The first volume of bpNichol's magnum opus, begun in 1967 and continuing until the poet's death in 1988. The text in this volume is a facsimile of the 1977 edition of Books 1&amp;2.

The Martyrology: Books 1 and 2

Literature & Fiction

Nichol, B. P.

Poetry

Coach House Books

What Matters: Writing, 1968-70

Marlatt, Daphne

Contemporary

Hartog's first collection of poetry is a marvellous, luminous book from a writer with a sure wit, an abundance of feeling and a profound sense of the absurdity and rightness of life. Winner of the 1983 Pat Lowther Award.

Matinee Light

Hartog, Diana

Surfaces of Sense (Quebec Translations Series)

Brossard, Nicole

Mauve Desert

De Lotbiniere-Harwood, Susanne [Translator]

Literary

Diana Hartog writes as if she has been prying open a nest of animal dreams all the beasts in this bestiary have been caught without their shells on. The writing is sly, charming, wicked and funny. Every once in a while, Hartog catches you off guard by injecting an element of pain that leaves you breathless. Stung. This book should not be read while bathing in honey. Read first. Bathe second. The order is imperative. Polite to Bees will tell you why.’ Timothy Findley
'With grace, compassion, humour, with a deft imagination and exquisite language, Diana Hartog has made a lovely contribution in one of the most delightful literary genres that exists. This bestiary is the work of a master sorceress, and the animals she’s conjured have the capacity to teach us all a lesson or two about the ways of humanity.’ Bradford Morrow
’Marvellous tact informs these animations, which arise from our natures and compose wild pedagogies of the imagination.’ Sharon Thesen

Polite to Bees

The Brick Reader

World Literature

'All of Nichol’s work is stamped by his desire to create texts that are engaging in themselves as well as in context, and to use indirect structural and textual devices to carry meaning. In The Martyrology different ways of speaking testify to a journey through different ways of being. Language is both the poet’s instructor and, through its various permutations, the dominant 'image' of the poem. The [nine] books of The Martyrology document a poet’s quest for insight into himself and his writing through scrupulous attention to the messages hidden in the morphology of his own speech.’  Frank Davey

Ad Sanctos: The Martyrology Book 9

Nichol, BP

It is the early 1970s in Haiti. A shy adolescent boy, raised in a devout family of women, gets mixed up in a misunderstanding at the Macaya Bar in Port-au-Prince's Zone Rouge. Terrified that he has become a target for the Tontons Macoutes - Duvalier's feared and hated secret police - he searches desperately for somewhere to hide. There's really only one place where no one will think to look for him: right across the street at Miki's house, an environment totally at odds with the hushed, careful atmosphere of his own home. Miki and her girlfriends are the most irrepressible, beautiful and daring young women in Port-au-Prince. Now he finds himself spending a fateful few days among them, listening in on their conversations and observing their escapades and affairs. It is a weekend filled with self-discovery, and he returns home a changed person, one for whom life holds no more secrets.

Dining With the Dictator

LAFERRIÈRE, Dany

United States

A personal meditation on the world of literature challenges current perceptions that restrict how individuals read, giving book lovers permission to skip pages, re-read, read aloud, take their time, and more. IP.

Better Than Life

PENNAC, DANIEL

History & Criticism

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