By Jeremy Colangelo
bill bissett is one of Canada’s most prolific poets,
having published nearly one book per year since the mid-1960s. His
style, in speech and writing, has been imitated by numerous others, and
his impact on Canadian poetry has been great enough that, in 2006,
Nightwood Editions published a tribute to his work which included pieces
by some of the country’s most respected authors. In the same year he
was the subject of an episode of the television series
Heart of a Poet.
Writers and artists like Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen and George
Bowering have expressed their admiration for his work, which continues
to be published to no less acclaim than ever.
But in 1965 none of these things were true. At the time, in fact,
bissett had published no books, and was an utter unknown in Canada’s
literary community. It was lucky, then, that the young bissett had
managed to make the acquaintance of
Milton Acorn — at the time one of Canada’s most well known poets.
“Milton created the first time I ever got published,” said bisset,
referring to a poem called “The Body.” “Milton bought the first painting
I ever sold in my life.”
Though their styles were extremely different — Acorn writing in
sparse, Imagist lines, with bissett’s production being much more
“florid” (as he would later describe it) — the two writers had become
friends, and had agreed to produce a book of poetry together. The
project was meant to respond to the Vietnam War, which both were
against, and their very different writing styles were largely the point
of the book, as they were supposed to demonstrate how two very different
sensibilities could coexist within the same text, how “two very
different people could still love each other,” as bissett told me. The
result was a manuscript of poetry and artwork called
I Want to Tell You Love.
Acorn took the manuscript and tried to leverage his literary
connections to get it published, but after six months of rejections,
almost all the result of the poets’ dissimilar writing styles, they gave
up. bissett would publish his first collection of poetry on his own in
1966. While the poems from the collaboration were printed in magazines
and anthologies, the manuscript would languish among bissett’s papers in
the York University Archive and with Acorn’s papers at the Canadian
National Archives.
“I think,” said bissett, “that there’s a spell in people to look for
things that are more homogeneous [...] but I think that in today’s world
it would be more accepted.”
It is the acceptance of “today’s world” that
Eric Schmaltz,
a Master’s student in the English department at Brock University, is
depending on in order to publish his Major Research Project — a
re-edited version of the manuscript, ready for publication. Schmaltz is
no newcomer to the Canadian poetry scene. A poet himself, Schmaltz has
for several years been the curator of the
Grey Borders Reading Series
in St. Catharines, Ontario. bissett performed at the series’ inaugural
reading in 2010 alongside Phil Hall, Catherine Owen and Terry
Trowbridge. It was here that Eric met bissett for the first time, having
been introduced by Gregory Betts, a poet and an English professor at
Brock who is currently Eric’s faculty advisor on the project. The
conversation eventually turned to the old manuscript, and the remaining
possibility of getting it published.
“I have had the privilege,” Schmaltz told me, “to work with and receive training from a scholarly community called
Editing Modernism in Canada,
which consists of the best scholars, graduate students, and editors in
the field — including Dean Irvine, Zailig Pollock and Smaro Kambourelli,
among many others.
“I am writing what will become a critical introduction [...] [that]
will tell readers the story of the collaboration and offer perspective
on a piece of important Canadian literary history that has been
displaced.”
Eric and bissett have collaborated on the project as closely as
possible, but the lengthy period between the collection’s production and
its re-editing has made the work more difficult. In our interview,
bissett lamented his inability to remember the poetry he wrote in any
specific detail, saying that he was looking back on them through “a
Pre-Raphaelite haze” — though he was able to remember much of its
composition and a few of Acorn’s pieces. Since then, he and Eric have
visited the York University Archive to look up the manuscript, but the
difficulties involved in reconstructing a nearly 50-year-old project
persist. Still, bissett was able to remember a great deal about Acorn,
who died in 1986, as was eager to reminisce about their friendship:
“He [Acorn] would talk a lot, he would smoke amazing cigars, he would
conjure, he would think of many amazing things. [...] The university
people didn’t like him so much and he didn’t like them so much. They
didn’t understand his socialism; he lived closer to the bone.
“I liked him enormously.”
The current project is quickly becoming a mirror image of its
predecessor. In 1965, bissett’s literary reputation was minimal, and the
book would have been published largely through the strength of Acorn’s
reputation. Though Acorn remains relevant, it is bissett who is now the
acclaimed contemporary writer, and it is the prospect of a “lost bissett
collection” which is responsible for the buzz it is generating in
Canada’s literary community. Likewise, bissett’s position in the new
partnership is the reverse of the old. Now it is
he who is the
older, more experienced writer working with a younger poet with a less
extensive literary reputation. However, the two partnerships have more
in common than just the manuscript. Just as Acorn and bissett worked
together out of friendship and mutual respect, the same is true for
bissett and Schmaltz.
“I consider bill to be a dear friend,” said Schmaltz, “he is one of the nicest and most generous people I have ever met.
“I am absolutely grateful to have the privilege to work on this
project, and to have bill to talk to about it and to learn from.”
Though there is still much work to do before the collection can be
published, bissett’s assessment of the industry may be right, and the
manuscript may yet escape the archives. Publication would be
vindication: proof that Acorn and bissett, though their styles were
discordant, could still write in harmony.
Jeremy Colangelo is an author and journalist living
in St. Catharines, Ontario. His work has been published, or is upcoming,
in several magazines, including
The Dalhousie Review,
Steel Bananas and
The Incongruous Quarterly,
and he has published two chapbooks of poetry with Grey Borders Books.
Jeremy has an degree in English and History from Brock University. He is
currently working on a novel.
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Andreas Gripp has left a new comment on your post "lost Acorn-bissett manuscript being resurrected!!!...":
though Bissett's not my cup of tea, Jack Kerouac, in a 1968 interview with the Paris Review, said "You know who's a great poet? ... Bill Bissett ..." When the interviewer said "Let's talk about Jack Kerouac," Jack replied "He's not better than Bill Bissett, but he's very original."
Posted by Andreas Gripp to Riffs & Ripples from ZenRiver Gardens at 12 September 2013 16:28
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Hi Eric,
This is cool beyond belief!!!! I was friends with both Milt & bill - lots of stories, most true (Milt & I were comrades in the Canadian Liberation Movement - CLM - ca 1973-75, then friends, short term housemates at my 185 Rhodes Avenue house - Milt would boast that we were 'Rhodes scholars'! - & bill published my first legit CanPo collection with his blewointmentpress in 1981 (Unacknowledged Legislator). Lots of other overlaps in our lives & poetic callings (it's long been my contention that Milt, Al Purdy, & of course bill are/were shaman). But it's a discovery to me how Milt was the early promoter of bill's work. All this info will make an incredibly important addition to our Gedenkschrift on Milt!
I've taken the liberty of posting the OBO piece on my blog. The blog is widely read by fans & supporters of People's Poetry, & it gets an average of 100 hits a day. I've cross posted one or 2 other OBO pieces before, without problem. It's my belief that CanPo is so currently under appreciated that any publicity benefits all involved.
Oh man ...
peace & poetry power!
Chris ... & Chase Wrfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff!
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Groovy, baybee!
Cheers,
Karl
jirgens@uwindsor.ca
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