PennSound Daily (original) (raw)

bpNichol's grave marker (photo by Derek Beaulieu)

September 25th is the thirtieth anniversary of the passing of legendary Canadian multiform writer and performer bpNichol, and therefore an excellent opportunity to reconnect with his work. We're very proud to have counted Nichol among the very first poets to be featured on PennSound, and in the intervening fifteen years, our bpNichol author page — edited by Lori Emerson — has grown into a fascinating collection of artifacts from throughout his tragically foreshortened creative life.

It's a testament to Nichol's diverse interests that there we find work originally released on flexi-disc, LP, cassette, and even floppy disc. That last piece, 1984's "First Screening: Computer Poems" — initially written in Apple's BASIC programming language and converted into a Quicktime emulation in 2007 by a team of poets and media archivists — is a clear highlight of the collection. Another is a series of lengthy recordings (totaling nearly six hours) from Nichol's unfinished magnum opus, The Martyrology, made in 1983 and 1987. You'll find these and many more recordings by clicking here, and don't forget to check out our separate author page for The Four Horsemen. We'd also be remiss if we didn't point you in the direction of the official bpNichol archive, which is a truly marvelous resource.