bill bissett is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 poet

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 famous for his anti-conventional style. He often does not capitalise his name or use capital letters.

Life

Bissett was born in Halifax

City of Halifax

Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...

, Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

. He attended Dalhousie University

Dalhousie University

Dalhousie University is a public research university located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The university comprises eleven faculties including Schulich School of Law and Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine. It also includes the faculties of architecture, planning and engineering located at...

 (1956) and the University of British Columbia

University of British Columbia

The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...

 (1963–1965). Bissett dropped out of both universities because of an overriding desire to live as a free agent, writer and painter unencumbered by any academic constraints. He did complete course requirements for his two majors in English and Philosophy. He moved to Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

 in 1958. Five years later he started the blew ointment magazine. He later launched blewointment press, which has published volumes by Cathy Ford, Maxine Gadd, Michael Coutts, Hart Broudy, Rosemary Hollingshead, Beth Jankola, Carolyn Zonailo

Carolyn Zonailo

Carolyn Zonailo is a Canadian poet and publisher.Born in Vancouver, British Columbia. Zonailo studied at the University of Rochester, from which she received a B.A. in literature 1971. IN 1980, she received a M.A. in literature from Simon Fraser University...

, bpNichol

BpNichol

Barrie Phillip Nichol , who often went by his lower-case initials and last name, with no spaces , was a Canadian poet. He became widely known for his concrete poetry while living there in the 1960s...

, Ken West, Lionel Kearns

Lionel Kearns

Lionel John Kearns is a Canadian poet and teacher.Kearns was born in Nelson, British Columbia, and attended the University of British Columbia, where he was a student of Earle Birney...

 and D. A. Levy

D. A. Levy

d.a. levy , born Darryl Alfred Levy , was an American poet, artist, and alternative publisher active during the 1960s, based in Cleveland, Ohio.- Biography :...

. bissett is based in Vancouver and Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, alternating between the two cities.

Career

He is known for his use of a unique orthography

Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...

 and incorporating visual elements in his printed poetry, and his performance of "concrete sound" poetry, sound effect

Sound effect

For the album by The Jam, see Sound Affects.Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media...

s, chanting, barefoot dancing

Dance

Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

 and playing a maraca during his poetry readings. He is often associated with the Shamanistic in literature. He has also had large exhibits of his paintings and made audio recordings on vinyl, cassette tape and CD. He was the lyricist and vocalist in the Ontario band, Luddites, and before that he collaborated with experimental rock group The Mandan Massacre. His work typically ranges from the mystical to the mundane, incorporating humour, a sense of wonder and sentimentality, and political commentary.

In 2006, Nightwood Editions published radiant danse uv being (Jeff Pew & Stephen Roxborough, eds.), a poetic tribute to bissett with contributions from more than 80 writers, including Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...

, Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...

, Lorna Crozier

Lorna Crozier

Lorna Crozier is a Canadian poet and holds the Head Chair in the Writing Department at the University of Victoria....

, Patrick Lane

Patrick Lane

Patrick Lane is an award-winning Canadian poet. He has written in several other genres, including essays, short stories, and is the author of the novel Red Dog, Red Dog.-Biography:...

, Steve McCaffery

Steve McCaffery

Steven McCaffery is a Canadian poet and scholar who was a professor at York University. He currently holds the Gray Chair at SUNY Buffalo . McCaffery was born in Sheffield, England and lived in the UK for most of his youth attending University of Hull. He moved to Toronto in 1968...

, P. K. Page

P. K. Page

Patricia Kathleen Page, CC, OBC, FRSC , commonly known as P. K. Page, was a Canadian poet. She was the author of over 30 published books: of poetry, fiction, travel diaries, essays, children's books, and an autobiography.By special resolution of the United Nations, in 2001 Page's poem "Planet...

 and Darren Wershler-Henry

Darren Wershler-Henry

Darren Wershler aka Darren Wershler-Henry is a Canadian experimental poet, non-fiction writer and cultural critic.A former grave digger, he was the senior editor of Coach House Books between 1997 and 2002, where the works he edited included several highly acclaimed books of contemporary innovative...

. In 2006 he was also featured in an episode of the television series Heart of a Poet

Heart of a Poet

Heart of a Poet is a Canadian television documentary series that premiered in April 2006, created by Maureen Judge and Tina Hahn and executive produced by Maureen Judge. The production is broadcast on Bravo!....

 produced by Canadian filmmaker Maureen Judge

Maureen Judge

Maureen Judge is a critically acclaimed Canadian filmmaker and television producer. Most of her work is documentary and explores themes of love, betrayal and acceptance in the context of the modern family.-Biography:...

.

Further reading

• Bayard, Caroline. (1986). "Bill Bissett: Subversion et poesie concrete." Etudes Litteraires vol. 19 no. 2, 81-108.
• Coupal, Michel. (1993). "Quelques aspects de l'identite culturelle canadienne dans l'oeuvre de Bill Bissett." Annales du Centre de Recherches sur l'Amerique No. 18, 47-54, 360. ISSN 0399-0443
• David, Jack. (1977). "Visual Poetry in Canada: Birney, Bissett, and bp." Studies in Canadian Literature vol. 2, 252-66.
• Early, Len. (1976). "Bill Bissett: Poetics, Politics & Vision." Essays on Canadian Writing vol. 4, 4-24.
• Enright, Robert. (1997). "Composition by feeled the visual art of bill bissett." Capilano Review series 2 no. 23, 105-7.
• Maylon, Carol. (1997). "we ar always on th 401: the use of fiction in bissett's poems." Capilano Review series 2 vol. 23, 113-6.
• Pew, Jeff, and Roxborough, Stephen (editors). (2006). radiant danse uv being: A Poetic Portrait of bill bissett. Nightwood Editions. ISBN 0-88971-210-7
• Precosky, Don. (1990). "Bill Bissett: Controversies and Definitions." Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews vol. 27, 15-29.
• Precosky, Don. (1994). "Self selected/selected self: bill bissett's Beyond Even Faithful Legends." Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews vol. 34, 57-78.
• Twigg, Allan. "bissett, bill" on BC Bookworld.
• Wershler-Henry, Darren. (1997). "Vertical excess: what fuckan theory and bill bissett's concrete poetics." Capilano Review series 2 no. 23, 117-24.
• John Barton and Billeh Nickerson (editors). Seminal: The Anthology of Canada's Gay Male Poets. Arsenal Pulp Press. ISBN 9781551522173

External links

• http://comptessa.wordpress.com/ paintings by bill bissett
• Canadian Poetry Online: bill bissett - biography and 9 poems (a violent prson, they cut back sew much on th backs uv th poor, it usd 2 b, pavlovs dog 1, creem style garish, th kaptin sd he was mercurial, th breth heart uv th world, th futur uv salmon is us, hopra return 2 merlinonda amethyst voices)
• bill bissett's entry in *The Canadian Encyclopedia
• vancouverartinthesixties.com blewointment magazine electronic archive
• answers.com/topic record review