Scope and Contents

This is an unpublished manuscript of poems adapted from the works and styles of bp Nichol. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents This issue deals with Pataphysica as expoused by Jarry and current interpretations by Canadian writers. The introductory essay by the Editors, Christian Bok and Darren Werschler-Henry, indicates that " 'Pataphysics (a neologism fraught with polysemy) makes its debut at the turn of the century when Ubu, the nihilist scaramouche, describes himself as a "Professor of 'pataphysics, a branch of science which we have invented and for which a crying need is generally experienced." Jarry precedes the orthography of the French word 'pataphysique with an apostrophe in order to avoid a "simple pun", but ironically enough, such a diacritical mark only signals, as present by proxy, what is absent by edict, so that the word invokes apostrophically the homophonic phrases that it revokes catastrophically. Ubu, for example is a slapstick comedian (pataud physique ) of unhealthy obesity (pateax physique), whose bodily language (patois physique) foments an astounded physics (epatee physique) that is...