Bill Bissett

            I spent the early part of Tuesday working on my review of Linda Stitt’s salon. When it was time to get ready to go to class I copied my review on a flash drive and took my laptop with me.

            The strange coincidence of every Tuesday this year being wet continued. It had rained most of the day but fortunately there was nothing coming down on my way to school.

            When I got to the classroom I had more than half an hour to finish my review and it was almost done by the time George Elliot Clarke arrived.

            George handed out our essay topics for the final project, plus the instructions for those of us who choose to instead submit a poetry manuscript. He’d changed the prose requirement of the poetry project to four pages from three. He also specified that we draw our poetry from three poets that we’ve covered in the course. I asked if we could do more than three. He didn’t seem to understand my question at first. He told me that it’s not an analysis of someone’s poetry. I assured him that I understood that. Finally he said that it was okay to work with more than three poets.

            George told us that we would have another guest reader this time and that it would be Bill Bissett, if he remembered to come. I offered the observation that Bissett does float very freely so it was possible that he would forget.

            The book we looked at this week was Jeff Derksen’s “Vestiges”. George said that he wouldn’t blame us if we think it’s boring. I added that it was dry. The poetry is constructed from snippets of quotes, some of which are drawn from before the Common Era and many from such thinkers as Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse. The book is heavily focused on a Marxist view of economics.

            George asked if we knew the significance of May 1968 in France. I was the only one in the class that knew that it was a general strike but I didn’t understand the full impact. Workers and students took over the country for a month. Universities shut down and professors gave lectures in cafes. Despite all of this the country still functioned. Goods were delivered and people were fed, without the need of the government. It was a utopian experiment. It was an apprehended revolution.

            On May 30 Charles DeGaul left France with the intention of drawing from the French troops stationed in Germany an invading force to take back France. But it was not necessary. Instead he went on television and told everyone to go back to work and to stop behaving like children.

            “Vestiges” is full of alternative facts that really are facts. George spent more of the class discussing economics than he did Derksen’s book. He told us that right now in Vancouver there is a housing crisis because of offshore capital coming in. The CBC, which George assured us is not fake news, reported that offshore investment from Asia was about producing homes for Chinese children coming to Vancouver to study. The Globe and Mail reported that 99.7% of detached homes in Vancouver now cost $1 million.

            “Vestiges” is a collection of headlines serving as provocations on the impact of economic realities on our lives. Toronto is not as bad as Vancouver but it is also very expensive. He cited a recent article about a CBC reporter who began couch surfing in Toronto when her rent went up to almost $1 thousand a month.

            Economic facts sculpt everyday life. There are 3700 people living on the sidewalks of Toronto. Life is picayune.

 The opening sentence of the Communist Manifesto mentions the specter of Communism. “Vestiges” is about the economic disjunctions that still haunting the world.

            George is upset with Bell because of his $138.00 a month bill. He mentioned again not having a cell phone because of charging problems. Someone told him that a Nokia phone has a one-month charge. George was impressed because Nokia is a Finnish company so he concluded the phone must be good. George told us that Canadian telecommunications costs are the highest in the world because they are not regulated.

            George recounted that he was at the bank depositing cheques, “Which I like to do”, when the teller addressed him as “Dr. Clarke, which I also like”. They wanted to know if he’d like to run a line of credit. He was told that if he would like to run a balance they would drop his interest rate from 18.5% to 8%. George said it’s usurious, since the prime rate has been at 2% for the last few years.

            Derksen is interested in the contradictions of our every day life. George assured us that he wanted to talk poetry but needed to set the context. Students and workers are the two most oppressed groups. Empowered elites are dictating to us what we should accept. George noted that it would be “International Women’s Day tomorrow. Congratulations!”

            “Vestiges” is about the liberal, democratic globalized world and the continued specter of economic disjuncture.

Of the Panama Papers, even Canada was willing to look the other way and to cut a deal for tax evaders.

