A Beepliography and a Cerebration

Stamps and Markings on the Envelope Encasing a Copy of the Announcement for A Beepliographic Cyclopoedia (5 Sep 2006)

bpNichol, by name alone, is an inspiration for little dbqp, which doubles his first two initials to suggest the ineluctable visuality of written language.

But there was so much more to the man. He created a huge range of work in his too-short 44 years on earth: visual poems, textual poems, sound poems, digital poems, fiction, essays, TV scripts, comics, theory—and probably much else that I’m forgetting. He was a living breathing machine of creativity, and he continues to serve as encouragement to so many. Nichol I never knew, but I had vicarious contact to him during his life. I will always be touched to know that he had a few kind words to say about a few published visual poems of mine—glad that he had the chance to see them, appreciated them, and thought to pass on the word to someone who dropped me a line. When bp died so young on the operating table, I was shocked by the loss, but what remains so unbelievable to me is how much he produced in his thunderous blink of a life.

One of the great bp aficionados—and maybe the greatest—is jwcurry, an otherstream writer and editor who has spent the last three decades working on a bibliography of bp’s (or “beep’s”) work. I’ve seen parts of curry’s collection circling him in his old apartment in Toronto, and it is a huge collection: deep and broad. I even contributed a tiny bit to the it: a print-out of the computer code to Nichol’s early collection of digital poems, First Screenings.


jwcurry, “1: please barrie with me” from Announcement for A Beepliographic Cyclopoedia (5 Sep 2006)
(Click on Image for a Readable Copy)
After laboring for so many decades on his bibliography of beep, curry is now preparing to begin, in mid-October, the typing of 26 copies of this work of insane scholarship. This opening to curry’s note puts the project in perspective.


jwcurry, “6: as if all weren’t enough” from Announcement for A Beepliographic Cyclopoedia (5 Sep 2006)
(Click on Image for a Readable Copy)
Anyone living near Toronto might want to attend at least part of jwcurry’s “cerebration” of bpNichol, which will consist of a multi-day reading of bpNichol’s multi-volume Martyrology.


jwcurry, “6: as if all weren’t enough” (cont.) from Announcement for A Beepliographic Cyclopoedia (5 Sep 2006)
(Click on Image for a Readable Copy)
The cerebration is so large that it continues into another image.


jwcurry, Donation/Order Form for A Beepliographic Cyclopoedia (5 Sep 2006)
(Click on Image for a Readable Copy)
Finally, curry gives all of us a chance to participate. We can prepay for a copy of the Beepliography for C$3,000, or we can simply give a donation to the cause. This might be of the weirdest and greatest publishing event you ever get the chance to take part in.

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My thanks to the bpNichol fan and minimalist poet, endwar, who sent me a digital copy of the announcement he received from jwcurry. He made today’s posting possible.

ecr. l’inf.