The Modern Poetry Collection
Archives & Research Collections
Carleton University
The Small Presses & Little Magazines: Toronto, Ontario
Coach House Press (1965-Present)
Considered one of the leading small press publishers in Canada for its finely-crafted books, the Coach House Press was founded in 1965 by printer, Stan Bevington, and editor, Wayne Clifford (who was later succeeded by Victor Coleman in . The press publishes innovative and experimental poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fiction. Primarily, Coach House Press is interested in publishing literature that pushes at the boundaries of convention.
In its formative years (1965 to 1975), Coach House was a cohesive printing and publishing unit, publishing innovative and activist open-form writers from the United States and Canada in a style characterized by hand-set type and multi-coloured offset printing. In February 1965, Bevington and colleague Dennis Reid published Wayne Clifford’s Man in a Window, the first official Coach House book. From the outset, Coach House supported and welcomed work by local poets, artists, and photographers. Furthermore, many of the presses' early titles were combinations of poetic and graphic imagery.
In 1974 the single editor of Coach House Press was replaced by an editorial board comprised of Stan Bevington; writers bpNichol, Michael Ondaatje, Frank Davey, David Young; graphic artist Rick/Simon; and writers' agent, Linda McCartney. At various other times in the 1970s and 1980s the editorial board also included Victor Coleman and Sarah Sheard. Also in 1974, Coach House expanded its scope to publish established writers, like Louis Dudek, George Bowering, Steve McCaffery, David McFadden, Eli Mandel, Dorothy Livesay, Robert Kroetsch, Phyllis Webb, as well as, emerging writers.
Also in the 1970s, Coach House ventured into the realm of digital typestting and printing. In 1972, Bevington met Professor Ron Baecker, who ran the Dynamic Graphics Project at the University of Toronto, and along with Baecker's grad student David Tillbrook, programmer David Slocombe, and typesetter Ed Hale began exploring the state of the art of computer-driven typsetting amd desktop publishing. Eventually, this group would also form their own software company, SoftQuad and develop their own industry-leading UNIX-based software.
In 1991, Coach House was split into two separate companies: the printing house Coach House Printing, headed by Bevington, and the book publisher Coach House Press, headed by Margaret McClintock. During this time, the press published books by Andre Alexis, Ann-Marie MacDonald, and Anne Michaels.
In 1996, there were significant cuts to government funding which decimated Coach House Press and forced the press into bankrupty. It was revived in 1997 by Bevington and renamed Coach House Books. It was during this revamp of the press that Coach House began publishing on the web, a move that alarmed the literary establishment in Canada at the time, but which proved that Coach House was decades ahead of its time. Coach House published texts online in their entirety, as well as digital ephemera and other projects which presented a digital spin on the Coach House tradition.
Today, Coach House Press represents the most significant outpost of the Canadian literary avant-garde. The reputation of the new Coach House Books has been growing steadily since its rebirth in 1997, and the press continues to publish works by poets and authors at the frontiers of their trades, such as Christian Bök, Claudia Dey, Guy Maddin, Maggie Helwig, and Darren O’Donnell.
The company is located in several former coach houses on bpNichol Lane, near Spadina and Bloor in Toronto, Onatrio.
Ganglia (magazine, 1964-1967; press, 1964-c.1988)
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grOnk (1967-c.1988)
Ganglia was founded by poets bpNichol and Dave Aylward. The idea for the magazine came to them while they were both working at the University of Toronto library in 1964, and a year later they decided to start Ganglia and publish it themselves under Ganglia Press. Ganglia was a magazine open to various kinds of new poetry including concrete; It was to be a site of communication, much like a ganglion is in physiology.
The main goal of Ganglia was to publish poetry and prose works that Aylward and/or Nichol felt deserved more exposure within Canada and abroad. Nichol's goal for the magazine was to make young British Columbia writers that he knew--bill bissett, David Phillips, Martina, Clinton, Red Lane, and Judy Copithorne--better known in Ontario. Ganglia alternated between publishing issues devoted to one poet's work and anthology issues. Some of the poetry collections featured in the single-poet issues were The 1962 Poems of R.S. (Red) Lane and bill bissett's We Sleep Inside Each Other All.