As the warmongers were promoting the invasion of Iraq in 2003, George remembered the 1991 Gulf War over Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. “In April 1991, the United States and the Brits annihilated 100.000 dudes in one night. There were kilometers of burnt out vehicles, so obviously there had to have been people inside of them. Weeks afterward, the United States allowed Iraq to have enough of an army to continue to suppress the Kurds because to allow them to form their own state would piss off Turkey, which is a member of NATO.
            Twenty years later they started pretending that Sadam Hussein was still a threat despite the fact that they had destroyed his army. 100,000 Iraqi children starved to death between 1991 and 1993, so how was Iraq a threat to the world? Acting upon this incredible lie resulted in the destabilization of the Middle East.

Derksen is urging us to pay attention. The first poem in “The Vestiges” is called “The Vestiges” – “Capitalizing the view”. Marxism is about materialism. George wants to be a rapper wearing a diamond encrusted hammer and sickle. Toronto means “the place where the trees stand in water”. Now it is a place of canyons of glass and steel. The impact of capitalism on city planning is that a view has a price.

On page two Derksen is describing Vancouver – “Intensive ownership / spiraling up, making air / solid space …” Marx say that everything solid melts into air. Everything is contingent on capital. The word “civilization” means “a collection of cities”. George mentioned John Clare, the peasant poet and Jacques Derrida’s “Specters of Marx”.

On Page 4, “These machines in the garden” refers to Leo Marx and “Every day more intense nature” to Leo Strauss.

On page 7 there is a reference to returning soldiers taking over the Hotel Vancouver and to “the beloved boys / Regina 1935 /shot or sent back / on the same train / still without jobs”.

The vision of “Vestiges” is that there is no peace. George picked up the Toronto Star and started showing us today’s headlines. “Politicians Should Know Cost of Having Children”.

On page 9 Derksen makes a list of phrases from “post – Mulroney” to “post- drone”. The irony is that we are not “post” anything. Everything before the revolution is pre-history. The last ten years has been a decade of economic struggle because of the fraud inflicted on us by Wall Street.

At this point Bill Bissett had arrived and George invited him to the front to read for us.

Bill announced from the back that he was just getting over the flu. Suddenly I felt like I was catching something before he was even nearby. Bill gingerly made his way down the steps, looking frailer than the last time I saw him a couple of years ago at the Plastiscene Reading Series. He is 77 years old, after all. He asked us all “Are you excellent?” He handed out a copy of his first poem to everybody, written very large on a poster size sheet of paper. In reference to what George had been talking about, Bill declared, “Everything is fluid and there’s not enough liquidity!” George loved that.

Bill mentioned that he is getting an eye operation.

George introduced him as the foremost exponent of TISH, the Beats. I remember that in a 1968 interview Jack Kerouac referred to Bill Bissett as a great poet.

Bill wanted us to read his poem together out loud, so we did:

“thank u great infinit molecular tapestree / 4 inklewding us in    4 holding / 2gether / sew we can b / sew many realms uv consciousness / wayze around  withing parts uv / molecules dissolv n reappear / there is no outside uv  we ar visibul / n not apeering yet apeering sum /wher els / ar our dishes n goblets / we swim in around th streem / n in th waters / ride th change  no clinging can / sustain us / wher we ar is changing th space / n time we live with  o  great / infinit molecular tapestree / letting us b   appeer   flashing all / th colours / guide us / within / with  surround us  all thru us / ar us  from our fingr tips / touch th fire watr air / ar  us  erth  weer th ethr / change dance  changing / us.”

George mentioned that Bill is also a fine visual artist and that he has a show of his paintings starting on March 26 at the Secret Handshake Gallery at 170a Baldwin St on the 2^nd floor above Graffiti’s in Kensington market.

Bill said that he left home at 16.

