Contents

List of Figures

I   INTRODUCTION

1  Gregory Betts and Christian Bök

Time for the Avant-Garde in Canada

II  PROLOGUE

2  Lisa Robertson—The Collective

3  Liz Howard—Against Assimilation I Rose into Poetry

III  THE CENTENNIAL

4  Kristine Smitka—The Sublation of Obduracy: Nationalism and the Avant-Garde Marketing of Beautiful Losers

5  Stephen Cain—“A Vision in the UofT Stacks”: bpNichol in the Library

IV  CONCRETE POETICS

6  Julia Polyck-O’Neill—Words With(out) Syntax: Reconsidering Concrete Poetry: An Exhibition in Four Parts

7  Mike Borkent—Post/Avant Comics: bpNichol’s Material Poetics and Comics Art Manifestos

8  Eric Schmaltz—A Field Guide to North Concrete: Identification Chart

9  Kelly Mark—National and Time

10  Kaie Kellough—Continents

V   LANGUAGE WRITING

11  Michael Roberson—Transformation or Resistance: The Kootenay School of Writing in Context

12  Kit Dobson—A Poetics of Neoliberalism

13  Dorothy Trujillo Lusk—Sleek Vinyl Drill

14  Erín Moure—Pillage 12 (“Anaximenes”)

15  Donato Mancini—If Violence (Hey You)

VI   IDENTITY WRITING

16  Myra Bloom—Messy Confessions: Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be?

17  Sonnet L’Abbé—Erasures from the Territories Called Canada: Sharpening the Gaze at White Backgrounds

18  Leanne Betasamosake Simpson—caribou ghosts & untold stories

19  Lee Maracle—Bobbi Lee, Indian Rebel

20  Annharte—cum cum how cum dat cums around even from behind

VII   COPYLEFT POETICS

21  Katie L. Price—A ≠ A: The Potential for a Pataphysical Poetics in Dan Farrell’s The Inkblot Record

22  Darren Wershler—Everyday Practice Before and After Conceptual Writing

23  Derek Beaulieu—Prose of the TransCanada

24  Moez Surani—1988

25  Dani Spinosa—Anxious Influence: Reading John Cage Theoretically

VIII   EPILOGUE

26  André Alexis—On Amanda PL’s Cancelled Exhibit

27  An Interview with Jordan Abel—A Line Can Be Drawn

IX  AFTER MATTER

Notes and Acknowledgements

Bibliography

About the Authors

Index