Ganglia was published for a solid two years, and then the editors' interest in the magazine seemed to wane due to an increase in the number of literary magazines at the time. According to bpNichol, "[he and Aylward] really dug doing GANGLIA for the first two years but then gradually [their] interest waned there seemed so many mags publishing more or less straight poems & really as far as publishing went [they] were less & less interested." [1] This was mostly due to their growing dissenterest in publishing an eclectic poetry magazine for paid subscribers. As a result, it is difficult to know when the fifth and seventh issues of Ganglia were "published"--sometime in 1966 and 1967, receiving, in Nichol's words, "truly pitiful distribution." [2] The seventh issues was its last issue, and Ganglia ceased publishing in 1967. Ganglia Press, however, continued by publishing a new magazine: grOnk.
Nichol, in particular, enjoyed publishing the small bissett and Lane collections, and printing the occasional pamphlet to give away to friends through Ganglia and Ganglia Press. This led him to found a second magazine which would be distributed to whomever the editors thought would be interested. With the financial help of Aylward, and the co-editing of Rob Hindley-Smith, and the further assistance of David W. Harris (otherwise known as David UU), bpNichol launched in January 1967 the irregular pamphlet series grOnk, which featured concrete and related poetries. This was a direct influence of the Vancouver poetry newsletter/magazine, TISH, where a poetry magazine did not have to have subscribers to be published, it could be sent out if there was enough writing that the editors thought would be of interest to people.
The issues in grOnk were a part of an international exchange. Nichol saw the magazine as a way of publishing news, informing not only writers in Canada but also writers in Europe and South America. Nichol maintained an active mailing list that contained between 180-250 names that represented an international community of avant-garde artists and writers. grOnk had a strong base in Canadian writing, but also included international work as well.
The first issue published in January 1967 featured work by French spatialiste poets j.f. bory and Pierre Garnier, as well as d.a. levy, bill bissett, bpNichol, David W. Harris, D.R. Wagner, and Victor Coleman; the second included works by British concrete poets Kenelm Cox, John Furnival, and Cavan McCarthy, as well as Nichol, Harris, and David Phillips. grOnk went under wraps for almost a year in between 1967 and 1968, and it wasn't until September of 1968 that the magazine started up again. The third and fourth series of grOnk were primarily edited by David W. Harris, bill bissett, and Steve McCaffery. By 1972 the frequency in which grOnk was published started to decline due to other projects that the editors were working on.
One of Canada's longest running early little magazines, grOnk ran for well over 100 issues in a wide variety of formats, first mimeographed and later photocopied. grOnk went through a number of phases during its liefspan, and in its first phase there were a total of eight series each with eight issues in what is considered the "old" series. This sixty four issue run varied in format; there issues with mimeographed covers, printed covers, printed inserts, different sizes, single-sheet issues, issues devoted to the work of an individual, books as part of a series, envelopes filled with various materials, mergings or co-publishings with other periodicals, small stapled pamphlets, and collections of printed cards. grOnk was a free-form and ever-changing magazine, constantly in flux, constantly in the process of pioneering new territory. The physical labour involved and the thoughtfulness and beauty of each literary object remain a hallmark of the small press movement.
grOnk continued with an intermediate series, which was an attempt at running a subscription series begun in 1972 (total of twenty three published issues and one issue remaining unpublished); a flash series, a quick, low-press run four issue series from 1982-1983; the zap series, which produced four issues; and the final series begun in 1982, which was another low-press run of one hundred copies per issue. The final series of grOnk ran from 1982 and ended in 1988 with the untimely death of bpNichol. Ganglia Press also ceased publishing new material in 1988; however jwcurry printed some reissues of selected works.
