichol.
Publication Area [Toronto : s.n., 1967?]
Poems rubber-stamped in black on tan leaves, 6 x 8 ½ in.; top leaf deckle-edged on bottom; single folded sheet cover, 6 ½ x 10 in., printed in black on yellow background.
This scan was generously made possible by the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Fri, 04/25/2008 - 16:05.
"Scraptures: 11th Sequence" was published as grOnk 8 in August 1967. grOnk was published monthly and was edited by bpNichol, David Aylward, and David W. Harris.
Title Scraptures : sequence eleven.
Publication Area [Toronto : Gronk, 1967]
8 ½ x 11 in.; side-stapled on white paper.
This scan was generously made possible by the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Mon, 04/14/2008 - 12:32.
Title Scraptures : third sequence / bpNichol
Publication Area Toronto, Ont. : Ganglia, 1966.
10 ½ x 14 cm.; paperbound in white, saddle-stapled; printed and illustrated in black; some light yellow pages.
This scan was generously made possible by the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Fri, 04/25/2008 - 15:34.
Title Scraptures : basic sequences / bpNichol.
Publication Area Toronto [Ont.] : Massassauga Editions, c1973.
11 ½ x 14 ½ cm.; interior pages saddle-stapled on white paper, bound in deep purple-red paper wrappers; printed and illustrated in black.
Cover by bill bissett.
This scan was generously made possible by the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Fri, 04/25/2008 - 16:50.
Title Scraptures : fourth sequence / bpNichol.
Publication Area Niagara Falls, N.Y. : Press Today Niagara, [1979?]
14 x 21 ½ cm.; paperbound in light yellow-orange; printed in black; saddle-stapled.
This scan was generously made possible by the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Fri, 04/25/2008 - 18:34.
Title Scraptures : second sequence / bpNichol ;
cover drawing Bill Bissett.
Publication Area Toronto [Ont.] : Ganglia, [1965]
5 ½ x 8 ½ in.; paperbound in white, saddle-stapled; printed and illustrated in black.
This scan was generously made possible by the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Fri, 04/25/2008 - 18:08.
The following poem was recorded by bpNichol in Torino, Italy in April 1987 and was released on a cassette tape in 1990 as part of Paté de Voix 4 (an imprint of Offerta Speciale, published by Carla Bertola and Alberto Vitacchio).
The following poem was recorded by bpNichol in Torino, Italy in April 1987 and was released on a cassette tape in 1990 as part of Paté de Voix 4 (an imprint of Offerta Speciale, published by Carla Bertola and Alberto Vitacchio).
The following poem is from the split 7” single Appendix, published in 1978 by Black Moss Press (BM 101) (Windsor, Ontario); this was issued as part of Sean O’Huigin’s POE TREE: A Simple Introduction to Experimental Poetry. Recording by R. Hindley-Smith and Starborne Productions.
Originally published in a boxed edition, The Cosmic Chef includes work by Margaret Avison, David Aylward, Nelson Ball, Earle Birney, bill bissett, George Bowering, Hart Broudy, Jim Brown, Barbara Caruso, Victor Coleman, John Robert Columbo, Judith Copithorne, Greg Curnoe, Gerry Gilbert, Lionel Kearns, Martina, Seymour Mayne, Steve McCaffery, David McFadden, bpNichol, djNichol, Jerry Ofo, Sean O'Huigin, Michael Ondaatje, John Riddell, Stephen Scobie, rahSmith, Peter Stevens, Andrew Suknaski, David UU, Ed Varney and Phyllis Webb.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Wed, 09/07/2011 - 17:38.
I've been working on an article for Open Letter on Steve McCaffery's "Carnival" which has been described by many critics (Marjorie Perloff among them) as an example of "dirty concrete." Yet nowhere have I been able to find who first came up with this term.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 22:13.
Title The year of the frog : a study of the frog
from Scraptures : ninth sequence / bpNichol.
Publication Area Toronto [Ont.] : Ganglia Press, 1967.
5 ½ x 8 ½ in.; paperbound loose in white; printed and illustrated in black.
The following poem is from the split 7” single Appendix, published in 1978 by Black Moss Press (BM 101) (Windsor, Ontario); this was issued as part of Sean O’Huigin’s POE TREE: A Simple Introduction to Experimental Poetry. Recording by R. Hindley-Smith and Starborne Productions.
The following poem is from the split 7” single Appendix, published in 1978 by Black Moss Press (BM 101) (Windsor, Ontario); this was issued as part of Sean O’Huigin’s POE TREE: A Simple Introduction to Experimental Poetry. Recording by R. Hindley-Smith and Starborne Productions.
Twelve years in the Making! Featuring a cast of thousands! Starring the letter H & introducing Probable Systems, Negatives, & The Actual Life of Language! Your heart will pound as you see H's turn into I's before your very own. You'll thrill as words fall apart only to create other words. You'll gasp as bpNichol collaborates with the dead. You'll shake your head in disbelief as he walks the line between fact & fiction one step beyond into the twilight zone of ''pataphysics.
.jpg "nights on prose mountain (cover).jpg")
