aka bpNichol A Preliminary Biography

by Davey, Frank

• ISBN13: 9781770410190
• ISBN10: 1770410198
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-09-26
• Publisher: ECW Press

Summary

Reflecting on the career of a prominent poet, this biography focuses on Canadian wordsmith Barrie Nicholmore commonly known by his pen name, bpNicholwho was a practicing lay psychoanalyst and vice president of one the largest and long-lasting North American communes for more than a decade. Recognizing his international influence as both a visual and sound poet, Nichol's literary achievements are reviewed, including The Martyrologya renowned, seven-volume poemfour novels, two musical comedies, six children's books, hundreds of hand-drawn visual poems, and even 10 episodes of Jim Henson's hit television series Fraggle Rock. Penned by one of Nichol's numerous literary collaborators, this account reveals the close connections among the writer's various activities, particularly how the autobiographical inquiries and Freudian dream theory linked with the young poet's biographical self-awareness. The book demonstrates how the subject's main psychoanalytic client was his own writing, following Nichol as he explored its slips, accidental puns, and "unintended" meanings and implications for the communal future of the human speciesboth in high literature and comical prime time television.

Author Biography

Frank Davey is an author and a literary critic. He is a former professor at York University and the University of Western Ontario, where he held the Carl F. Klinck Professorship in Canadian Literature. He is the author of When Tish Happens: The Unlikely Story of Canada’s “Most Influential Literary Magazine.” He lives in Strathroy, Ontario.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vii
Introduction	p. ix
Birth, Death, and Life	p. 1
Ha Section	p. 11
Port Arthur	p. 21
Winnipeg	p. 33
Vancouver	p. 39
Lea or Dace	p. 51
Becoming bp	p. 61
Ideopoet	p. 69
Captain Poetry	p. 87
Psychotherapy Poetics	p. 97
Beginning The Martyrology	p. 109
Friends Much More than Footnotes	p. 119
The Meanings of Crocuses	p. 135
Expository Turns	p. 145
Me & We	p. 155
Working Together	p. 169
Russian Roulette	p. 185
Strange Years	p. 197
Blown Away	p. 219
Eric Von Daniken Meets Kurt Schwitters	p. 231
Unable to Rest	p. 243
The Waste of My Words	p. 257
Unbound	p. 275
The Afterlife of bpNichol	p. 285
notes	p. 301
works cited	p. 321
index	p. 327
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