breth

By (author): bill bissett

breth presents both new and selected poems from legendary Canadian sound, visual, and performance poet bill bissett. bissett’s innovations have shaped poetry, music, painting, and publishing and have stimulated, provoked, influenced, shocked, and delighted audiences for half a century. This new collection, bissett writes,

“shows sew manee threds thru poetree n langwage btween n thru lyrik sound song vizual narrativ non narrativ his her storikal naytur humour sexual romantik politikul metaphysikal spiritual fuseyun th pickshur image in th lettr th shape uv th lettr in th drawing line orchestrating th needs 4 caring n heering n being with each othr all th drama uv all uv us lerning why n how creating thru art n th bizness uv life a much mor free n equitabul societee b r e t h contains manee storeez uv being ther n getting ther n uv th love uv art n each othr th sharing times n th losses in our journeez 2 b helping each othr n th planet erth nobody owns n thru art manee ways uv lifting ourselvs with kleen watr erth fire n air n love ths b r e t h is abt thees adventurs uv sharing physical being n love spiritual n touching th manee ways art poetree can take us byond th gift n prison uv self in2 th manee worlds in n uv ths beautiful galaxee n ourselvs uttring th sounds in th images n lettrs n lettrs 2 manee passing comets n ourselvs spin th reel dreem xchanging love 4 love our manee selvs on fire our gifts 2 each othr n ourselvs that evreewun has enuff ths time uv th sun n th lite in th dark touch th sun in time with joy n sorrow lerning n unlerning langwage n poetree can show we join with ourselvs n each other.”

This volume, the largest in bill bissett’s publication history, includes more than a hundred illustrations and visual poems, many of them appearing in print for the first time, as well as a foreword by fellow poet Tim Atkins (author of Folklore and On Fathers < On Daughtyrs), a bibliographical “a r c h i v e,” and an index of poem titles.

AUTHOR

bill bissett

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 9 books of poetry and conceptual fiction, editor of the acclaimed small presses housepress and No Press and co-editor of Writing Surfaces: the Selected Fiction of John Riddell (2013). He is an instructor at Mount Royal University and the Alberta College of Art + Design. beaulieu’s Seen of the Crime: Essays on Conceptual Writing was published in 2011.

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. His monograph Avant-Garde Canadian Literature: The Early Manifestations is forthcoming from the University of Toronto Press.

Reviews

“[bill bissett is] that rarest of literary figures: a countercultural icon who continues to compel and confound.”
The Toronto Star


“bissett is philosopher, comedian, Canary in the coalmine. His is a voice that is important, as urgent as sustaining breth.”
—Heidi Greco,The Ormsby Review


“It’s easy to forget that breth looks back on over 60 years of creative output, when it also offers such a wellspring of energy for the future.”
Hamilton Arts & Letters


“This volume is a joyous occasion … a chance for new and old readers to survey bissett’s vast oeuvre”
—Weldon Hunter, Canadian Literature


“[bill bissett is] that rarest of literary figures: a countercultural icon who continues to compel and confound.”
The Toronto Star

~||~

“This volume is a joyous occasion … a chance for new and old readers to survey bissett’s vast oeuvre.”
Canadian Literature

~||~

“Immersed in breth, one would be hard pressed not to succumb to the sensation described in ‘dragon fly,’ when the poet writes that ‘all / air waves at once sound in [the] ear.’”
—Jim Johnstone, Poetry Northwest

~||~

“It’s easy to forget that breth looks back on over sixty years of creative output, when it also offers such a wellspring of energy for the future.”
Hamilton Arts & Letters

~||~

“bissett is philosopher, comedian, Canary in the coalmine. His is a voice that is important, as urgent as sustaining breth.”
—Heidi Greco,The Ormsby Review

~||~


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Excerpts & Samples ×

breth presents both new and selected poems from legendary Canadian sound, visual, and performance poet bill bissett. bissett’s innovations have shaped poetry, music, painting, and publishing and have stimulated, provoked, influenced, shocked, and delighted audiences for half a century. This new collection, bissett writes,

“shows sew manee threds thru poetree n langwage btween n thru lyrik sound song vizual narrativ non narrativ his her storikal naytur humour sexual romantik politikul metaphysikal spiritual fuseyun th pickshur image in th lettr th shape uv th lettr in th drawing line orchestrating th needs 4 caring n heering n being with each othr all th drama uv all uv us lerning why n how creating thru art n th bizness uv life a much mor free n equitabul societee b r e t h contains manee storeez uv being ther n getting ther n uv th love uv art n each othr th sharing times n th losses in our journeez 2 b helping each othr n th planet erth nobody owns n thru art manee ways uv lifting ourselvs with kleen watr erth fire n air n love ths b r e t h is abt thees adventurs uv sharing physical being n love spiritual n touching th manee ways art poetree can take us byond th gift n prison uv self in2 th manee worlds in n uv ths beautiful galaxee n ourselvs uttring th sounds in th images n lettrs n lettrs 2 manee passing comets n ourselvs spin th reel dreem xchanging love 4 love our manee selvs on fire our gifts 2 each othr n ourselvs that evreewun has enuff ths time uv th sun n th lite in th dark touch th sun in time with joy n sorrow lerning n unlerning langwage n poetree can show we join with ourselvs n each other.”

This volume, the largest in bill bissett’s publication history, includes more than a hundred illustrations and visual poems, many of them appearing in print for the first time, as well as a foreword by fellow poet Tim Atkins (author of Folklore and On Fathers < On Daughtyrs), a bibliographical “a r c h i v e,” and an index of poem titles.

Reader Reviews

Details

Dimensions:

544 Pages
9in * 228mm * 6in * 152mm * 1.25in32mm
726gr
25.625oz

Published:

April 15, 2019

City of Publication:

Vancouver

Country of Publication:

CA

Publisher:

Talonbooks

ISBN:

9781772012262

Book Subjects:

POETRY / Canadian

Featured In:

All Books

Language:

eng

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