Peters, Carl 1965–

(Carl Lynden Peters)

PERSONAL: Born June 16, 1965, in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada; son of Roger and Katherine Peters. Education: Brock University, B.A. (with first class honors), 1988; University of Regina, M.F.A., 1990; York University, M.A., 1993; Simon Fraser University, Ph.D., 2001.

ADDRESSES: Home—1945 Barclay St., Ste. 307, Vancouver, British Columbia V6G 1L2, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer and painter. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, sessional instructor in English, 2000–03. Vancouver Art Gallery, member; director of readings; conference presenter. Exhibitions: Gallery installations include "Object/Relation/Use," Definitely Superior Art Gallery, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, 1992; "The Man Dies," Hamilton Artists' Inc., Hamilton, Ontario, 1993; "The Heliotropic I and II," Mercer Union, Toronto, Ontario, 1993; "Theses Sheet; or, The Reversible Object," Niagara Artists' Centre, 1993; and "Cantextualities: An Exhibition of Canadian Visual and Concrete Poetry," Latitude 53 Art Gallery, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 1997. Curator of shows at Simon Fraser University, including "Disintegration I: Texts on Old Punk and New Punk; From Jack Spicer to Sid Vicious," 2002; and bpNichol Comics; Disintegration II: Texts on Classic Punk to Radical Punk; From Mozart to John Cage; Textual Vishyuns I: Poems and Paintings of Bill Bissett; Textual Visions II: Gertrude Stein and Her Works"; and "Pope Killers: Surrealists/Dadaists and Destructive Characters; From Antonin Artaud to William S. Burroughs," all 2003.

AWARDS, HONORS: Temple Maynard Award in Literature, 1996, 1997.

WRITINGS:

(Editor and contributor) BpNichol Comics (literary criticism), Talonbooks (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), 2002.

Annotations and Astonishments: Reading Gertrude Stein, Talonbooks (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), in press.

Textual Vishyuns: The Art and Poetics of bill bissett, Talonbooks (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) in press.

Work represented in anthologies, including Beyond the Orchard, edited by Roy Miki and Fred Wah, West Coast Line (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), 1998; Translating Translating bpNichol Parts 1 and 2, edited by Derek Beaulieu, House Press (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), 1999; and Courier: An Anthology of Concrete and Visual Poetry, edited by Beaulieu, House Press, 2000. Contributor of poetry, articles, and essays to periodicals, including Wild Things, Antynym, House Organ, Cantextualities: Contemporary Visual Poetry in Canada, Poetic Briefs, Witz: Journal of Contemporary Poetics, and ARC: Journal of Contemporary Canadian Writing.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Chronic Meanings: Radical Poetics in Canada and the United States, a critical anthology; The Perimeter: Collected Plays, Sketches, and Skits of Michael McClure and Jim Morrison; editing and writing introductions for Fleas and Pierre Variations, both by Michael McClure, all for Talonbooks.

SIDELIGHTS: Carl Peters told CA: "There IS a text underneath the text of things. What is IT? There IS a Form underneath the forms of things—WHAT IS IT? I know philosophy I know psychology—all tell us—they say to me I AM BECOMING—they say you cannot step into the same river twice. But what of becoming? What of what one IS now? What about what you are now, this very NOW?, and what if we stop being becoming and become aware of what we are RIGHT NOW—we stop. But in that stopping, in that ending, there. In that stopping there is transcendence. Transcendence is the text underneath the text of things. In the past I think Religion gave us that. Mystery, and Religion (this is painful) is dead in a sense, it doesn't exist for us now anymore—It's gone. Recover the Public World: Eliminate Public Art. In poetic language: the text underneath the text of things (9th poem) is the margin. The margin is infinite. In a person there is infinity in one's heart, because one's heart is core. And the core of you is what you are—Now. Becoming only gives us another hue.

"Look without judgment. Steal everything in sight. Start with what you know. Learn from what you do. Do. Texts that mean the most to me are usually statements. Not that I am interested in being told what to do. But I am aware that I do need a guide. I should say, the texts that mean the most to me are immediate statements. I can think of any number of them right now and they are all confessions. They are confessions that I read as meditations. They are texts that tell of other texts that somehow tell of themselves. There is a unity there. Or should I say community. But the room—it is empty. We are all busy underground. Underneath. Marcel Duchamp said the artist of the future will go underground. I like that idea a lot. It doesn't negate the maker by any means. Underneath—I mean the eternal middle of any/thing. Negative Capability. That does not mean centre. Writing anything makes you smart to that. Centers are points on a grid. Infinite. I enjoy texts that sound like other texts, but I absolutely loath writers who sound like other writers. Writing should not sound like writing. You are about to make a most valuable discovery. Someone close to you will show you the way."