Barrie Phillip Nichol, who often went by his lower-case initials and last name, with no spaces, was a Canadian poet. He became widely known for his concrete poetry while living there in the 1960s. He received his elementary teaching certificate from the University of British Columbia in 1963, but he only worked a brief stint as a teacher. He had audited creative writing courses while in university, and his life moved in that direction after about a year of teaching.
His most famous published work is probably The Martyrology, a long poem encompassing 9 books in 6 volumes.
Nichol also worked in a wide variety of other genres, including musical theatre, children's books, collage/assemblage, pamphlets, spoken word, computer texts, fiction, and television. For having such a brief lifespan, Nichol produced a highly prolific volume of work. However, it was often ephemeral, such as performance.
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