The Essenshul bill bissett – Preorder

Across seven decades of creating poetry and visual art, bill bissett has rendered language new and strange over and over again: breaking down/thru words, making sound visible, and refusing the conventions that govern how we write, speak, and think. This is poetry that is as playful as it is political, endlessly suspicious of authority and deeply alive to the possibilities of making things otherwise. The Essenshul bill bissett gathers work from across a career that insists poetry is not separate from the world it wants to change, and that even the smallest refusal of convention can open up alternate ways of living and being and knowing and loving.

The Essenshul bill bissett is also the first issue in a reimagined approach to The Essential Poets series, one of the longest running and most respected series of critical introductions to the work of Canadian poets. The new approach retains the critically rigorous introductory essay and 48 pages of the featured poet's best work that has characterized The Essential Poets since its inception, but engages with a much broader diversity of poetry and poets to offer readers a more comprehensive introduction to the voices that have shaped Canadian poetry. The series also got a visual refresh that aims to better express the individuality of its authors. 

The Essenshul bill bissett will be available in Spring 2028.