St. Ink: Selected Poems

Billy Little

"Over the past three and a half decades Billy Little has been an important unit in the west coast writing scene. Poet, collector, critic and bookseller, he's the ballpoint that stirs the coffee. He's also my personal model in matters sartorial." --George Bowering

Alias, disguise and comic misdirection have always been the tools of the guerrilla poet, Billy Little. In his public persona of Zonko, he was known as the most frequent reader at the Vancouver anti-war rallies of the 1970s. He claims to be the illegitimate son of poets Paul Blackburn and Diane Wakoski, but he has also claimed to be a Buddhist lesbian. He was born in any case in New York City in 1943, an early blooming baby boomer, and received his early education there. He read his first poem at a family gathering at the age of 11, and says he has been hooked by the attention he received ever since.

He was in the U.S. military from 1960 to 1963 and is an ardent anti-militarist today. He was a board member of the St. Mark's Poetry Project in its very early days. He went from college in New York City to the State University at Buffalo, where he joined forces with the New American Poets of the first and second generation in a poetry project which is still on-going. He claims as friends, mentors, and sometime collaborators the North American poetry luminaries Joel Oppenheimer, Anne Waldman, Ted Berrigan, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Robin Blaser, John Barth, Jack Clarke, Robert Hogg, Michael Davidson, Bob Hass, Eddie Kissam, Fred Wah, George Butterick, and John Wieners. In other words, he's really been around in the world of North American poetry.

Since his arrival in Vancouver in 1973, he has lived a life of constant and productive service to the Vancouver communities of poets. Octopus Books was legendary in the 1970s as a poetry venue in the city. Although he has never been a fame-seeker, his influence as a bookseller, poetry savant, publisher, organizer, poet and performer is pervasive on the west coast. For the last several years, Billy has been living on Hornby Island, an idyllic island off the coast of mainland British Columbia, home to many artists and writers.

The poets who have written in the tributes section of this volume are only a few of Billy's wide friendship and acquaintance among Canadian poets. This volume was organized by some of these friends in tribute to his indefatigable activity on behalf of poetry and poets here.

St. Ink: Selected Poems
Billy Little
7 x 9, 100pp
ISBN: 978-0-9810122-1-6
$16

According to Brueghel

George Bowering

With a bow to William Carlos Williams, Bowering's chapbook - one of the 2006 twelve -- addresses iconic artworks.

According to Brueghel
George Bowering
8.5 x 5.5, 40pp
ISBN: 978-0-9810122-0-9
$12

Beautiful Lies

Edward Byrne

Deliberate and cold blooded was the murder committed yesterday afternoon, when the young life of Miss Ethel Kinrade, daughter of T. L. Kinrade, 105 Herkimer Street, was the victim of an assassin, be he sane or insane. It was a young life sacrificed for the wrong instincts which had been created in the mind of the murderer. It was a crime which is unparalleled. Miss Florence Kinrade, sister of the dead girl, and the only witness to the tragedy, gave the police a very good description of her sister's assassin. The man is supposed to have left the house through a side window as soon as he had done the shooting. How he could have made his escape so successfully in the middle of the afternoon, in a thickly populated district and on a very much travelled street, is a feature which is puzzling the police.
- Hamilton Herald Feb 26 1909

We are dealing with an extremely neurotic family who are linked together to support each other's stories . . . No matter who committed the murder, Florence Kinrade is a moral imbecile, probably a defective personality, cunning, childish and impulsive.
- Dr. C.K. Clarke, notes taken March 1909

Aug. 14. I am writing this on the high balcony of the Asylum at Hamilton (Ontario, Canada). The city is spread in full view before me. (Is there not an escaped patient? I see a great commotion - Dr. W. and several attendants, men and women, rushing down the cliff). - A dark, moist, lowering forenoon; balmy air though; wind southwest.
- Walt Whitman's Diary in Canada, Boston, 1904.

Beautiful Lies
Edward Byrne
6 x 8, 80pp
ISBN: 978-0-9810122-3-0
$15

Open Text: Canadian Poetry in the 21st Century (Vol.1)

edited by Roger Farr

Contributors: Oana Avasilichioaei, Marie Annharte Baker, George Bowering, Rob Budde, Louis Cabri, Peter Culley, Jeff Derksen, Jon Paul Fiorentino, Maxine Gadd, Claire Huot & Robert Majzels, Larissa Lai, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Donato Mancini, Jamie Reid, Darren Wershler, Lissa Wolsak, and Rita Wong.

All the contributors have appeared as part of the ongoing Open Text Reading Series hosted by the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University and supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Writers Union of Canada, and the English Department at Capilano. The Open Text anthology aims to support, document, and broaden innovative cultural practices in Canada

Open Text: Canadian Poetry in the 21st Century (Vol.1)
Ed. Roger Farr
6 x 8, 120pp
ISBN: 978-0-9810122-2-3
$16

Counterfeit

Christine Leclerc

Counterfeit illuminates a poetic landscape populated by an absurd cast of characters. Whimsical, poignant, and often metaphysical, the poems leap boldly from screenplay to lyric to prose. Christine Leclerc is a true original.

Counterfeit
Christine Leclerc
6 x 8, & pp
ISBN: 978-0-9810122-4-7
$15