bpNichol

These days when someone says bp, most people think oil spill, but it wasn’t always so. 

There was a time when people I ran into who knew or knew of bp would invariably smile at the mention of his name because they would recognize or remember the sense of wonder and whimsy and pathos and humour as well as the seriousness with which he seemed to approach the world and his work, the things he did with words or letters that we all wished we had thought of doing, or the generosity of spirit that informed everything he did.

And then there was a time that these same people’s faces would reflect their own sadness at the sudden loss of bp from our world in 1988 just before his 44^th birthday.

It is hard to know where to begin when talking about bp’s work.  I just pulled out a small stack of books from one of my poetry shelves, leaving a fairly large gap between Neruda and Nowlan, and looked through them.  There was the small paperbound copy of THE TRUE EVENTUAL STORY OF BILLY THE KID, which won the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry in 1970 along with Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (the same William Bonney who was almost pardoned last week), and which Lol and I bought for $1.50 on our first ever visit to Coach House Press in the spring of 1972.  A couple of years later we picked up the wonderful box of treasures labeled bp the cosmic chef: an evening of concrete, winner of the same award in 1971, and there are the lovely Martyrology volumes and assorted other books of delights from over the years. 

I remember the poetry session Warren T. organized at Cecil Green House at UBC (maybe it was the fall of 1970) where bp sang “I dreamed I saw Hugo Ball” and all I could think of was that was the kind of thing you should be able to play on juke boxes everywhere, and Warren called him Canada’s greatest poet (sharing the honours with George Bowering who was also there), and nobody present seemed to think of arguing the point, even though Irving Layton was back in Montreal proclaiming the same thing about himself.

About ten days ago I walked with an old friend and his new friend from Kensington Market to bpNichol Lane to buy a couple of books from Coach House and to see bp’s poem from EXTREME POSITIONS that was inscribed in the Lane.  The only other time I had seen it was in the summer of 1997, and someone had filled the words with water that time so that they reflected both the sky and the meaning of the poem itself.  This time there were dead leaves inside each letter, so I borrowed a broom from inside and swept them all clean.  It was a small tribute to a poet who mattered then and matters now.

There is lots you can find if you want more of or about bp.  There’s an excellent anthology (it’s important to remember that anthos is Greek for flower) called An H in the Heart, there’s plenty to be explored in the online archive here, and there are video clips of performances (this one from Poetry in Motion has bp leading the Four Horsemen) to be found here.

Go.  Explore.  Enjoy.

Or just look at this one:

 counting the ways

     love
     love
     love
     love
     love
     love
     love

     love

     love

     love

________

   1 love