History of the 18-year critical collaboration between the late bpNichol and Steve McCaffery and its resulting intellectual growth.

'Pataphysics, the pseudoscience imagined by Alfred Jarry, has so far, because of its academic frivolity and hermetic perversity, attracted very little scholarly or critical inquiry, and yet it has inspired a century of experimentation. Tracing the place of 'pataphysics in the relationship between science and poetry, Christian Bök shows it is fundamental to the nature of the postmodern, and considers the work of Alfred Jarry and its influence on others. A long overdue critical look at a significant strain of the twentieth-century avant-garde, 'Pataphysics: The Poetics of Imaginary Science raises important historical, cultural, and theoretical issues germane to the production and reception of poetry, the ways we think about, write, and read it, and the sorts of claims it makes upon our understanding.

What are the fictions that shape Canadian engagements with the global? What frictions emerge from these encounters? In negotiating aesthetic and political approaches to Canadian cultural production within contexts of global circulation, this collection argues for the value of attending to narratorial, lyric, and theatrical conventions in dialogue with questions of epistemological and social justice. Using the twinned framing devices of crosstalk and cross-sighting, the contributing authors attend to how the interplay of the verbal and the visual maps public spheres of creative engagement today. Individual chapters present a range of methodological approaches to understanding national culture and creative labour in global contexts. Through their collective enactment of methodological crosstalk, they demonstrate the productivity of scholarly debate across differences of outlook, culture, and training. In highlighting convergences and disagreements, the book sharpens our understanding of how literary and critical conventions and theories operate within and across cultures.

bpNichol was one of Canada's most innovative, eclectic, entertaining, and, yes, enigmatic poets, making startling interventions in the development of poetry and profoundly influencing both his own and subsequent generations of writers. The Alphabet Game: A bpNichol Reader amasses key texts from the very broad spectrum of Nichol's work, including both classic favourites and more obscure treasures. From the early typewriter poetry of Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer and the life-long poem The Martyrology to the heartbreaking prose of Journal and the whimsical autobiography of Selected Organs , The Alphabet Game traces the trajectory of this wildly imaginative and prolific poet. This Nichol anthology is an ideal introduction for readers encountering Nichol for the first time, and a much-needed compendium for Nichol fans seeking access to works not readily available. 'His wit, along with the seriousness, was there to keep the language free and untethered, to keep the poem aware of its roots, like a tuxedo worn with bare feet in a muddy river ... No other writer of our time and place was so diverse, attempted so much, and never lost sight of his intent.' - Michael Ondaatje

Avant Canada presents a rich collection of original essays and creative works on a representative array of avant-garde literary movements in Canada from the past fifty years. From the work of Leonard Cohen and bpNichol to that of Jordan Abel and Liz Howard, Avant Canada features twenty-eight of the best writers and critics in the field. The book proposes four dominant modes of avant-garde production: “Concrete Poetics,” which accentuates the visual and material aspects of language; “Language Writing,” which challenges the interconnection between words and things; “Identity Writing,” which interrogates the self and its sociopolitical position; and “Copyleft Poetics,” which undermines our habitual assumptions about the ownership of expression. A fifth section commemorates the importance of the Centennial in the 1960s at a time when avant-garde cultures in Canada began to emerge. Readers of this book will become familiar with some of the most challenging works of literature—and their creators—that this country has ever produced. From Concrete Poetry in the 1960s through to Indigenous Literature in the 2010s, Avant Canada offers the most sweeping study of the literary avant-garde in Canada to date.

Poetic Community examines the relationship between poetry and community formation in the decades after the Second World War. In four detailed case studies (of Black Mountain College in North Carolina, the Caribbean Artists Movement in London, the Women’s Liberation Movement at sites throughout the US, and the Toronto Research Group in Canada) the book documents and compares a diverse group of social models, small press networks, and cultural coalitions informing literary practice during the Cold War era. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished archival materials, Stephen Voyce offers new and insightful comparative analysis of poets such as John Cage, Charles Olson, Adrienne Rich, Kamau Brathwaite, and bpNichol. In contrast with prevailing critical tendencies that read mid-century poetry in terms of expressive modes of individualism, Poetic Community demonstrates that the most important literary innovations of the post-war period were the results of intensive collaboration and social action opposing the Cold War’s ideological enclosures.

Edgar Allan Poe, arguing that brevity and intensity were the essence of poetry, declared there was no such thing as a long poem. It can also be said there is no difference between a short and a long poem except duration: a measure of time. Time in Time examines what the difference really is, and investigates the interplay of short and long forms in contemporary poetry. Moving beyond the opposition of lyric and experimental schools, Time in Time constructs a history of recent North American efforts to bring about a more open poetic form. Contributors explore ways in which the work of Louis Zukofsky, William Carlos Williams, Jackson Mac Low, George Oppen, Hannah Weiner, A.R. Ammons, Marjorie Perloff, Erín Moure, Ron Silliman, and Kenneth Goldsmith reconceives, reframes, and sometimes interknits the possibilities of short and long poems. In doing so, the collection offers insight into the affiliative networks and inter-generational lines of avant-gardism on the continent. Attuned to the surprising reversals and unstable categories of the period, Time in Time illuminates the ongoing encounter of literary creativity with the limits and possibilities of form. Contributors include Adam Dickinson (Brock University), Kerry Doyle (York University), Rachel Blau DuPlessis (Temple University), Steve McCaffery (SUNY Buffalo), Erín Moure (Montreal), Michael O'Driscoll (University of Alberta) Jennifer Russo (City University of New York Graduate Center), and J. Mark Smith (Grant MacEwan University).