After studying and writing poetry under the guidance of Douglas Barbour at the University of Alberta, in the late 1990s I made my way to the University of Victoria to do an M.A. with Barbour’s long-time sound poetry collaborator Stephen Scobie. I went there to write a thesis on bpNichol and sound poetry and, in my last year there, I decided to publish a small, free literary journal which included sound poetry scores, visual poetry, drama, and criticism.

I’ve only recently realized that there are some real gems in the two issues of Laughing Gland that I published and so I’ve decided to make a pdf of these two issues available here on my blog – download issue 1 here and download issue 2 here.

Issue 1, published in Fall 1999, includes a sound poetry score by Scobie and Barbour called “THE SUKNASKI VARIATIONS: a performance piece for Re: Sounding”:

In all fairness to any readers out there, I should also say that this issue includes some graduate student essays—

Issue two, published in Spring 2000, not only includes a handful of early concrete poems by the very accomplished visual writer Derek Beaulieu and the poet/publisher rob mclennan, but it also includes a previously unpublished sound poetry score by bpNichol titled “BUIK: Glasgow Dialectics” from October 1982:

And hopefully you’ll get a good chuckle out of the other graduate student essays in this issue as well – enjoy!