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The Four Horsemen (poetry)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Four Horsemen was a sound poetry group of Canadian poets composed of bpNichol, Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Paul Dutton and Steve McCaffery that also performed concrete poetry. The group was active from 1972 to 1988.[1] They released 2 12-inch vinyl records of their collaborative sound poetry (Nada Canadada, 1972; Live in the West, 1977), 2 cassettes (Bootleg, 1981; 2 Nights, 1988), as well as 3 print collections (Horse d'Oeuvres, 1977; A Little Nastiness, 1980; The Prose Tattoo, 1983 [2]) & the unique broadside Schedule For Another Place (1981).[3] The Four Horsemen also appeared in Ron Mann's 1982 documentary film Poetry in Motion.[4]

They were Canada's first sound poetry ensemble, leading directly to the formation of at least 3 further groups: Owen Sound in Toronto (Michael Dean, David Penhale, Steven Ross Smith, Richard Truhlar), Re:Sounding in Edmonton (Douglas Barbour, Stephen Scobie) & Quatuor Gualuor in Ottawa (currently consisting of director jwcurry, Conyer Clayton, Nina Drystek, Chris Johnson & Alastair Larwill).


References

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  1. ^ Davey, Frank. "Not Just Representation: The Sound and Concrete Poetries of The Four Horsemen". University of Western Ontario, 2008. [1]
  2. ^ Barreto-Rivera, Rafael; Horsemen, Four; Nichol, B. P. (1983). The Prose Tattoo: Selected Performance Scores. ISBN 0879240474.
  3. ^ jwcurry, "A Beepliographic Cyclopœdia", unpublished manuscript
  4. ^ "The Four Horsemen's emotional poetry". YouTube. Retrieved 2 November 2018.