jwcurry

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jwcurry (John Curry) (born 1959) is an avant-garde Canadian poet, publisher, and bookseller.

Contents

[edit] Influences

Curry literally grew up under the influence of bpNichol, that Canadian author who most represented twentieth-century avant-garde. He began reading Nichol’s micropress GrOnk when he was about 15, and that experience appears to have influenced both curry’s writing and his publishing. Even curry’s chosen form for his name echoed the outré capitalization practices of bpNichol and other early concrete poets.

[edit] Work

Curry’s literary output includes visual poetry, sound poetry, and minimalist textual poetry with a definite avant-garde streak. This work mirrors, but also extends, the adventurous creativity of Nichol himself. Curry has worked in many different modes of poetry (textual, visual, and aural). His visual poetry itself has appeared in many different styles: as collage poems, hand-drawn poems, typewriter poems, serigraph poems, all manner of poems—save for any created with computers. His visual poetry, no matter the form it takes, is always carefully executed. One of his most productive, but little recognized, literary forms has been the personal letter. For many years, curry was a prolific letter writer who corresponded with dozens of poets across the globe. In these letters, he shared his demanding criteria for good poetry and his views on the endeavor of micropublishing.

Curry formally began publishing in Toronto in 1979 under a wide variety of imprints, but most of his micropublications form part of the Curved H&z publishing venture. Curvd H&z is well known for its 1cent series, which includes leaflets, cards, and sometimes small booklets—each for sale for only a cent. His Industrial Sabotage publishes all manner of experimental poetry in wildly imaginative formats. Each issue is somehow thematic, though curry develops the theme based on the material he receives (which he might hold for years until he finds the right issue for a particular piece). His rarely seen Spudburn is a magazine that consists of individual works handwritten by the authors and released in tiny editions.

Curry’s publishing focuses on extravagantly ambitious and impeccably produced micropublications. Most of these publications he prints with small rubberstamp kits, forcing himself to focus usually on tiny poems, but he also has used silkscreening, photocopying, mimeography, and even photo-offset printing to varying degrees. One of his most famous publications is Headz & H&z, a boxed anthology of poetry he edited with Michael Dean and released in 1985. The cover of the box is silkscreened, and the contents consist of a vast array of individual pieces (one a paper plate) upon which curry has printed individual poems. In this way, curry provides just the right environment for the presentation of each poem.

As a bookseller, curry releases occasionally catalogs through his Room 302 imprint. A determined collector of experimental Canadiana, curry uses his catalogs to highlight the works of individual writers. Taken together, curry’s publishing and his bookselling operations serve as serious documentation of underground experimental literature, especially in Canada.

For the past number of years, curry has focused almost all of his energy on producing a complete bibliography of the work of bpNichol. Exhibiting the obsessive tendencies of all of curry’s work, this bibliography has as a goal to include all the published work of Nichol (books, articles, and ephemera) and all published mentions of Nichol. This project represents curry’s respect for Nichol’s work as an artist and his love for him as a friend.

[edit] Alter ego

One form of curry’s artmaking takes is that of an invented alter ego named Wharton Hood, putatively a Canadian poet who lived near curry. Hood had his own set of correspondents, used a completely different handwriting than curry, and appeared in curry’s letters as a local character curry could not quite control. This alter ego was the supposed editor of Utopic Furnace Press—a press that published only found work—even though curry served as the publisher of the venture. Curry has produced a limited edition of Hood’s incoming and outgoing correspondence, in which Hood often criticizes many other writers, including some of his frequent correspondents. This collection serves as documentation of the art being named Wharton Hood and as glimpse into curry’s thinking. In recent years, curry has revealed the truth about Wharton Hood, even giving the occasional reading in which he alternates between curry and Hood.

