scars on th seehors

by Bill Bissett

scars on th seehors is bill bissett’s latest report from and to the image nation, in which his metric performs a kind of absence of narrative intent that lets everyone and everything speak for itself:

eye dont have 2 invent th world ium / alredee in it

There is much evidence of wounding here, of things gone completely raging:

whats th mattr / why yuv hardlee touched yr dinnr / at all / n its yr favorit saus / is it th tektonic plates

but also a hope of healing, of patching up, of scarring:

i see th salmon talks will / resume on monday / well thank god at leest th / salmon ar talking

along with, of course, the usual ““difficult choices”“:

it usd 2 be / (4 konrad white n ken / thomsod) / yu cud get sum toilet papr / nd a newspapr both 4 / a dollr fiftee / now yu cant yu gotta / make a chois

Definitely not Conrad Black’s National Post. Ain’t it great?

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

bill bissett (born William Frederick Bissett, November 23, 1939) is a Canadian poet famous for his anti-conventional style.

bissett attended Dalhousie University and the University of British Columbia but dropped out of both universities because of an overriding desire to live as a free agent, writer and painter unencumbered by any academic constraints. He moved to Vancouver, British Columbia in 1958. Five years later he started the blew ointment magazine and later launched blewointment press. bissett is based in Vancouver and Toronto alternating between the two cities.

Reviews

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 1 out of 5]

bill bissett, scars on th seehors (Talonbooks, 1999)

While I (almost always) strictly adhere to the rule that one should read at least fifty pages of a book before abandoning it, there are some books that I know I'm going to hate long before I reach that point. scars on th seehors is the latest of these. There is a particular brand of artist who feels that mangling the English language is an interesting stylistic technique. The end result, in general, is less “interesting technique” than “unreadable tripe”.

“...eye sd thanks let th vessel
emptee pour dew fakts bgin with theree me ovr n turn
me out whats ther ideas making limbs witnesses ium
spilling moov portals petals not reech the crew with th
rotting vegetaybuls...”
(“tracks uv moistyur on th b a r r i n g t o n”)

I'd go on, but why bother? 144 pages of this. I might be willing to give some leeway were the author learning disabled, but nothing I've found in my research has suggested this, so I'm back to the idea that the author considers this an interesting stylistic technique. It's not. It's a desecration of the English language, and should be treated as such. (zero)

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love bill bissett. I think I prefer his live readings and sound poetry to his written work, but it's still incredible, hilarious and wonderfully bizarre stuff.