There was a kind of explosion. 
 
     A dadaist urge overtook me when I returned from New York in the winter of '74. New York had been 
inspiring; public readings every day of the week, in every type of environment – from the Feenjon Bar on 
MacDougal to a stately drawing room on West 20th Street, from Village lofts to a church on 125th Street. 
     A year previous I had taken the advice of a friend, an anti-prolific young poet named Martin Newman, 
and began writing short, minimal poems. New York became a testing ground for these poems or 
"immortal brevities" as John Robert Colombo called them at an open reading in Toronto's Hurbourfront, 
my first stop before heading to New York earlier that year. 
     Back in Montreal, I started to work for a wholesaler in prints and reproductions. It was there that I 
came across Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp and, before I realized it, Dada. About the same time, I met 
Ken Norris who was working on his BA at McGill University. He had a gift for smoothing over 
personality differences between poets and became a catalyst, under whose wings the seven Vehicule 
Poets finally came together. 
     I felt quite removed from the kind of writing I saw around me. The more my poems veered to the 
experimental, the more I felt apart, isolated. The reassurance I sought came in the guise of one Opal L. 
Nations, who had come east to take up temporary residence around the block from Ken Norris. 
     Ken urged me to meet him as soon as possible. "We have a lot in common," he said. A 1978 
contributors' note lists Opal as the author of more than 40 books, but when I met him I was under the 
impression that he had published more than twice that number. His readings/performances drew large 
audiences and he never disappointed them. He could go on for a couple of hours after most thought he 
was through, reading long absurd narratives, a belly-laugh per paragraph. Familiar with experimental 
forms, it was not surprising that his work was rich, textured, multi-layered. He encouraged us to think of 
collaborating, of holding recitals in our homes, of taking poetry "beyond limitation, to the extreme." His 
energy was infectious. 
     One night, after a reading, five of us went to a bar where we decided then and there to collaborate by 
writing a poem together. I wrote the first two lines, Artie Gold the last two.‘ This led to a series of poems 
entitled 8 ½ x 11, the size of the sheet to be used. Significantly, form became our subject. The poems 
were published in a mimeographed magazine we titled Mouse Eggs. We published the magazine on every holiday/occasion – Christmas, Easter, Halloween, etc. It became our "house organ" and we published 14 issues over a couple of years. Blank mimeograph sheets were circulated among the poets, the submissions run off, stapled and brought to Adrian at The Word Bookstore, mailed to the contributors and a few select subscribers. 
     On February 8, 1976, I read at Vehicule Art. It happened to be the 60th anniversary of the birth of 
Dada (according to Jean Arp). For the occasion, I asked Ken Norris to assist me in performing a 
simultaneous poem. We found a local tabloid, selected two unrelated pages and proceeded to read them, 
simultaneously, sometimes alternating phrases at a brisk pace, to the pleasure and laughter of the 
audience. 
     Later in the spring, Vehicule hosted the second Annual Poetry Marathon. Again, I asked Ken to assist 
me in a simultaneous poem. He was enthusiastic We then asked others to participate. When we stepped in front of the audience, there were 11 of us! The noise was deafening. Most of the audience rose and began walking about. Some whistled, yelled, and at the end of the 5-minute provocation, a quarter of the 
audience had left. Or was left. In those magical 5 minutes, the spirit of Dada was reincarnated and 
reverberated through the Vehicule gallery. I was particularly moved. Rimbaud‘s derangement of the 
senses was swimming in my head. Each time I looked up, something had changed – the walking-about, 
the audience in motion – until all I saw was a pagan ritual, primitivistic Dada. Here, for me, was the cry 
of Poetry in the seventies, in Montreal. 
     (Sometime later, at a poetry performance of Stephen Morrissey and Pat Walsh, sheets inscribed with a 
few phrases were distributed and the audience was asked to participate. Except for a few of us, the udience remained in their seats and "good-naturedly“, even piously, recited the poem. Opal Nations tried 
to infuse the occasion with humour by yelling from the balcony above but, generally, the atmosphere was 
quite relaxed and everyone actually seemed to be enjoying the experience. Needless to say, simultaneous readings abruptly came to a 'stop‘.) 
     The "Raga" collaboration was based on my long poem "To Dawn”. Long-poem writing had always 
been something of a curiosity in my work. In 1972, I wrote a series of mystical-lyrical poems called 13 
Poems Of The Witness, 13 poems written in lunar cycles over a period of 13 months. It was these poems 
which prompted poets around me to suggest I change my writing “style”. Although I didn't listen to 
everyone, I decided not to be obstinate. I was willing to shed the skin of the mystic and the pantheist, too. 
     "To Dawn" was returning to the long poem. It contained elements of the sound poem. The text is a 
fusion of surrealist lyric with dadaist anarchy. The first two words of the poem, "Dawn, dawn" evokes the 
lyric and the anarchic (da...wn da..wn). The 16 repetitions of "left right" recreate the left-right of soldiers 
marching but are actually based on the left-right symbolism of William Blake. The poem is a haunt of 
1916 and the literary movement it later spawned – surrealism.