[edit] Life

Curry had three children with the poet Peggy lefler: qaani, jana, and mlina lore, the children bearing a separate surname from either of their parents. In the 1990s, curry spent a few years in the romantic pursuit of riding the rails as a modern-day hobo on Canada’s intercontinental rail system. In 1996, he and lefler split up, and curry moved to Canada’s capital city, Ottawa, where he continues to publish and to give often dramatic poetry readings.

[edit] Publications

  • curry, jw and Michael Dean, eds. "Headz & H&z." Toronto, Curvd H&z, 1985.
  • "& Points in between." [Weston, Ont. : CURVD H&Z], 1980.
  • "THESE." Toronto: Underwhich Editions, 1981.
  • "DEVELOPING LANGUAG." Toronto: Utopic Furnace P, 1982.
  • "EXPOSURE." Toronto: Ganglia P, 1982.
  • "logical sequence #16." Toronto: ComaGoats P, 1982.
  • "Reflecting on the war." Toronto: Curvd H&z, 1982.
  • "The Science and Technology Department is located on the second level." Toronto: Utopic Furnace P, 1982.
  • "body OF DOG." Toronto: Curvd H&z, 1984.
  • "CHOSHK." Toronto: Utopic Furnace P, 1984.
  • "THE CONCRETE TELL." Toronto: Dancing Mandible P, 1984.
  • "curryafterlabaafterspicer." Toronto: NO GUFF STUFF, 1984.
  • "44." San Francisco: Score, 1985.
  • "Qaani lore." Toronto : Unfinished Monument Press, 1985.
  • "0123." np: Guardian Angel P, 1986.
  • "ill airport." np: Guardian Angel P, 1986.
  • "in the portrait of her." North Vancouver: Silver Birch P, 1987.
  • "jack Nr.729a." Toronto: Guardian Angel P, 1987.
  • "a mo(nu)ment for bp Nichol." Toronto: 1cent, November 1988. Oakland: Score, 1989.
  • "Nelinski in Toronto." Toronto: Guardian Angel P, 1988.
  • "a node to d.a." North Vancouver: Silver Birch P, 1988.
  • "House of Cards." Port Charlotte: Runaway Spoon P, 1989.
  • "LAND IS DOWN." Toronto: Curvd H&z, 1989.
  • "PLEASE HELP JOHNNY COAX THE COWS HOME." Toronto: Room 302, 1989.
  • "8th tower circuit evolving 8." Toronto: Nietzsche's Brolly, 1990.
  • "Advertisement." Toronto: 1cent, 1990.
  • "The Basmajian Variations in A (minors)." Toronto: 1cent, 1990.
  • "FRAGMENT." Trans. Lillian Necakov. Toronto: Curvd H&z, 1990.
  • "jobotem fortl raken." Toronto: Nietzsche's Brolly, 1990.
  • "night freight." Stratford: 1cent, 1990.
  • "STIGATION." Toronto: Nietzsche's Brolly, 1990.
  • "THE STORY OF O." Toronto: Nietzsche's Brolly, 1990.
  • "warm drizzle." Schenectady: dbqp, 1990.
  • "THE CARDBOARD JUNCO." Toronto: Contra Mundo P, 1991.
  • "GUITAR." Victoria: fingerprinting inkoperated, 1991.
  • "light is slight." Victoria: fingerprinting inkoperated, June 1991. & Montréal: fingerprinting inkoperated, 1991.
  • RE: VIEWS RE: SPONCES. Port Charlotte: Runaway Spoon P, 1991.
  • "saying nothing." Montréal: fingerprinting inkoperated, 1991.
  • "untitled." Toronto: Nietzsche's Brolly, 1991.
  • "VIDEO HELL." Montréal: fingerprinting inkoperated, 1991. Victoria: fingerprinting inkoperated, 1991.
  • "WINN." Victoria: fingerprinting inkoperated, 1991.
  • "two poems." Toronto: fingerprinting inkoperated, 1993.
  • "a photograph for Lance." Toronto: 1cent, 1994.

[edit] References

[edit] See also