Written by one of his friends and confidants, a close reading of bpNichol’s poetry aka bpNichol is the biography of the major Canadian poet bpNichol, who was a practising lay psychoanalyst and vice-president of one of the largest and longest-lasting communes in North America for more than a decade. Though he died at the young age of 44, Barrie Nichol was internationally influential as a visual poet and sound poet. Nichol authored the multi-volume The Martyrology , one of the most substantial long poems of the 20th century; four novels; two musical comedies; six children’s books; hundreds of hand-drawn visual poems; and 10 episodes of Fraggle Rock . Written by Frank Davey, one of Barrie’s numerous literary collaborators, aka bpNichol reveals the close connections among Nichol’s various activities, and includes a close reading of Nichol’s poetry. Davey examines how the autobiographical inquiries and Freudian dream analyses linked with the young Nichol’s biographical self-awareness, ultimately producing a writer whose main psychoanalytic client had become his own writing, and who could explore its slips, accidental puns, “unintended” meanings, and implications for the communal future of the human species both in high literature and the comic forms of prime-time television. “[Davey] acquaints the reader with the many facets of Nichol’s work and personality without eviscerating them academically.” — Dragnet Magazine “Less a full biography of Nichol’s life than Davey’s detailed study of the autobiographical dimensions of his poetry, aka bpNichol … is an important reference work for present and future generations.” — Globe and Mail Frank Davey is a widely published author and literary critic. He has taught at York University and the University of Western Ontario, where he held the Carl F. Klinck Professorship in Canadian Literature. He is most recently the author of When Tish Happens: The Unlikely Story of Canada’s “Most Influential Literary Magazine.” Aka bpNichol A Preliminary Biography By Frank Davey ECW PRESS Copyright © 2012 Frank Davey All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-77041-019-0 CHAPTER 1 Birth, Death, and Life, 1944–48 The 'i' is me and isn't me. — Nichol in Niechoda, A Sourcery, 178 At Vancouver's mock-Tudor Grace Hospital in late September 1944, the birth of Glen and Avis Nichol's fifth child, soon to be named Barrie Phillip, was apparently uneventful. The hospital photographer took the routine photo and inserted it into a small folder that bore a sepia engraving of the hospital. In a few days the newborn's mother would paste both folder and photo into a "baby book" and record his weight (9 pounds, 14 ounces) and length (22 inches). Under "Remarks" she would whimsically write that she didn't need to remark, that of course she and the rest of the family thought he was wonderful. On the next page she recorded the gifts he had received and commented that he'd done really well, especially considering that he was the family's fifth child. This was bpNichol's first book, and like quite a few others it would be unfinished. Avis's final health entry — on the fourth page — reported that he'd received his first vegetables at four months; several earlier lines, including the one for when he received his first "solid food," she left unfilled. Although the book allowed a parent five years of narrative, almost all of the remaining pages were also left blank, and with them their spaces for when baby first crawled, walked, or talked. Such barely begun baby books are not unusual. New parents — especially ones with other children — have numerous demands on their time. In the Nichols' case three other children vied for their attention — their eldest, Donna, born in Saskatoon in September 1933, had died at six weeks, much to Avis's continuing distress. Then had come Bob in 1935, Don in 1937, and Deanna in 1940. Their day-to-day well-being was mostly their mother's responsibility. Deanna recalls that their father, like many Canadian men of his time, understood his main family duty as the bringing home of a paycheque. He worked in the freight department of the Canadian National Railway, and was regularly promoted and transferred, under company policy, to a different city approximately every four or so years. To refuse a transfer was to refuse the promotion. The family had started out in Saskatoon, where Donna, Bob, and Don had been born, moved to Regina in 1937, to Port Arthur (now part of Thunder Bay) in 1939, and to the working-class Vancouver suburb of Burnaby in 1941. Avis thus did not have a large number of local friends, although her mother, now a widow, did live with them in Burnaby for part of the war years. Two cousins, with whom she enjoyed outings, also lived nearby. Years later Barrie would hint in his novel Journal that he believed that he may not have been a "wanted" child. While this usage of "want" implies an exaggeration, it does seem unlikely that he was planned. With