RADICAL ROOTS: FROM d.a. levy TO CANADIAN CONCRETE
The rise of concrete and visual poetry, particularly in North America, was often deeply entwined with counterculture movements. In 1960s Cleveland, d.a. levy’s work in poetry and community made him a poster child in the local press, and a target of local police. Under siege by both local and federal law, publishers such as Grove Press and bookstores such as Peace Eye fought for the right to publish and distribute what was otherwise deemed “obscene” or transgressive. Of the so-called Canadian Concrete poets, who often experimented with sound and unorthodox spellings, participant Steve McCaffery has noted that the movement “is best configured within a wider, international poetics of cultural unrest, expressed by many younger writers in a plurality of unorthodox literary forms around the world.”
bill bissett.
Th High Green Hill.
blewointmentpress, 1972.
bill bissett is known for a distinctive style of writing, based on the phonetic sounds of words as opposed to their traditional spellings. In Borderblur Poetics: Intermedia and Avant-Gardism in Canada 1963-1988 (University of Calgary Press, 2023), Eric Schmaltz has noted that this approach rejects the colonial tone of Canadian literary culture. Likewise, as bissett states in an interview with bpNichol and Phyllis Web, “literature doesn’t mean long live the empire; literature is words.”
bpNichol and Barbara Caruso.
The Adventures of Milt the Morph in Colour.
Seripress, 1972.
This work is a collaboration between bpNichol and Barbara Caruso, with bpNichol contributing a poem and Caruso the color images which she printed at her Seripress. bpNichol was the co-founder of Ganglia Press and the little magazine grOnk. Along with Steve McCaffery, Rafael Barreto-Rivera, and Paul Dutton, he was a member of the sound poetry group the “Four Horsemen,” and was also a member of The Toronto Research Group, along with McCaffery.
bpNichol.
Translating Translating Apollinaire: A Preliminary Report from a Book of Research.
Membrane Press, 1979.
Of this work, bpNichol writes: “i recalled the first poem i had ever had published - Translating Apollinaire in bill bissett’s BLEWOINTMENT magazine circa 1964 i’d written the poem in summer 1963 during my first period in Toronto - & decided to put that poem thru as many translation/transformation processes as i & other people could think of. i conceived of it as an open-ended, probably unpublishable in its entirety, piece.”
bpNichol.
Love Affair.
Seripress, 1979.
Seripress was founded by Barbara Caruso in Toronto in 1972. She often collaborated with poets to create works in silkscreen; in addition to bpNichol, she also made books and prints with Nelson Ball, Steve McCaffery, Stephen Scobie, and David Aylward.
d.a. levy, ed.
The Marrahwanna Quarterly, [vol. 1], no. 3.
Renegade Press, 1965.
There were 14 issues total of levy’s Marrahwanna Quarterly published from 1964–1968, often with titles that varied the spelling of the word “marijuana” to include Mary Jane, Marrahwannah, Marihuana, and The Kif Quart-O, among other creative adaptions that function as sound poetry in and of themselves. The magazine was printed letterpress by levy, with drawings by Steve Ferguson. Contributors to this issue include George Bowering, Grace Butcher, Geoffrey A. Cook, Joe Nickell, Russell Salamon, and W.E. Wyatt.
d.a. levy.
7 Concrete Poems / Concrete Poems / Electric Greek Poems.
N.p., 1968.
d.a. levy was a Cleveland-based poet, artist, and printer, known for catalyzing the city’s underground poetry scene. During the last two years of his life, he became a national symbol of the counterculture amidst controversies that primarily stemmed from obscenity (i.e., mention of drugs and sexuality) in publishing. Within levy’s poetry, the innovative use of spelling, typography, and visual elements, as well as his contributions to the small press boom of the 1960s, mark him as an important avant-garde figure.
David Aylward and bpNichol, eds.
Ganglia, [1st series] no. 1.
[1965].
Contributors include James Alexander, Margaret Avison, David Aylward, bill bissett, George Bowering, Judith Copithorne, Neild Holloway, bpNichol, Dave Phillips, and Arnold Shives. Drawings and “whatnots” by David Aylward, bill bissett, Judith Copithorne, and bpNichol.
David W. Harris.
Spanish Fleye, no. 1.
Fleye Press, 1966.
Displayed is work by Judith Copithorne.
The issue is subtitled “a perpetual anthology för livving peeple,” borrowing from bill bissett’s inventive spelling. Contributors include bissett, Victor Coleman, Judith Copithorne, Patrick Lane, and d.a. levy. Copithorne was considered one of the first women in the Canadian Concrete scene to experiment with visual and asemic poetry, and her name is the title of a recent anthology, Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry, edited by Amanda Earl (Timglaset, 2021).
jwcurry, ed.
Industrial Sabotage, no. 47.
January 1990.
35 rubber-stamped cards, held in a plastic desk display device. Contributors include Gary Barwin, Sha(u)nt Basmajian, Guy R. Beining, Randall Brock, Eva Clair, B. DiMichele, M.B. Duggan, Paul Dutton, Greg Evason, LeRoy Gorman, Andrew J. Grossman, Bob Grumman, Wharton Hood, Marshall Hryciuk, M. Kettner, Mark Laba, George Swede, and Richard Truhlar.
jwcurry.
Can’t Afford No Kodak Instamatik Instamatik, Vlm. 2.
Nietzsche’s Brolly, 1991.
jwcurry is an Ottawa-based practitioner/publisher of visual and sound poetry, a bookseller, and longtime bibliographer of bpNichol. He has published under many imprints since the late 1970s, including Curved H&z, his long-running themed little magazine Industrial Sabotage, and the holographic Spudburn, among many other “micropublishing” endeavors. This project includes collaborations and contributions by John M. Bennett, Joe Brouillette, Tony Kay, Mark Laba, Peggy Lefler, and Qaani Lore, among others, with an afterword by Marvin Sackner.
Richard Truhlar and John Riddell, eds.
Kontakte, series 1, no. 2.
Phenomenon Press, [1976].
This issue focuses on the work of Hugo Ball, honoring the German pioneer of Dada and sound poetry. Contributors include the editors, Hugo Ball, bpNichol, Peter McLaughlin, Steve McCaffery, and Owen Sound.
Russell Atkins.
Spyrytual.
7 Flowers Press, 1966.
Atkins, a Cleveland-born poet, playwright, composer, theoretician, and musician, was the co-founder and editor of the little magazine Free Lance in 1952, which published at the forefront of the Black avant-garde until 1980. He was also involved with Karamu House, one of the oldest producing Black theaters in the United States. Music was a particular influence on Atkins’ work, and he developed a practice called “phenomenalism,” which combined image and sound.
Steve McCaffery.
Carnival: The First Panel: 1967 –70.
The Coach House Press, 1973.
This book is one McCaffery’s most influential and is prefaced by his own explication: “Carnival is planned as a multi-panel language environment, constructed largely on the typewriter and designed ultimately to put the reader, as perceptual participant, within the center of his language. The roots of Carnival go beyond concretism […] to labyrinth and mandala, and all related archetypal forms that emphasize the use of the visual qualities in language to defend a sacred centre.”