Martyrology Book 6

bp Nichol

• Editore: Coach House Books
• Anno: 1994
• ISBN:
  9781770561397

'All of Nichol's work is stamped by his desire to create texts that are engaging in themselves as well as in context, and to use indirect structural and textual devices to carry meaning. In The Martyrology different ways of speaking testify to a journey through different ways of being. Language is both the poet's instructor and, through its various permutations, the dominant 'image' of the poem. The [nine] books of The Martyrology document a poet's quest for insight into himself and his writing through scrupulous attention to the messages hidden in the morphology of his own speech.' – Frank Davey

Book II

A BOOK OF HOURS

for Michael Ondaatje

Hour 1

10:35 to 11:35 p.m.

met a physic

on the road

asked him

so it is with journeys one is drawn

alert to the moment’s movement in this room

language is the inside of the head or

the mouth opens

i feel that

comparisons between various earthly states

i do not like (as in bad grammar)

i.e. i don’t do it like (for purpose of comparison (comparidaughter))

visions of poetry

First Saint: Who was that?

Second Saint: Last night?

February 11th

1979

a pen still marks time

pursues the same

insight out

(difficulties of the journey ~ records of dead friends -- Frank this year - Carl & Mark so long ago - others ahead? - the seasons - coincidences of nature & the mind)

this time everything rhymes

a bullet in the head &

a broken heart

art?

i’m just rolling

track 79

the old straight line

narrative

to the deep north

the wood door too

turning into a wall

what is

‘the easy way out’?

definition of electric poetry: ‘He’s just plugging in!’

definition of a collection of electric poetry: ‘He’s just plugging along.’

art: do you have to ‘like’ it?

what changes the world is

the world changing

simple ideas

(it would be nice, for instance, if everybody really did love one another i.e. no more of this sentimental bullshit, idealizing of the thighs, breasts, cock, etc. of the beloved)

on the other hand - what about ‘realism’?

(for ‘realism’ read ‘negative sentimentality’)

as if everything depended on

the little brown stool

yuko - the temporary, changeable element

jitsu--the substance

kyo - the essence

Nikko

March 30th 1689

lodged in an inn at

the foot of

the mountain

(wrote poems)

Nichol

February 11th 1979

mounted on his foot at

the in stant

dis lodged

(writing poems)

290 years of past tense

(approximately)

jitsu -- kyo -- ryuko

continuing the search for

absolute moments of

existence

‘let me get this straight’

kyo-ryuko-jitsu

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF...

...clutching the panting saint to his heaving breast. ‘What is the secret?’

he gasped.

Saint Orm grabbed his arm &, twisting around, threw him over his hip onto the floor. ‘This is the secret!’ he snarled.

various faces in the shrubbery

various voices crying to get out

this is

the human condition -- we’re

all looking for

release

a kiss dream build i (me)

give to a on

which is the poem

the hour

rotation of the earth

relative to the sun

‘I have an houres talke in store for you’

(William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar) which is to say

i have put it away

behind me

a translation only

no conclusions no

the number of lights still on in the apartment building across the way is less than when this poem began

24 or so then

now 8

‘the hour is getting late’

‘its nice to finish something

on time!’

Hour 2

2:35 to 3:35 p.m.

‘temperature irregularly high recently’

‘he’s in heat’

Here

in this too (paper)

is the parcel of hours:

the poems.

relax

into yourself

no images at all

some awareness of neural activity

these are the daily do...