grOnk magazine, fifth series: issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 (part 7)

In honour of the exhibit “Letters: Michael Morris and Concrete Poetry” and the accompanying symposium on concrete poetry hosted by the University of British Columbia’s Belkin Gallery, I’ve digitized the fifth series of grOnk magazine (issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8).

I’m afraid most of these pieces are undated, including the newsletter (“END OF AUGUST GIANT grOnk MAILOUT”) which accompanied the package of grOnks bpNichol mailed out along with the first four issues of this fifth series as well as the fourth issue of the fourth series, David Aylward’s “WAR AGAINST THE ASPS.” Most fascinating to me about the newsletter is the brief editorial by bp that appears on the second page which makes the argument, once again, for how most of the wonderful oddities and ephemera published by Ganglia Press as part of grOnk magazine were intensely invested in the materiality of writing, publication, as well as a kind of distribution that acted much like a social network does today: it attempted to connect an international community of like-minded readers/practitioners as quickly and immediately as Canada Post could deliver the mail-outs.

The first issue of the fifth series (pdf here) – also the second issue of the other journal project, synapsis, bp was involved in – is titled the “runcible spoon special CANADIAN international number.” It includes small, typewritten poems and prose by Paul Dutton, Hart Broudy, Nicholas Zurbrugg, Scott Lawrence, Andrew Suknaski, bpNichol, Barry McKinnon, Gary Fogarty, Belgian writer Ivo Vroom, Dezso Huba, and Dave Phillips.

The second issue (pdf here) features “a reduced & somewhat modified version of an early section” from Steve McCaffery’s tour de force typestract, Carnival. This is the only place I’ve seen McCaffery describe Carnival as a “random purpose construct at present of an unspecified size” whose total idea is “for a phonetic semantic allegory.”

The third issue (pdf here) is a small, stapled booklet of minimalist typewriter poems, Wourneys by David Aylward:

The fourth issue (pdf here) is Something in by Martina Clinton, who Nichol describes on the back-cover as “one of the foremost radicals in the early stages of the Vancouver poetry Renaissance.”

The fifth issue (pdf here) is, as Nichol puts it, “an attempt at integration and keeping in touch…..consisting of this special one shot issue devoted entirely to new notes and featuring excerpts from books mentioned plus a peek at coming attractions.”

The sixth issue (pdf here) is a tiny, funny booklet (that progresses from back to front) simply titled “CAT” with cartoon-like sketches of “cat from behind” (appearing on the back-side of the first page, it is as if the booklet is the cat, moving from position to position), “cat from side,” etc.

The eighth issue (pdf here), “REGARDEZ LA REVOLUTION en MARCHE: a collection of documents from France” consists of two double-sided sheets of poster-sized paper, folded in half and stapled. It is, I assume, a record of some of the street-based poetry work that was being done throughout 1968 and it includes a fascinating announcement by Juliene Blaine that the “Night and Day Awakeners” have decided “1) to give up the book and its family: record, tape, photograph, film, etc 2) to give up the object and its family: painting, sculpture, machinery, environment, etc 3) to give up the show and its family: theatre, circus, event, happening, etc…and to apply to reality the new methods of transformation formerly situated at the language level.”

loriemerson

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