This collection contains recordings from the bpNichol fonds (MsC-12) and the Readings in British Columbia collection (MsC-199) from the 1960s to as late as 1987, where Nichol is the primary speaker. For over 20 years, Nichol conducted workshops, read, and performed his poetry across the country, until his death in Toronto in 1988. The bpNichol Fonds represents a substantial portion of that public audio record, as well as some of his more personal diaristic recordings.
Collection history
bpNichol (Barrie Phillip Nichol) was an avant-garde writer who wrote for a variety of media, in many genres, but is best known for his poetry. Born in Vancouver in 1944, he worked briefly as an elementary school teacher before dedicating himself to writing. Much of his early work throughout the 1960s can be mapped to his experiments in concrete poetry. His later work, including the nine-book long epic, The Martyrology, published in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, remains a key text in the Canadian avant-garde literary scene. Nichol's interest in concrete poetry eventually drew him to its aural manifestations through sound poetry and other forms of sound art, including the work he did as part of The Four Horsemen alongside Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Paul Dutton, and Steve McCaffery. His curiosity and willingness to experiment with technology led to an interest in recording as an alternative form of writing.
Many of the recordings in this collection were made by Nichol himself. While Nichol performed alongside nearly every Canadian writer working at that time, this collection primarily showcases his solo work.
Highlights
- bpNichol reading The Martyrology (1972-1992): Originally recorded on reel-to-reel, this reading of The Martyrology is unique and has not been found to exist elsewhere. The sound quality is high Because it was digitized directly from the reel
- Numerous recordings of songs and sound poetry pieces, including "Dada Lama" (1966)
- Sound and musical experiments
- Readings and workshops at schools and colleges
- Personal reflections in the form of audio journals, called his "Tape Notebooks"
Acknowledgements
This digital collection has been made possible with support from the SSHRC-funded SpokenWeb project. Much of the audio in this collection was digitized from cassettes; others were digitized directly from reels on a reel-to-reel deck by Don Shipton. Shipton is also responsible for gathering metadata on the collection.
