Rational Geomancy: The Kids of the Book-Machine, The Collected Research Reports of the Toronto Research Group, 1973 1982

The Toronto Research Group was an eighteen year collaboration and friendship between the late bpNichol and Steve McCaffery. In addition to reports on translation; the book-as-machine; and the search for non-narrative prose; this collection includes an informative introduction by McCaffery; a new report on performance; ‘Reading and Writing: The Toronto Research Game’; and much hitherto unpublished material. From scholasticism to pop-up books, the Book of Nature to comic strips, these frequently witty, often irreverent and methodically mischievious reports document a vital era, not only in the intellectual growth of two individuals, but in the history of critical collaboration in North America. With a revised format, additional bibliography and profuse illustrations, this book will prove to be of inestimable value to anyone tracing the poetic archeology of the seventies in Anglophone Canada.