is nothing but a history
brief at best
an end of one thing
beginning of another
premonition of a future time or line we will be writing
— bpNichol, The Martyrology Books I and II
After years of planning we are pleased to launch bpNichol.ca, an online public archive of the works of bpNichol and his collaborators. Here you will find audio, digitized print materials, photographs, links and eventually video, critical articles and curated exhibitions.
The site was developed by the Artmob project in collaboration with Ellie Nichol, and is designed as a not-for-profit community initiative. It is intended as the start of a process, and we encourage everyone to read our submission guidelines if you have material you would like to contribute or an idea for an exhibition of bp's work.
Artmob is a York University-based research project dedicated to building accessible public archives of Canadian art. Over the coming years Artmob will add tools to improve the browsing and cataloguing. It will also provide novel approaches to intellectual property, encouraging contributors to identify themselves and set the terms of use for their works. Artmob hopes that a spirit of fair dealing will assist in getting artistic materials out of shoeboxes and filing cabinets and into the world where they belong. bpNichol.ca is Artmob’s pilot project.
This is the second edition of Nichol's collection of concrete poems titled Konfessions. Like the first edition of 1967, it was published in the UK as part of the Writers Forum Quarto series. jwcurry's "Notes toward a beepliography" (Open Letter 6.5-6 (Summer 1986)) states that the book is composed of 38 8x10 pages, has stapled card covers, and uses mimeo printing technology. The cover art is by Bob Cobbing.
Submitted by katherine.wooler on Mon, 05/27/2013 - 00:36.
This is the first of eight parts to three different readings bpNichol gave of The Martyrology, all of which were recorded by Roy Miki. The readings include 1. a day long reading which consists of six tapes, 2. a july 2 1987 reading, and 3. reading at the bookstore called R2B2. Except for the last reading, all the others were held at Simon Fraser University. They were public readings, though connected to Miki's classes.
In this file, bpnichol talks about the origins of The Martyrology and reads from Books One and Two at SFU 8 july 1983.
Submitted by lori.emerson on Tue, 04/09/2013 - 21:35.
Printed in December 1980, this work consists of an envelope containing four various-sized cards, three of which fit together like a puzzle. The largest of the four cards measures approximately 7 1/2 x 5 inches (or 7 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches, depending on individual variants) (curry 260). According to jwcurry in "Notes toward a beepliography" (Open Letter, 6.5-6, Summer 1986, p.260), the envelopes varied in type and three distinct variants of the work were issued.
Submitted by katherine.wooler on Sun, 02/10/2013 - 16:55.
According to jwcurry's "Notes toward a beepliography" (Open Letter, 6.5-6, Summer 1986, p. 251), this single poem was published in 1968 by Ganglia Press in Toronto. The four-page blue card-stock leaflet measures only 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches. Curry describes the piece as the fifth instalment in the "5 cent Mini Mimeo Series." Approximately 100 copies were printed. This copy resides in the University of Victoria's special collections. "The Complete Works" was reprinted in 1980 in As Elected: Selected Writing, a selection of bpNichol poetry edited by Nichol and Jack David.
Submitted by katherine.wooler on Sun, 02/10/2013 - 16:34.
The 1973 edition of Konfessions is the third edition of this work, but the first to be published in Canada. The first two editions were both published in London, England, in 1967 and 1969. The 1973 edition was printed using a mimeo process by Toronto's Weed Flower Press. The 8 1/2 x 11 paperback book has stapled card covers with flaps.
Submitted by katherine.wooler on Wed, 01/23/2013 - 05:08.
Still Water, printed in 1970, is a cardboard box filled with 28 squares of card stock measuring 5 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches-- some with poems, some blank, and some with title/author/publishing information. The cards are not numbered and are not restricted to any specific order. The lid of the box has a reflective foil covering. According to jwcurry's "Notes toward a beepliography" (Open Letter, 6.5-6, Summer 1986, p.253), two editions of Still Water were printed, but the second edition is not identified as such.
Submitted by katherine.wooler on Tue, 01/08/2013 - 02:30.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
