Ian Hamilton Finlay | The Boy's Alphabet Book

Ian Hamilton Finlay

The Boy's Alphabet Book

Toronto, Canada: Coach House Press, 1976

60 pp., 19.7 x 20.3 cm,, softcover

Edition of 1000 copies

According to materials in the archives at the University of Iowa, this title took over five years to produce. Ian Hamilton Finlay sent three letters in 1971, seeking help in publishing the book. He wrote to Michael Harvey, Udo Breger, and bp Nichol. 

Nichol replies in June 1973 that Coach House Press may be interested in publishing the book, and follows up a month later indicating that things are moving forward. He acknowledges receipt of the manuscript and photographs (Dave Paterson) in November 1974. It would be another two years before the slim volume was produced. 

The title was advertised as "one of the lengthiest works to date by the internationally renowned poet Ian Hamilton Finlay. The extended form of the traditional primer allows full range for the demonstration of Finlay's abilities as craftsman, toymaker and word-shaper.”

The work consists of an A-Z of pictures of Finlay's model boats, airplanes, weapons and kites, accompanied by texts by the legendary artist and poet. The texts range from the poetic to the merely descriptive. 

The book features photographs from Dave Paterson and was edited for the press by bp Nichol. This copy was initially owned by artist Greg Curnoe and is now in the collection of Bill Clarke. 

George Bowering | Baseball: A Poem in the Magic Number Nine

George Bowering

Baseball

Toronto, Canada: The Coach House Press, 1967

[24] pp., softcover

Edition of 500

Subtitled A Poem in the Magic Number Nine, this "book-length poem" is bound in green felt-like wrappers to mimic a sports team pennant. 

The title was reissued by Coach House Books thirty six years after this original publication in 1967 (see below image). 

Bowering's other baseball titles include Poem & Other Baseballs (Windsor, Black Moss, 1976), Taking the field (Red Deer, RDC Press, 1990), Baseball Love (Vancouver, Talonbooks, 2006) and The Diamond Alphabet (Toronto, BookThug, 2011). He is also the author of a memoir about Greg Curnoe. 

"From its remarkable design to its effervescent language, George Bowering1s ode to the beautiful game is as original as it is funny, as bittersweet as it is playful. A long-out-of-print Coach House classic, originally published in 1967, Baseball weaves together mythology, autobiography, literary history and pop culture into an inimitable book-length poem that explores all the nuances of the sport. Here are all the greats: Mantle, DiMaggio, Maris, Williams and Manuel Louie, shortstop for the Wenatchee Chiefs, their exploits captured in passages of off-kilter, occasionally melancholy, lyricism. Gar Smith1s enchanting and ingenious design has also been preserved; the book, complete with green velvet-flocked covers, is shaped like a pennant that, when unfolded, forms a diamond.

A long-time utility player, Bowering (our Homer?) has written books in many different genres and was recently named Canada1s first Poet Laureate. Baseball is a tantalizing glimpse of the writer at the beginning of his illustrious career; a real curveball of a book that will dazzle literature and sports fans alike." 

- Publisher's blurb

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.

Coach House Press/Books 50th anniversary

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Coach House Books, with "the voices behind the books", here:

https://soundcloud.com/user-200872392/50-years-of-coach-house-books

12 Hour Reading of bpNichol's The Martyrology

bpNichol's best known work, the life-long poem The Martyrology is a work that encompasses 9 books in 6 volumes. As an unofficial part of Nuit Blanche tonight, a twelve hour reading of the work will take place at the Church of St. Stephen-in-the-Fields from 6pm to 6am.

In an introduction to the work in in Michael Ondaatje's 1979 Long Poem Anthology, Nichol suggests that "an ideal reading would be one which begins with 1) The Martyrology, but then dips into Journeying & The Returns, Scrapture and The Captain Poetry Poems along the way, much as one might read earlier history to gain a better appreciation of a particular period. This is a notion only, a tentative map". AvantGarden use this as a jumping-off point for their reading and rewriting of the work, featuring dozens of readers, including a few open mic sections between 11pm and 2am.

Also on site, a pop-up bookstore featuring works by many of the readers and a selection of titles from the Coach House Press and BookThug. Readers include bill bissett, Margaret Christakos, Jay MillAr, Charlie Huisken, Maggie Helwig, Jenny Sampirisi, Shannon Maguire and many more.

For more information, see the Facebook page, here.

On Sunday our on-again, off-again publishing venture The Nothing Else Press will participate in the Mercer Union Small Press Book Fair event. We'll have editions available by Jonathan Monk, Paul Butler, Alex Snukal, David Shrigley, Karen Azoulay, Micah Lexier, Colleen Savage, and Kelly Mark. And free Yoko Ono buttons.

Coach House Press, Paul + Wendy Projects, Bywater Brothers and many others will also be there.

The event runs from 10am to 5pm on August 11th, at 1286 Bloor Street West (a block from Lansdowne subway station). Admission is pay-what-you-can, with a suggested donation of $2.00.

For more information, visit Mercer Union's site here.

Coach House Books Sale

For the next week, all titles published by Coach House Books before 2006 are available, via the website, at a 50% discount.


The long list of titles, available here, includes books by bp Nichol, Derek McCormack, George Bowering, Steve Reinke, Christian Bök, Brian Joseph Davis and many others.