Both Ganglia and grOnk expressed the poetic and publishing interests of their editors. Publishing for Nichol became an act of both communication and an expression of friendship, "The results were fantastic. We were able to send news from Canada to other writers we admired." [3] Ganglia Press' various chapbooks and pamphlets were not considered to be products, rather they were seen as gifts to friends and an interested public.
Ganglia, grOnk, and blewointment (a magazine and press founded by bill bissett in British Columbia) assisted in the proliferation of concrete poetry, both sound and visual, and its associated writing into wider contexts within Canada and abroad. The work of these magazines brought a radical new aesthetic to Canadian literary landscape, and blurred the lines between art, life, and language.
[1] bpNichol. Ganglia Press Index. grOnk 8.7 (1972), 4.
[2] ibid.
[3] Geoff Hancock, "The Form of the Thing: An Interview with bpNichol on Ganglia and grOnk." Rampike, 12.1 (Fall 2001), 33.
Weed/Flower Press (1965-1973)
Weed/Flower Press was founded in 1965 by Nelson Ball with the assistance of his wife, artist Barbara Caruso, and was housed in an office above a fabric store on Bathurst Street in Toronto, Ontario. The press equated the spirit of its production and publications with that of the spirit once expended on illuminated manuscripts in the old abbeys of Europe.
The press began as a magazine publishing venture in 1966, shortly after Ball graduated from the University of Waterloo. Weed/Flower Press was named partly sentimentally after his mother, a weed collector. Ball also explained the title of the press through the "difference between weeds and flowers [as] one we impose on the plants. It doesn't exist in them." [1] In this way, he hoped to transfer this sentiment to the poetry and art published under Weed/Flower Press, and that there was no difference between the media.
The office included a studio for Caruso's colour paintings, and for Ball's printshop. The press utilized an Olympia typewriter and used an electronically operated duplicating machine to print each work. The press formerly used a hand-operated prewar press, but the mechanical equipment was easily used and inexpensive. Caruso often designed the covers of the publications.
Together Ball and Caruso have produced numerous small volumes of poetry, by Ball and others. Points of Attention by Ball is one of their major publications. It is a beautiful hard-cover book including eleven of his poems and six coloured silkscreen prints by Caruso, limited to an edition of 50 copies, of which 40 were for sale. By the time Ball closed the press in 1973, he had published about 40 books of poetry, some including the work of George Bowering, David McFadden, bpNichol, Doug Fetherling, John Newlove.
[1] Nelson Ball quoted by Kay Kritswiser in "ART: The beautiful small books from Ball and Caruso." The Globe and Mail. (February 16, 1972), 15.
Seripress (1972-1981)
Seripress was founded in Toronto by Barbara Caruso, a visual artist and poet, in 1972. Seripress was born out of a collaboration between Caruso and bpNichol (begun in 1971) which resulted in The Adventures of Milt the Morph in Colour (1973). This work was originally intended to be published by Caruso's husband, Nelson Ball, under Weed/Flower Press; however there were complications due to the Income Tax Law at the time which prevented him from paying her as an artist because she was his wife. This led Caruso to establish her own press: Seripress.
The press takes its name from the word "serigraph" which is another word for silkscreen prints. Although Caruso is best known for her large-scale colour block paintings, she also produced silkscreen prints and many of these were produced for collaborative projects with poets like bpNichol, Stephen Scobie, P.K. Page, Steve McCaffery, and David Aylward and published by Seripress. Caruso was influenced by her mentors, Ian Hamilton Findlay and Kenneth Patchen; she "had seen their books, broadsides, and pamphlets, and like them, [she] wanted to make something under [her] hand, using [her] art." [1]
The press ran entirely on Barbara Caruso's judgements and its publications were dominated by her work. However, ten out of the twenty-one title published by Seripress were collaborations with bpNichol.
The last title was published in 1979, and the press was officially retired in 1981.
[1] Barbara Caruso, "The Seripress Collaborations: Nichol and Caruso" in St. Art: The Visual Poetry of bpNichol. exh. cat. (Charlottetown: Confederation Centre Art Gallery & Museum), 52.
