Written in his unique phonetic language, bill bissett’s second novel-poem, hungree throat, recounts the relationship of two men – one bold and unafraid, the other burdened by terrible memories and unable to trust. We witness ten years of a shared life marked by hunger “4 breething being singing eeting digesting speeking saying food kissing watr love.”

bill bissett
originalee from lunaria ovr 300 yeers ago in lunarian time
sent by shuttul thru halifax nova scotia originalee wantid 2
b dansr n figur skatr became a poet n paintr in my longings
after 12 operaysyuns reelee preventid me from following th
inishul direksyuns
?bill bissett
bill bissett garnered international attention in the 1960s as a pre-eminent figure of the counterculture movement in Canada and the United Kingdom. In 1964, he founded blewointment press, which published the works of bpNichol and Steve McCaffery, among others.
bissett’s charged readings, which never fail to amaze his audiences, incorporate sound poetry, chanting and singing, the verve of which is only matched by his prolific writing career?more than seventy books of bissett’s poetry have been published.
A pioneer of sound, visual and performance poetry?eschewing the artificial hierarchies of meaning and the privileging of things (?proper” nouns) over actions imposed on language by capital letters; the metric limitations imposed on the possibilities of expression by punctuation; and the illusion of formal transparency imposed on the written word by standard (rather than phonetic) spelling?bissett composes his poems as scripts for pure performance and has consistently worked to extend the boundaries of language and visual image, honing a synthesis of the two in the medium of concrete poetry.
Whether paying tribute to his hometown lunaria or exercising his native tongue dissent, bissett continues to dance upon upon the cutting edge of poetics and performance works.
bill bissett was recently a featured poet on the Heart of a Poet series, produced in conjunction with Bravo! TV.
Among bissett’s many awards are The George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award (2007); BC Book Prizes Dorothy Livesay Prize (2003) peter among th towring boxes / text bites; BC Book Prizes Dorothy Livesay Prize (1993) inkorrect thots.

bill bissett's profile page

“an oddity even by bissett standards, not because of its content but because it purports to be a narrative … Loosely speaking, it’s the tale of two new lovers, ‘howard n brian,’ and the setting is domestic, but even so their encounters, dialogues, and interior monologues shine with the golden light of bissett’s illumination. Which, by the way, is capable of transforming even the most banal thought into poetry.”
– Georgia Straight

“…an interesting and intriguing reading/viewing of the struggles of coming to terms with, and visualizing, a tumultuous world and ‘how we feel abt unsirtintee.’”
– Canadian Literature

“…plays with connections and tensions between images and language by weaving together drawings, visual poems, lyric poems, and prose while telling the story of the relationship between two gay men through several stages of their lives. In classic bissett style, the short sections are written in phonetic rather than grammatical English and often integrate discussions between the characters on meditation, metaphysics, and the challenge of overcoming fears, traumas, and disappointments. The spiritual, Zen-like focus of the book adds to the salience of the psychedelic images and weaves them into the narrative. … noteworthy, especially for bissett’s mesmerizing images and their interactions with the language surrounding them … an interesting and intriguing reading/viewing of the struggles of coming to terms with, and visualizing, a tumultuous world and ‘how we feel abt unsirtintee.’”
– Canadian Literature

“... bissett’s illumination...is capable of transforming even the most banal thought into poetry.”
– Georgia Straight