rob mclennan’s above/ground press has just published
Archives for posts with tag: concrete poetry
The publication of bill bissett’s Rush: what fuckan theory; a study of language in 1972 firmly ushered Canadian poetics into the postmodern era. Out of print for 40 years – and reissued here complete with an interview with bissett about the book’s creation and a critical afterword by derek beaulieu and Gregory Betts – Rush embodies a collagist, multi-conscious approach to art that recognizes no division between the work and the world, the author and his sexuality, his breath, his influences; the theory and the practice. Arguing that “a new line has startid,” Rush captures the urgency of a new model of production that resists the closure and mastery of any one mind. It is an elegant rejection of aesthetic ego and all presumptions of authority. Rush: what fuckan theory; a study of language is a vital, vocal protest against business as usual and the exploitation of the individual from one of Canada’s most important avant-garde poets.
bill bissett opened Canadian poetry to postmodernism and from there proceeded in every direction all at once. Since his invention of the blewointment press in 1963, bissett has worked diligently to explode all boundaries of author, text, and context, radically disrupting static and disciplinary modes of art making. Read, taught, studied, and imitated all around the world, he now lives in Toronto, painting and writing somewhere between painting and poetry.
derek beaulieu is the author of nine books of poetry and conceptual fiction, editor of the acclaimed small presses housepress and No Press. He is an instructor at Mount Royal University and the Alberta College of Art + Design.
Gregory Betts is the Director of Canadian Studies and the Graduate Program Director of Canadian and American Studies at Brock University. He is the author of five books of poetry, and the editor of four books of experimental Canadian writing.
112 pages | 7×10 inches | paperback
ISBN 9781927040416
EPUB ISBN 9781927040454
No Press is proud to announce the publication of
THE NOBLE GASES
By Eric Zboya
The Noble Gases is excerpted from a larger manuscript entitled “The Periodic Table” in which Zboya represents every element in a braille-influenced representation of each element’s name and atomic layout. A minimal, elegrant suite of visual poems.
Published in a limited edition of 50 copies (25 of which are for sale) each copy is printed on linen paper and handbound.
Copies are available for $3.00 each (including postage).
To order, please contact derek beaulieu
As part of my on-going “Abstract Language” column at Abstract Comics: The Blog, in October I discussed Mark Laliberte’s 2010 collection brickbrickbrick. For November, I’ve posted a brief discussion of bpNichol’s Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer.
As part of my on-going “Abstract Language” column at Abstract Comics: The Blog, this month I discuss ottar ormstad’s 2007 op art visual poetry suite bokstavteppekatalogen.
UBUWEB began as an online repository for concrete and visual poetry scanned from aging anthologies and re-imagined as back-lit transmissions from a potential future. As the archive has progressed, the concentration on visual poetry has waned in favour of an reconnoitering of diverse avant-gardes.
UBUWEB: VISUAL POETRY exposes little-seen exemplars of historical praxis and models of contemporary insight to a wider audience. This section includes anthologies, ephemeral publications, criticism and sporadic journals dedicated to visual poetry. Due to the elusive and ephemeral nature of concrete and visual poetry publications, there is a perceived lack of innovation in the genre. Without exposure to radical practice, artistic precedent and innovative models, concrete poets too often fall back upon familiar tropes and unchallenging forms.
UBUWEB: VISUAL POETRY is not presented under the rubric of historical coverage or indexical completeness, but rather as a document of isloate moments of what Haroldo de Campos argued was a “notion of literature not as craftsmanship but […] as an industrial prcoess” where the poem is a “prototype” rather than the “typical handiwork of artistic artistry.”
— derek beaulieu, curator.
Melanie Kloetzel and John Masserini commissioned me to create a suite of visual poems (which eventually became my chapbook Fierce Indulgence) as a projected backdrop for their collaborative dance/clarinet performance “Icarus Refried.” “Icarus Refried: A Pro-Creative Process”, a short film by Kurt Lancaster is now available on vimeo about their performance.
Berfrois Magazine online has recently published a poem of mine — check it out here.
Audiatur Print (Norway) has just released a new print of my work, as designed Judith Naerland. More information can be found here (in Norwegian)
derek beaulieu's blog 