Acknowledgements

While this book traces the emergence and proliferation of a loose coterie of poets in Canada who sought to transgress the borders between literature and art, between national and international communities, and between art and life, this book also, in its own way, is the culmination—the blurring together—of multiple career stages, geographies, coteries, mentorships, and conditions of labour that I have had the privilege of experiencing in my life thus far. I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to the following persons, institutions, and various programs of support; each has come together to make this book possible.

What I am now calling Borderblur Poetics: Intermedia and Avant-Gardism in Canada, 1963–1988 began in the Department of English at York University. Stephen Cain, chair of my dissertation committee, supported this project at its most nascent stages and saw it through to the very end. His commitment to academic rigour and open exploration gave me the necessary resources and space I needed to become the scholar and poet I am today. Also on my committee was Andy Weaver, among the kindest and most generous thinkers about poetry and poetics, and Lily Cho, whose considerations encouraged me to look more deeply at my work. I am grateful for their assessments of my research. While labouring as a graduate student at York, my work was also buttressed by the generous support and insights of various York faculty members, each of whom, in their own ways, inadvertently or not, shaped what this book has become. In particular, I wish to thank Marcus Boon, Marc Couroux, Marie-Christine Leps, Thomas Loebel, Susan Warwick, Allan Weiss, and Robert Zacharias. Thank you, too, to my external examiner, Peter Jaeger.

I rewrote a significant portion of this book during a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Thanks to Charles Bernstein for his support during this time. I also extend a heartfelt thanks to my dearest friends Martine Tchitcihe and Benjamin Sieff, who showed me such gracious hospitality while living in Philadelphia.

I must also thank poets David Aylward, bill bissett, Judith Copithorne, Michael Dean, Brian Dedora, Claude Dupuis, Paul Dutton, Penn Kemp, Susan McMaster, Andrew McClure, Colin Morton, Gerry Shikatani, and George Swede, and the stewards who care for the works of certain poets discussed here, including Eleanor Nichol, Madame Justice Wailan Low, Adrienne Copithorne, and Ingrid Harris. I am honoured to have their support and trust as I engage with the legacy of this work.

Thank you to the staff at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto for their assistance in accessing materials in their collections, especially John Shoesmith; likewise, thanks to Anna St. Onge for her assistance in the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections at York University. Additional thanks to Tony Power and David Kloepfer at Simon Fraser University Library Special Collections and Rare Books, Sara Viinalass-Smith of Library and Archives Canada, and Claire Sutton at the Ottawa City Archives.

Thanks also to friends and colleagues who supported this project with their time, resources, and attention, especially Patty Argydes, Derek Beaulieu, Gary Barwin, MLA Chernoff, Igor Djordjevic, Kit Dobson, Christopher Doody, Gregory Fast, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Deanna Fong, Kristina Getz, Beatriz Hausner, Karl Jirgens, Max Karpinski, Kyle Kinaschuk, Zane Koss, Aaron Kreuter, Mat Laporte, Jeremy Lucyk, Shannon Maguire, Donato Mancini, Philip A. Miletic, Jay Millar, Julia Polyck-O’Neill, Kate Siklosi, Dani Spinosa, Divya Victor, and Stephen Voyce.

Thanks, too, to my esteemed colleagues Charles Bernstein, Gregory Betts, Suzanne Zelazo, and Myra Bloom for their supportive words that accompanied this book into the world.

It has been a privilege to work with the University of Calgary Press, whose staff treats projects like these with the utmost care and dedication. Thank you to everybody at the press for your patience with me, for supporting this project, and for all the hard work done on its behalf—especially Alison Cobra, Melina Cusano, Helen Hajnoczky, Ryan Perks, and Brian Scrivener.

The work in this book benefited immensely from the significant support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in the form of an SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Doctoral Scholarship. I also wish to acknowledge the support of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program and York University’s Linda Heather Lamont-Stewart Fellowship in Canadian Studies, Clara Thomas Doctoral Scholarship in Canadian Studies, and Provost Dissertation Scholarship. I am grateful, too, to the coordinators of York’s CUPE 3903 Contract Faculty Research Grant.

Thanks to FORUM, Canadian Poetry, and Jacket2 for providing publication venues for certain sections of this work.

Finally, my deepest thanks to Alysha Dawn Puopolo. None of this would be possible without her tireless support and patience, which buoyed me during moments of struggle and permitted me the opportunity to dedicate many long hours, days, weeks, months, and years to this work.