From his next poem – “When I was a boy in Alabama I ate all the crocodiles … I was so bereft that I turned to the writing of poetry … Sometimes I remember nothing, sometimes I remember everything …” Bill begins to break down the syllables of his words into repetitive chants before returning to recognizable words. He does this several times during his reading. “ … ah you can find almost anything anywhere … I keep a light on for us but we’ll be back … dim … we’ll be back … The inventiveness of the mind … If they take away our minds we’ll still remember … If we find ourselves missing we’ll find each other after all … This mind is like a kaleidoscope … oranges options get your fresh options … There is no answer … I saw the zebras running across the savannah … Zavaavheeyoshe is he is I as wrapped around him … Earth content him a wrapped him her wrapped around him … We oh … There is no answer contented … Shebezya … We invent many gods and tear them down blow up everything can we evolve beyond any rhymed moon a strange intolerances mushroom sway a great writing medicine a science a touch down sports coliseums a zebra skyscraper … What is it now … We create many gods … a parts of speech … Touch the zebra skyscraper … Was that you bena benga.

George said Bill could do one more poem.

Bill started talking about the University College building and how he saw an intimidating iron gate just inside the main entrance. He declared to himself, “I will not be deterred!” When he discovered that to the left and right of the gate are side doors, he though that was very inventive. Bill announced that he would do two shorter poems and then a longer one, but George told him that he only had four minutes.

From Bill Bissett’s last poem – “The fate of bugs on a windshield is harsh … Reincarnation blues … Help! Help! Help! … These bugs on a windshield might have a soul too … I walk to the end of the pier … Get together with someone it doesn’t matter who … No longing it’s here now nothing to understand really … I go inside the ride is starting … Stars I don’t know how when where I don’t really know what I said all the skys you’re coming me all over the eyes his arms around him my rain trembling in what is were what is are can he count the stars.”

George called a fifteen-minute break and urged his students to buy Bill Bissett’s books and CDs.

Bill and George had met years ago in Sydney, Nova Scotia and there was a plaque in front of a hotel, that according to Bill, commemorated the killing of the crew of a Nazi boat by the people of Sydney with sticks.

Bill said his books were normally $20.00 but he was offering a half price student discount or two books and a CD for $20.00. George took that deal.

Bill asked me if I wanted to buy a book but I told him I had no money, so he asked which of his books I would like to have. I told him I was interested in his novel, “Novel”, so he gave it to me. I asked him to sign it. I don’t know if he remembered meeting me before or if he’d just forgotten my name. When I told him he asked if I was overwhelmed to be named after a religion. I told him that I hoped my name didn’t overwhelm the religion and George laughed. Bill declared, “Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to overwhelm a religion!” He wrote on the inside: “4 Christian all best love u (a word I can’t make out) bill”.

Bill asked us if we had a solution to the economic problems that George was talking about before he started reading. I suggested, “education.”

George invited Bill to stay but he said he had to continue on with the troubadour life. George said, “The Beats go on!”

George declared, “After the break I get serious!”

I told everyone about seeing Bill Bissett in Vancouver in 1979 at a benefit for Bill’s publishing company, blewointment press. The Four Horsemen were there and there was a poet reading onstage who I thought was pretty good but there was a heckler in the audience saying nasty stuff. Finally the poet got fed up and started to rouse the audience against the heckler. When everyone turned to eject him it turned out that it was Bill Bissett. That was the introduction for his set.

George said that was part of Bill’s schtick. For him there is no barrier between speech and song. He’s a living Beatnik. He was nominated for a Governor General’s Award. He has authenticity. He’s not a phony. He lives by his art. He may never win the Griffin Prize.

Jeff Derksen is probably the furthest from Bill Bissett one can get. He ransacks histories. For Derksen, authorship is communal. We all carry an imprint of the times. Every time is precarious. Precarious means “on the verge of decay”. We have a crazy guy in North Korea and a crazy guy in the White House. Maybe not crazy, but unprepared. Derksen wants to enlighten but he may not be successful.

A campus party in Alberta associated with the Wild Rose Party recently circulated a statement that feminism was akin to cancer.

George declared that the Trump regime is not a government but rather a regime and that the United States needs a regime change.

Derksen wants to unearth history.

Martin Luther King Day exists because of a movement that guaranteed people the right to vote. But in 2013 the Supreme Court of the United States rolled back the Voters Rights Act of 1965. Just because we won health care doesn’t mean that our children will have it.

