breth presents both new and selected poems from legendary Canadian sound, visual, and performance poet bill bissett. bissett’s innovations have shaped poetry, music, painting, and publishing and have stimulated, provoked, influenced, shocked, and delighted audiences for half a century. This new collection, bissett writes,

“shows sew manee threds thru poetree n langwage btween n thru lyrik sound song vizual narrativ non narrativ his her storikal naytur humour sexual romantik politikul metaphysikal spiritual fuseyun th pickshur image in th lettr th shape uv th lettr in th drawing line orchestrating th needs 4 caring n heering n being with each othr all th drama uv all uv us lerning why n how creating thru art n th bizness uv life a much mor free n equitabul societee b r e t h contains manee storeez uv being ther n getting ther n uv th love uv art n each othr th sharing times n th losses in our journeez 2 b helping each othr n th planet erth nobody owns n thru art manee ways uv lifting ourselvs with kleen watr erth fire n air n love ths b r e t h is abt thees adventurs uv sharing physical being n love spiritual n touching th manee ways art poetree can take us byond th gift n prison uv self in2 th manee worlds in n uv ths beautiful galaxee n ourselvs uttring th sounds in th images n lettrs n lettrs 2 manee passing comets n ourselvs spin th reel dreem xchanging love 4 love our manee selvs on fire our gifts 2 each othr n ourselvs that evreewun has enuff ths time uv th sun n th lite in th dark touch th sun in time with joy n sorrow lerning n unlerning langwage n poetree can show we join with ourselvs n each other.”

This volume, the largest in bill bissett’s publication history, includes more than a hundred illustrations and visual poems, many of them appearing in print for the first time, as well as a foreword by fellow poet Tim Atkins (author of Folklore and On Fathers ), a bibliographical “a r c h i v e,” and an index of poem titles.

bill bissett
originalee from lunaria ovr 300 yeers ago in lunarian time
sent by shuttul thru halifax nova scotia originalee wantid 2
b dansr n figur skatr became a poet n paintr in my longings
after 12 operaysyuns reelee preventid me from following th
inishul direksyuns
?bill bissett
bill bissett garnered international attention in the 1960s as a pre-eminent figure of the counterculture movement in Canada and the United Kingdom. In 1964, he founded blewointment press, which published the works of bpNichol and Steve McCaffery, among others.
bissett’s charged readings, which never fail to amaze his audiences, incorporate sound poetry, chanting and singing, the verve of which is only matched by his prolific writing career?more than seventy books of bissett’s poetry have been published.
A pioneer of sound, visual and performance poetry?eschewing the artificial hierarchies of meaning and the privileging of things (?proper” nouns) over actions imposed on language by capital letters; the metric limitations imposed on the possibilities of expression by punctuation; and the illusion of formal transparency imposed on the written word by standard (rather than phonetic) spelling?bissett composes his poems as scripts for pure performance and has consistently worked to extend the boundaries of language and visual image, honing a synthesis of the two in the medium of concrete poetry.
Whether paying tribute to his hometown lunaria or exercising his native tongue dissent, bissett continues to dance upon upon the cutting edge of poetics and performance works.
bill bissett was recently a featured poet on the Heart of a Poet series, produced in conjunction with Bravo! TV.
Among bissett’s many awards are The George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award (2007); BC Book Prizes Dorothy Livesay Prize (2003) peter among th towring boxes / text bites; BC Book Prizes Dorothy Livesay Prize (1993) inkorrect thots.

bill bissett's profile page

"It’s easy to forget that breth looks back on over 60 years of creative output, when it also offers such a wellspring of energy for the future."
—Hamilton Arts & Letters

"bissett is philosopher, comedian, Canary in the coalmine. His is a voice that is important, as urgent as sustaining breth."
—Heidi Greco,The Ormsby Review

"[bill bissett is] that rarest of literary figures: a countercultural icon who continues to compel and confound."
—The Toronto Star

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"This volume is a joyous occasion ... a chance for new and old readers to survey bissett’s vast oeuvre."
—Canadian Literature

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"Immersed in breth, one would be hard pressed not to succumb to the sensation described in ‘dragon fly,’ when the poet writes that ‘all / air waves at once sound in [the] ear.’"
—Jim Johnstone, Poetry Northwest

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"It’s easy to forget that breth looks back on over sixty years of creative output, when it also offers such a wellspring of energy for the future."
—Hamilton Arts & Letters

~||~

"bissett is philosopher, comedian, Canary in the coalmine. His is a voice that is important, as urgent as sustaining breth."
—Heidi Greco,The Ormsby Review

~||~

"[bill bissett is] that rarest of literary figures: a countercultural icon who continues to compel and confound."
—The Toronto Star

“This volume is a joyous occasion ... a chance for new and old readers to survey bissett’s vast oeuvre”
—Weldon Hunter, Canadian Literature