[189] dear Captain Poetry

Not sure if this is as a poem about poetry, a poem about poets, or a poem about
love (and various approximations thereof). Maybe it's all the above. Or none.
Whatever. I like it anyway, so here goes...

dear Captain Poetry,
your poetry is trite.
you cannot write a sonnet
tho you've tried to every night
since i've known you.
we're thru!!
       Madame X

dear Madame X

Look how the sun leaps now upon our faces
Stomps & boots our eyes into our skulls
Drives all thot to weird & foreign places
Till the world reels & the kicked mind dulls,
Drags our hands up across our eyes
Sends all white hurling into black
Makes the inner cranium our skies
And turns all looks sent forward burning back.
And you, my lady, who should be gentler, kind,
Have yet the fiery aspect of the sun
Sending words to burn into my mind
Destroying all my feelings one by one;
   You who should have tiptoed thru my halls
   Have slammed my doors & smashed me into walls.

       love
       Cap Poetry

    -- bpNichol

from 'The Captain Poetry Poems', 1971.
Note that the occasional misspellings are intentional.

Before embarking on a dissection of this poem, you might want to read this brief

[Biographical Note]

bpNichol [real name: Barrie Phillip Nichol - t.] was one of Canada's most
challenging and innovative poets. His writing spans a remarkable range -- from
concise allegories on a single letter, on through to sound poetry, fiction,
theoretical investigations and culminating in his nine-volume poem The
Martyrology. Nichol's curiosity and his care of language provoke his readers to
embark on their own explorations into the language frontier.

Nichol died in 1988.

[Deep Analysis Begins Here]

Before anything else, I have to say that I just love the concept of Captain
Poetry - defender of the weak, protector of the poor, and guardian of our poetic
frontiers - the world needs more superheroes like him.

This is actually a rather mild poem for Nichol - not as outre as some of his
work, nor as overtly experimental. Perhaps that's the reason why it's also one
of his more popular ones - innovators constantly have to tread the thin line
between accessibility (and public acclaim; after all, even poets have to eat)
and originality.

But I digress. Back to the poem, folks, back to the poem.

The surface of today's poem is obvious enough; what's interesting (and what I
like about it, and about Nichol's poems in general [1]) is the host of self- and
meta-referential questions it raises about the Nature Of Poetry. I'm not going
to go into detail about every little hint or teaser he's thrown in, but do note
in passing the echoes of Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas and Thom Gunn. Understated,
but nice.

thomas.

[1] though again, how can you _not_ like a poet who populates his world with
characters named St. Orm and St. Ranglehold [2]? Or who titles a book 'Not what
the Siren sang, but what the Frag ment'?
[2] both from 'The Martyrology', Nichol's greatest work.

[Links]

Check out some examples of Nichol's visual poetry at
http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/bpnichol

[Trivia]

In the late 1960s, Nichol was part of a performance poetry group called the Four
Horsemen. A documentary about this group, titled 'The Sons of Captain Poetry',
was made in 1971 by no less a personage than Michael Ondaatje. So now you know.