George said they are raising the retirement age in Europe to 70 and that they are considering raising it in Canada to 67, which is two years closer to dying. Most men die at around 72. George says the only reason to raise it is to deny people their pension. From what I can tell they are raising the retirement age based on the fact that life expectancy is rising. Different European countries have calculated the averages and set goals for changing the retirement age based on that. The highest retirement age by 2020 will be at 72 in Denmark.

George declared that since he was born in 1960 he’s neither a Boomer nor an Xer. It depends on which definition one uses. He could be seen as a Boomer like me by some or as an Xer by others. I just discovered though that there’s a Generation Jones defined by some as being between 1954 and 1963, which would make us both and Obama generation Jones. 

Derksen wants to awaken us to decay. Trickle down economics might be better for the sewer than for people.

The year of the coup in Chile was the year that Marvin Gaye released Let’s Get It On”.

“The third way” was Tony Blair’s agreement between Labour and capital.

Is Jeff Derksen’s “Vestiges” poetry? Why not just write a pamphlet? George assures us that it is poetry. “It rained across all indexes” is a reference to Paul Verlaine.

Why is it always Africans that a tried in the International Court? The war criminal court is racist. Why not George Bush and Tony Blair? Any one of us could just bring a newspaper as evidence and testify. George declared that it would be a rush better than cocaine to put one of those guys behind bars.

We can’t afford to be misled. Keep Dionne Brand in mind.

Page 17 has a reference to Eliot.

Page 35- “Baton on bone” and a quote from Edward Greenspan – “I found a flaw / in the model / of how the world works”.

George said that there is trouble everywhere and that there is no escape, then he began to chant, “crisis crisis crisis crisis crisis crisis crisis trouble crisis crisis cash cash cash cash cash …” This went on for a few minutes. I asked him if he’d just made it up. He said, “Of course I just made it up, Christian!” I said that it sounded like something from a movie like something that would be chanted by Oompa Loompas. Patrick said George was channeling his inner Bill Bissett.

Page 40 has a reference to the G-20 riots.

Page 41 uses juxtaposition to emphasize contradiction, which is a Marxian idea.

Page 46- “Surplus is violence” is a play on Proudhon’s “Property is theft”. If you own something you stole it.

The section taken from Kapital is digested Marx. Derksen is playing off of Pound with slabs of information. “Vestiges” is meant to represent the Poundian approach.

Page 62 has an analysis of the oppression of women just in time for International Women’s Day.

George said there are some small errors in the book, mostly getting years wrong.

Derksen uses William Burroughs Cut Up technique. I mentioned that David Bowie used it for his lyrics. George said that explained a lot.

“Vestiges” is didactic but maintains poetry in the style of Pound’s Cantos, which was about arms, merchants and high finance.

Derksen takes on a conspiratorial world view bordering on the occult. Using the cut-up technique means that it is selective and therefore propagandist. But if there were really a plot it would have been figured out a long time ago.

Even poets can intrude their way into economic debate but they may be wrong.

At the end I asked George if he’d heard any of the National Lampoon records. I told him about Lemmings, their parody of Woodstock and the music of that era. They had a made-up band called The Motown Manifestos that made a song out of some of Karl Marx’s text called “Papa Was a Running Dog Lackey of the Bourgeoisie” – “Workers of the world unite / You have nothing to lose but your chains / You can lose them if you’d like tonight / but you gotta strive you gotta strive with all your might and main // The history of our tired society / is a history of a struggle with the bourgeoisie / From now on we must strive resolutely / to bring about the overthrow of the bourgeoisie // I address myself to the doomed bourgeoisie / The bourgeoisie creates a world in its own image / The bourgeoisie controls the means of production / The bourgeoisie leaves nothing but naked self interest / The bourgeoisie is full of shit // Our ends can only be attained by the forcible overthrow of existing conditions /  Let the ruling classes tremble at the communist revolution / We distain to reveal our views and our aims / The proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains …” I sang a bit of it to him.

As we were packing up there was a conversation between George and Patrick about the movie about James Baldwin. George said that Baldwin tried to be macho and a misogynist to cover up the fact that he was Gay because the leaders behind the civil rights movement said that it would hurt the cause if he came out.