Miki Roy - Meanwhile: the Critical Writings of bpNichol

meanwhile
the critical writings of
bpNichol

edited by Roy Miki

Talonbooks 2002

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Copyright 2002 Eleanor Nichol for the Estate of bpNichol
Afterword Copyright 2002 Roy Miki

Talonbooks
278 1st Ave. East
Vancouver, British Columbia
V5T 1A6

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Cover design by Adam Swica

First Printing: October 2002

Ebook edition: June 2014

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts; the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program; and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council for our publishing activities.

No part of this book, covered by the copyright hereon, may be reproduced or used in any form or by any meansgraphic, electronic or mechanicalwithout prior permission of the publisher, except for excerpts in a review. Any request for photocopying of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to Cancopy (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5E 1E5; Tel.:(416) 868-1620; Fax:(416) 868-1621.

In When the Time Came, pages reproduced from Ida by Gertrude Stein Copyright 1941 and renewed 1969 by Daniel C. Joseph, Administrator of the Estate of Gertrude Stein. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

ISBN 978-0-88922-872-6

is it open form that love proposes
when all difference arouses fear?
bpNichol, from Gifts

contents

Linda Charyk Rosenfeld

1973

you turn the page & i am here that in itself is interesting to me at least it is interesting since my existence begins as you turn the pages & begin to read me i have no way of knowing your motives tho i know or say or assume you have opened this book hoping to learn more about me or whoever it was you hoped or did not hope to encounter in your reading

so now you have begun you have begun reading what i am saying & i am once again finding a beginning i am not alive am i i am simply these words as they follow one another across this page which is so white that were they not here were i not here you would close this book to escape the whiteness

is that whiteness like something else do you see it as a void perhaps that it is necessary for it to be filled with words before you would consider turning each page carefully to examine not the white but the retreat from white into black letters placed upon it giving me my tenuous existence i am aware of the white i am aware of the white as i find meaning thru your eyes when you are not here reading i am aware of nothing i can make no statement about that my only awareness is now as you read this i am aware of the white only as an absence of awareness a gap between words as you read me i have only your perception of me of what i am words & letters a movement which is simply the turning of pages

now we have begun we have begun again as we did before so many times each time you are different each time there is something about you that is different i am always the same always the flow which is your vision of me which is my vision of me is the same from page to page i am the same each time only you are different i am not aware of your difference i have no consciousness in that sense for me you are always the same for me i am always the same each time there is the thrill of us discovering my existence or the fear of it the boredom with it the desire somehow to push me away from you thinking you are bored or frightened & then i exist no more i am no longer inside you inside your mind the vision centres activated the neural responses that make the black shapes dissolve into meanings that follow one another from page to page at this moment i exist only thru you at this point i am you there is no distinction between us we are this writing we are one & the same always we follow these words across the pages on which we found us it is all we have it is not sad it is the way it is

eventually you close the book because you are finished or sleepy or some other reason when you put it down i am no more will i begin again i cannot say the question does not occur to me it may occur to you i am not aware of its occurrence i am aware only when i see myself here on this page as we gaze at me thru our eyes that is my awareness there is no pain involved what pain there is is not my pain but my presence during your experience of your pain as we read this if you cry there is sadness if you scream there is rage or fear if you scream with your eyes closed it is no longer part of our awareness if you laugh there is a laughing feeling that is it that is all suspended on this white field it is who i am as we read me

why did you open this book it is not that i am curious but these words form into questions as they can they form into questions & you read them as questions you do not have to answer them i have no awareness of the answers i am aware of the questions thru our eyes reading me i could not be aware of the answers unless you wrote them here & read them as part of me then i would not be the same as i have been i would be the same from that point on

why did you open this book what did you hope to find am i the way you had hoped i would be there is a part of me wants to please you hoping you will stay with me to the end & then begin again if it pleases you or there is a part of me where the letters form these words to make this statement i want it because i exist then because i say i exist because someone made this statement part of my existence my existence is one of waiting waiting without consciousness of waiting

for you waiting must be a terrible thing waiting that goes on with no knowing of an end that must be a terrible thing perhaps that is why i have now come into being again perhaps it was because you were waiting & could not stand the waiting that your eyes brought the black shapes into focus & we began again that waiting must be a terrible thing to bring you here for me it is not terrible for me there is no awareness of the waiting there is simply being & not being each is exactly the same i am is always the same i am not is always the same i am not aware of i am not i am aware of i am there is no waiting for me with knowing for me there is only waiting without knowing for you there is waiting with knowing & if the knowing includes no knowing of when there will be an end to waiting well that must be a terrible terrible thing