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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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")
