CLASSIFICATION
Swallow ID:
5358
Partner Institution:
Simon Fraser University
Source Collection Label:
Reading in BC Collection
Sub Series:
Reading in BC Collection
ITEM DESCRIPTION
Title:
bp Nichol interview with Pauline Butling on November 13, 1986 part 2 of 2 #749
Title Source:
cassette and j-card
Language:
English
Production Context:
Documentary recording
Genre:
Interview
Identifiers:
[]
Rights
Rights:
Copyright Not Evaluated (CNE)
CREATORS
Name:
Nichol, Barrie Phillip
Dates:
1944-1988
Role:
"Speaker"
Name:
Butling, Paulina
Dates:
1939-
Role:
"Interviewer"
CONTRIBUTORS
MATERIAL DESCRIPTION
Image:
Recording Type:
Analogue
AV Type:
Audio
Material Designation:
Cassette
Physical Composition:
Magnetic Tape
Storage Capacity:
T02:28:00
Extent:
1/8 inch
Track Configuration:
2 track
Playback Mode:
Stereo
Sound Quality:
Excellent
Physical Condition:
Good
Other Physical Description:
Black and white clear jewel case with J-card
DIGITAL FILE DESCRIPTION
Channel Field:
Stereo
Sample Rate:
44.1 kHz
Duration:
T00:45:39
Size:
43.6 MB
Bitrate:
32 bit
Encoding:
WAV for master files and .MP3 for online files
Channel Field:
Stereo
Sample Rate:
44.1 kHz
Duration:
T00:45:37
Size:
43.6 MB
Bitrate:
32 bit
Encoding:
WAV for master files and .MP3 for online files
Dates
Date:
1986-11-13
Type:
Performance Date
Source:
J-card
LOCATION
Address:
[Nelson, British Colombia, Canada?]
Latitude:
49.4931
Longitude:
-117.2907
CONTENT
Contents:
Side Track No. Comments
One 009 Side One begins mid-anecdote by Nichol about giving a copy of Craft Dinner to his father (to whom the book is dedicated)
054 Nichol comments on his father attending a reading of his poetry
083 Butling re-asks the question about structure (see tape #748) and how the 6 books of The Martyrology interact
089 Nichol is not working with a thematic structure; but is working with similar themes that recur in The Martyrology
112 Nichol – discusses “Imperfection of Prophecy”, “In the Plunkett Hotel,” The Continental Trance as self-contained ideas; The Book of Hours and structure, “Inchoate Road”
144 Butling asks about the circular structure of The Book of Hours as a deliberate structuring. Discussion ensues about the form of meditation as a circle and The Book of Hours requiring no closure
181 Butling: How are you consciously involved in form or are you?
188 Bp Nichol cites “In the Plunkett Hotel” as an “in/from” structure that grew from the idea, whereas a more perceptual piece emerges as Nichol writes it and that dictates form, “Inchoate Road”
