Bill Bissett Biography

Canadian poet, born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, educated at Dalhousie University and the University of British Columbia. In addition to his activities as a writer and publisher, chiefly with the Blewointmentpress, Vancouver, from 1963 to 1983, Bissett has worked in a wide variety of occupations. His idiosyncratically experimental poetry, which has appeared in some sixty books since Th jinx ship nd othr trips (1966), is characterized by phonetic spellings, lower case typography, and a tenacious philosophical and political radicalism. His betterknown publications include nobody owns the earth (1971), MEDICINE my mouths on fire (1974), Plutonium Missing (1978), canada gees mate for life (1985), and hard 2 beleev (1990). His deliberately restricted vocabulary confers an emphatic primitivism on the monosyllabic nouns and verbs that dominate his work. Selected Poems: Beyond Even Faithful Legends appeared in 1980.