Description
Book SynopsisFinding Nothing explores the eruption of avant-garde writing in Vancouver that re-invented the culture of the city in the second half of the twentieth century.
Trade Review"Finding Nothing is an excavation site for a special moment in Canadian poetic history." -- Ron Verzuh *
The Ormsby Review *
"Many scholars will find Finding Nothing especially valuable for its informational and bibliographical content. Detailed lists of ephemeral little magazines and literary publishers, tabulations of contributors to the major periodicals, a fulsome index, and an appended glossary of ‘Intermedia and Transdisciplinary Groups’ further enhance this landmark study of a transformational phase in Canada’s cultural history." -- Carole Gerson, Simon Fraser University *
The Canadian Historical Review *
“It is difficult to characterize Finding Nothing as anything less than a singularly important critical monograph that likely sets the terms of discussion in the field of Canadian avant-garde studies to come.” -- Scott Inniss *
Canadian Literature *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Finding Nothing When American Literature Moved to Vancouver Finding Nothing (or, the Avant-Garde Flowering that Was the 1960s) The Problem of Nothing: A Short Interlude on the Theory of the Avant-Garde The VanGardes 1. 1–19 Thoughts on TISH, 1961–1969 (A Document of Response) 2. The Birth of Blew Harmony: Aristotle, Olson, and Vancouver, 1959–1963 Disharmony: Bissett, Collage, and another Vancouver, 1959–1983 The End of Categories: The Vancouver Litter-rary Collage 3. Blew Collage At the Margins of the Garde Blewointment Collage into Canada Literature into Collage (in Vancouver) 4. A Line, A New Line, All One: Variant Narratives of Concrete Canada The Concrete Liturgy Canadian Concrete Other Narratives of Concrete Poetry Judith Copithorne on Vancouver Concrete Coda: The Visual Roots of the Alphabet 5. The Triumph of Surrealism: Magick Art in Vancouver Vancouver Deformance The Surreal West Coast Precursors and Early Forays: Surrealism in Vancouver Canadian Literary Surrealism Super-natural British Columbia: From Lawren Harris to David W. Harris Post-revolutionary Surrealism The Colour of My Dreams 6. Performing Proprioception: The Birthing Story as Public Discourse 7. Avant Now and Then: Locating the Post-Avant Hegemony and the Single Riot Haling Taxi! Locating the Post-Avant Neruda, Chile, and Further Disenchantments Conclusion: “we stopped at nothing” Finding Nothing in the Avant-Garde Archive List of Figures Appendix A: Warren Tallman Elegy Apendix B: Concrete Poetry Appendix C: Glossary of Intermedia and Transdisciplinary Groups Appendix D: Letter to the Editor of the Georgia Straight Works Cited
