Description: Poetry. Art. Originally published in 1970 as a mimeo production by bill bissett's seminal blewointment press (the same year that Michael Ondaatje issued his documentary on Nichol titled The Sons of Captain Poetry), smatterings of THE CAPTAIN POETRY POEMS COMPLETE have appeared over the years but never in their entirety. Now, in "official book form" for the first time, along with corrections to the texts and the material that wasn't included in the original edition, and "some words on all these words" by Nichol himself THE CAPTAIN POETRY POEMS COMPLETE is available at last to scholars, poets, and other human beings alike. With an afterword by bill bissett.
Brief description:
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. Nichol was also an inveterate collaborator, working with the sound poetry ensemble The Four Horsemen (whose members were Nichol, Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Paul Dutton, and Steve McCaffery); Steve McCaffery as part of the Toronto Research Group (TRG); the visual artist Barbara Caruso; and, countless other writers. In the mid-1980s, bpNichol became a successful writer for the children's television show Fraggle Rock, produced by Jim Henson. 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; he also appears in Ron Mann's film Poetry in Motion. bpNichol died in Toronto, Ontario on September 25, 1988.
Review Quotes:
"The Captain Poetry Poems Complete demonstrates everything worthwhile about Nichol: his free-agent sensibility, his bemused distance from the mainstream-verse universe and its "umpteenth poem on me and mom," his belief that joy could infiltrate poetic conventions and eat away at their genetic structure." -- Carmine Starnino