Bill Bissett (whose name is often not capitalised) is a Canadian poet famous for his anti-conventional style. He was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1939. He attended Dalhousie University (1956) and University of British Columbia (1963-1965), but dropped out of both due to idealism about freedom of artistic expression.
He is known for his use of "concrete sound" poetry, sound effects, chanting, and barefoot dancing during his poetry readings, as well as for incorporating visual elements into poetry on the published page. He has also had art exhibits and made audio recordings.
He moved to Vancouver, British Columbia in 1958, and started the blew ointment magazine in 1963, later launching blewointment press, which has published volumes by B. P. Nichol, Steve McCaffery, Andrew Suknaski, Lionel Kearns and D. A. Levy.
Bill Bissett is now based in Toronto, Ontario.
Published Works
- Th Jinx ship nd othr trips: pomes, drawings, collage - (1966)
- Th gossamer bed pan - (1967)
- Lebanon voices - (1967)
- Where is Miss Florence Riddle? - (1967)
- What Poetiks - (1967)
- Awake in th red desert! - (1968)
- Of the land divine service: poems - (1968)
- Liberating skies - (1969)
- The Lost Angel Mining Co. - (1969)
- S th story I to: trew adventure - (1970)
- Tuff shit: [love pomes] - (1970)
- Why dusint the League of Canadian Poets do sumthing nd get an organizer for cross country poetry reading circuit: [sic] press release. - (1970)
- Blew trewz - (1971)
- Dragon fly - (1971)
- Nobody owns th earth - (1971)
- Ice - (1972)
- Pomes for Yoshi - (1972)
- Th first sufi line - (1973)
- Pass th food release th spirit book - (1973)
- Living with the vishyun - (1974)
- Medicine my mouth's on fire - (1974)
- Space travl - (1974)
- What - (1974)
- Yu can eat it at th opening - (1974)
- Image being - (1975)
- Stardust - (1975)
- Th fifth sun - (1975)
- Venus - (1975)
- An allusyn sic to macbeth - (1976)
- Sailor - (1978)
- Selected poems: beyond even faithful legends (editor) - (1980)
- Northern birds in color - (1981)
- Seagull on Yonge Street - (1983)
- Canada gees mate for life - (1985)
- Animal uproar - (1987)
- What we have - (1988)
- Hard 2 beleev - (1990)
- Inkorrect thots - (1992)
- Th last photo uv th human soul - (1993)
- Th influenza uv logik - (1995)
- Loving without being vulnrabul - (1997)
Critical Publications
- Bayard, Caroline. "Bill Bissett: Subversion et poesie concrete." Etudes Litteraires 19.2 (1986): 81-108.
- Coupal, Michel. "Quelques aspects de l'identite culturelle canadienne dans l'oeuvre de Bill Bissett." Annales du Centre de Recherches sur l'Amerique 18 (1993): 47-54, 360.
- David, Jack. "Visual Poetry in Canada: Birney, Bissett, and bp." Studies in Canadian Literature 2 (1977): 252-66.
- Early, Len. "Bill Bissett: Poetics, Politics & Vision." Essays on Canadian Writing 4 (1976): 4-24.
- Enright, Robert. "Composition by feeled the visual art of bill bissett." Capilano Review 2.23 (1997): 105-7.
- Maylon, Carol. "we ar always on th 401: the use of fiction in bissett's poems." Capilano Review 2.23 (1997): 113-6.
- Precosky, Don. "Bill Bissett: Controversies and Definitions." Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews 27 (1990): 15-29.
- Precosky, Don. "Self selected/selected self: bill bissett's Beyond Even Faithful Legends." Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews 34 (1994): 57-78.
- Wershler-Henry, Darren. "Vertical excess: what fuckan theory and bill bissett's concrete poetics." Capilano Review 2.23 (1997): 117-24.
Other Publications
---, ed. The Last Blewointment anthology. 2 vols. Toronto: Nightwood Editions, 1985-1986.
Source: 100 Canadian Poets
