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E-book Borderblur Poetics : Intermedia and Avant-Gardism in Canada, 1963-1988

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Penilaian

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“This is the death of the poem as I have faithfully reported it, November 29, 1966, as I have faithfully reported it, this is the death of the poem” in-tones Canadian poet bpNichol one day after the Dominion Day celebrations marking Canada’s centennial year. Addressing a national television audi-ence, Nichol reads these lines with poets bill bissett and Phyllis Webb, who chant the words “obituary” and “mortuary” alongside him.1 This poem was published in January 1967 in issue 1 of Nichol’s mimeographed publication grOnk; it declares that “THE POEM IS DEAD,” signifying, for Nichol, the po-tential for poetry’s rebirth.2 After the poets conclude their chant, the camera cuts from a close-up of bissett to a shot of all three poets sitting at the studio table. Webb instructs bissett, who wears a grotesque mask with a knife pro-truding from his neck, to “Take off your mask, bill, and join the group,” and in doing so, as scholar Katherine McLeod recognizes, Webb “symbolically unmasks the strange identity of the new Canadian avant-garde” for the liter-ary public.3 Announcing poetry’s demise and subsequent regeneration, this episode marks a meeting between Canada’s literary public and an emergent generation of avant-garde writers who proclaim a poetics that secedes from established literary traditions. Nichol and bissett televise the advent of an ex-pansive, liberated intermedial poetic they call borderblur. Taking borderblur as its subject, this book combines archival research, historical analysis, canon intervention, and literary criticism to trace the poetic’s emergence and pro-liferation as a significant but underexamined node of avant-garde activity in Canada. Nichol and bissett delivered this performance at the youthful ages of twenty-two and twenty-seven, respectively, on the CBC program Extension: Here, Now, and Then; the show was hosted by Webb, a well-known Canadian poet and public intellectual. Airing during Canada’s centennial celebrations, in the summer of 1967, Extension featured the nation’s established literati alongside some more emergent personalities.4 Each episode was “an experi-ment in the staging of poetry in distinct contexts and manners, with poet-ry presented through film, theatrical readings, conversations at a table and even at a piano.”5 As avant-garde writers who experiment with language and media, Nichol and bissett were well-suited to a multimedia presentation of poetry. With cameras directed at them on a sound stage, a reel-to-reel tape player in the foreground, books, magazines, and papers spread across the table, and their drawings and poems tacked on to the walls, the studio space reproduces the distinctive multimedia characteristics of their work. They sip coffee and smoke cigarettes while Webb guides them through a conversation that touches on such topics as the influence of Allen Ginsberg’s Beat poetry and lifestyle, the rock ‘n’ roll of Mick Jagger, the protest songs of Bob Dylan, and the jazz of Vancouver’s Gerry Walker, all while weaving in discussion of their poetries’ polyphonic qualities, the destabilization of Western reading practices, diverse uses of media, and implicit forms of social engagement. For Canada, the 1967 centennial signifies a historical turning point, a coming-of-age moment for the country and its cultural identity. I imagine that viewers who tuned in for Extension’s investigation of the nation’s poetry one day after Dominion Day might have been perplexed by Nichol’s poetic eulogy, bissett’s grotesque disguise, and their discussions of new music, intoxication, and al-ternative lifestyles. While the show was meant to take the pulse of Canadian letters, Nichol and bissett ultimately offer their viewers evidence of an emer-gent poetic milieu distinguished from Canada’s existing national literature by its playfulness, penchant for experimentation, and internationalist attitude.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

909.82 SCH b

Penerbit

Canada : University of Calgary Press., 2023

Deskripsi Fisik

299 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781773854588

Klasifikasi

909.82

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

-

Subjek

World History 20th Century, 1900 - 1999

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

-

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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