Small Press Canada Wikia

## **Small Press Canada Wiki**

The small press in Canada: who they are and what they publish(ed).

This wiki is intended to be an open forum for people to post details about Canadian small presses, and add in anecdotes, stories, bibliographies, indexes, etc, as the spirit moves them.

**Pages**:

The List of Small Presses in Canada

The List of Small Press Fairs and Festivals in Canada

About the Small Press in Canada

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## General Overview and Introduction

Whether you date the explosion of Canadian small press publishing from *The Sunset of Bon Echo* (Bon Echo, Ont., 1916-20), *Le Nigog* (Montreal, 1918), or the *McGill Fortnightly Review*
 (Montreal, 1925-27), or even earlier, by the 1960s the handmade
chapbook, the mimeographed magazine, and the illustrated broadside had
become common publishing venues in writing communities across Canada.
These are the markers of the small press revolution that dramatically
reorganized publishing in this country. The most significant impact was
the establishment of an alternative to the hierarchical, sales-driven
models of commercial literary publishing.

In the small press movement, writers took
charge of all aspects of publishing from editorial selection to design
and distribution. While economically unstable, the commensurate escape
from the dictates of the marketplace triggered a
 rapid acceleration of experimentation. Writers used the unique freedom
of the small press to test new styles and push the boundaries of form
and content. The transformation of Canadian letters this freedom
engendered was dramatic and palpable: indeed, many of the (loosely
defined) first generation of Canadian small pressers, such as Irving
Layton, Leonard Cohen, Margaret Atwood, John Robert Colombo, and Michael
 Ondaatje achieved broad international acclaim for projects started and
developed in small press Canada.

Within
 the country, the models of publishing and dissemination developed by
early small pressers, especially through such little magazines as Contemporary Verse, First Statement, and Preview from the 1940s, were imitated and developed by dozens of magazines in the 1960s and 1970s through to the present. Though many of the small press publishing houses that emerged alongside the rush of magazines collapsed, such as the very influential Contact Press, others such as the Coach House Press and the House of Anansi Press continue publishing to this day. The movement continues to spread and there are now fairs, festivals and reading series in many Canadian cities catering
specifically and exclusively to small press authors and publishers. With
 a complex history of hundreds of presses and magazines since the 1960s,
 the small press has become a distinctly literary subculture that spans
the country and touches (or has touched) nearly every writing community
in its midst.
While
 many authors use the small press to develop their voices and hone their
 talent at the beginning of their careers, and subsequently move on to
medium and large presses, others prefer the aesthetic freedom and
marginal “outsider” cultural position of the small press.
Internationally renowned experimental poets Barrie Nichol, also known as
 bpNichol, and Bill Bissett (who consistently uses the lower case bill
bissett) have also created a genuine avant-garde front within the small
press environment that completes the transformation of publishing from a
 fundamentally economic endeavour to an unfettered and radical literary
lifestyle. In this context, the book no longer simply frames or stages
the real literary content between its covers but becomes indelibly
intertwined with the art work itself. Similarly, the role of publisher
becomes indistinguishable from the role of the artist. bissett, with his
 blewointmentpress (founded in 1963), and bpNichol, with Ganglia Press
 (which he started with David Aylward in 1965), intentionally blurred
the borders between art and life. Using whatever technology was at their
 disposal, they published experimental and eccentric writing in
experimental and eccentric book objects: some books were stapled,
 others folded, others sewn, and others perfect-bound; some were
handwritten, others typed, rubberstamped, or printed using Letraset
(transferable lettering). The physical labour involved and the
thoughtfulness and beauty of each literary object remain a hallmark of
the small press movement.

Though
 they were, in Nichol’s words, “kids of the book machine,” many projects
 by early experimental small pressers left the conventionally-defined
book behind altogether. Poems appeared on t-shirts, pillows, business
cards, or postcards and were published in boxes, envelopes, or
otherwise. Nichol composed poems on “thought balloons” that could be
blown-up and worn attached to one’s head – transforming the “reader”
into a cartoon character “thinking” the poem and thereby becoming a
participant in creating the art event. As this example suggests, design
became an integral part of the content, ideally dissolving the boundary
between form and content, and blurring the difference between the inside
 and the outside of a text. Such an approach produces a vortex of
playful energy that encourages witty ingenuity, creative design, and the
 realization of complex aesthetic theory in tactile objectivity.
In
 this unconventional publishing we witness an avant-garde desire to
transform the institution of book-making into an art-full lifestyle. If
the success of an aesthetic initiative can be measured in terms of its
contribution to literature rather than merely by its financial
achievements, the small press has been hugely successful: indeed, the
small press has become the largest publisher of poetry in Canada. Many
avant-garde small pressers, such as Nichol and bissett, and others such
as Ottawa poet and proprietor of CURVD H&Z, John W. Curry (also known as jwcurry), Toronto poets Stuart Ross and Nicky Drumbolis, and Nelson Ball’s Weed/flower Press,
 have individually published more (and often better) Canadian poetry
than most of the publishing houses in the country. Not sold by corporate
 chain bookstores, the works are difficult to find and often disappear
quickly. Reprints and second editions are rare. In light of this
potential erasure, library and archival collections have become one of
the few safeguards against the total dispersal and loss of small press
experimental ephemera.

[Source:

☀http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca/case-study/rise-small-press-movement-canada]

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