The Pipe: Recent Czech Concrete Poetry

bpNichol and Jiri Valoch [editors]

The Pipe: Recent Czech Concrete Poetry

Toronto, Canada: Ganglia Press, 1973

[26] pp., 32.5 x 23.5 cm., loose leaves

Edition of 750

bpNichol began grOnk with David UU (David W. Harris) in 1967, as an offshoot of Ganglia Press. The imprint was mostly devoted mostly to visual poetry. A series of sporadic pamphlets and booklets continued under the imprint until Nichol's death in 1988. More than a hundred grOnk items were published, with The Pipe one of the most ambitious (most others were cheaply produced mimeographed and stapled booklets). 

Published as gRoNK series 6, numbers 6&7, and printed at Coach House Press, this collection of Czech poets was edited by Nichol and the poet/artist Jiri Valoch. The collection featured concrete poetry (presented both typographically and photographically) by artists living in Czechoslovakia, with the exception of Ludwig Feller, a resident of West Germany.

Twenty six loose cards of different sizes (one folded) were housed in a cardboard box. The contents include: 

Karel Trinkewitz: "poem-object", "text", "poem-object", "poem-object"

Jiri Valock: "hommage to stockhausen" (1967), "textfragment" (1970), "poem score (random text 1970)", "typewriter poem (1965), "found concrete poem (1970)

Jan Wojnar: "processual poem" (1970), "processual poem" (1970), "processual poem" (1970)

Karel Milota & Jaroslav Koch: "a question and its romantic parasits"

Ladislav Nebesky: "number poem", "number poem"

Ludvik Feller: Untitled, Untitled

 J. H. Kocman: "All written on this page is a poem by J H Kocman" (pictured above)

Karel Adamus:"four variations of poem" (1970)

Jaroslav Malina: "three photopoems"

Jiri Valoch: "air (landpoem - 1970)"

Josef Honys: "poem", "knight-text"

Ladislav Nebesky: Untitled

Produced in an edition of 750 copies, the box is now rare and valued at a few hundred dollars, depending on condition.

This copy was recently added to Micah Lexier's collection, purchased from Monkey's Paw in Toronto.