215 Butling: You have to make choices about what you are writing, what is the basis for those decisions?
223 Nichol responds that it is the play and the subjects that are arising that dictates form. What is the piece about? It is a piece of thinking, and he is trying to make the thinking cohere while not being obvious about it. Possibilities present themselves: some discussion this
256 Butling suggests that as soon as The Martyrology begins to deepen that it immediately goes back to surface
259 Nichol says that is a conscious choice because statemental voice is too obvious and he would rather make a leap to something else. It is a working out of ekstasis, not giving a person his vision in a narcissistic sense, but giving the person an experience of vision
289 Then he will cut to the didactic voice as a relief or a release from the other voice. This becomes musical pacing as sometimes he will say something rather than show it for the rhythm of the poem
290 Nichol on Ondaatje’s “Billy the Kid” poem as an example of this
311 Bp Nichol explains that he is primarily led by the ear, and then led visually
314 What about morality? Butling asks
339 Nichol complains that much writing becomes a panacea, that writers used to pretend that they were more in control than they were, that literature presented an idea of life being utterly controllable. Discussion of Robert Duncan, Robin Blaser, Charles Olson in this vein
386 Nichol explains a notion he is working on; that which is unsignable, not because of a failure on the author’s part, but because it lies outside the range of that which is signable (linguistic-signed)
395 He wants to use the medium of that which is written to talk about that which is unwritable. He elaborates on presenting an essence, the blank page, not as a blank book, and putting the readers into the frame of mind where they will look at the page in a certain way
405 Diversion into bp Nichol’s expression “real mysteries”
423 Nichol’s experience as a therapist and structures and systems that function for individuals; the self as multiple consciousnesses. Pataphysics and “Probably systems”
457 Butling senses absence in Nichol’s early work;’ questions if this is outside the self (Book 1 and 2)
459 Nichols discusses alienation from the self as a reason why he was in therapy
470 Writers would create personas as a solution to absence, suggests Nichol
479 Nichol’s mistrust of adjectives – all they say is the noun is weak
486 The pun works like reference, it opens up additional worlds – pun provides multiple chords, like music, which becomes a “packing the noun”
502 Nichol discusses the alienation of the self and title The Martyrology, and Books 4, 5 and 6
511 Nichol takes on the Christian subtext in “really seriously”
516 Nichol says The Martyrology attempts to work out a “no gimme” relationship to the concept of God. He wants a relationship to God that does not include the notion of heaven, in which he “gets nothing for it”
530 In the work there is also a tension of looking at that sense of loss historically and at the same time attempting to embrace
539 Nichol says that life is in the present, a notion that connects with other ideas in The Martyrology of the dailiness of living and the argument with history
543 Nichol’s favourite word in The Martyrology is ‘now’. A discussion ensues regarding the philosophy of living in the present
560 Nichol: The goal of high modernism gets us into trouble because it is to live beyond the moment
568 Nichol says, “popular poetry” will talk of this tradition of the 20th century modernists in a way that is antithetical to world peace. Nichol’s provisional solution is to make the work of art something that has history in it, but that also has the absolute reading of the moment in it
Two 008 Side 2 begins. Nichol on fluid structure as counter to the high modernist notion that art is eternal
015 Butling & Nichol discuss the contradiction between the argument with systems and structure that there isn’t any one, but may; but still giving a structure, creating a work that will live beyond the artists
039 Nichol argues that it should not be presented as a prescription, but to present things side by side: statement/non-statement, concreteness/abstraction, coherence/incoherence oscillating within the same structure
065 The Martyrology becomes a model of an approach to poetics
122 Nichol: The minute I die [the structure’s] fixed… I want to revise my will so that it’s really obvious the thing should be published in its state, it shouldn’t be cleaned up
142 Butling wants to talk about politics as an issue for Nichol partly because it’s an issue for Phyllis [Webb]
159 Nichol sees his work as political but not in the sense of an Octavio Paz or Pablo Neruda. Discussion ensues on Barthes, politics in art, and a Puritan approach; comments of Robert Kroetsch
196 You have to have an imagination of difference, of a possibility of difference in the world, because Nichol cannot see the isms we have as working
200 The problem with even talking about this [political solutions to complex if not insoluble problems] is that it begins to sound like a justification for it. The analogy with talking about Americans’ ignorance of Canadian writing
227 The problems begin in the mind and how people formulate problems and solutions – Nichol
245 On deconstruction, concrete poetry not leading to chaos or dead ends; concrete poetry seen as ‘barbarism’, to take Louis Dudek’s terms. Nichol discusses Dudek’s hostility to concrete poetry although realizing the use by Nichol’s generation of his own work
270 Modernism as failure in proposing a permanent coherence; Nichol on Pound’s Cantos
365 Nichol and Butling begin to review Nichol’s “The Grace of the Moment” (The Martyrology Book 6, VI) to examine what choices are open to him. Poem beginning “The Grace of the Moment” is discussed, referencing Nichol’s work process as it pertains line by line to this work
423 Nichol’s choice for words will be that which keeps as many meanings in the air as possible
439 The Martyrology as a piece of music; the first time through you will hear certain things, the second time through certain others. Discussion continues line by line on “The Grace of the Moment” to end of tape
580 Side 2 ends
Notes:
SFU BC Readings formatting
NOTES
Type:
General
Note:
BP Nichol interviewed by Pauline Butling
November 13, 1986
(Nelson, B.C. ?)
side 1: 44:30
side 2: 44:30
DOLBY B
part II
#749
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