''TISH'' was a Canadian poetry newsletter founded by student-poets at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thre ...

in 1961. The publication was edited by a number of

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

poets until 1969. The newsletter's poetics were built on those of writers associated with North Carolina's

Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational ...

experiment. Contributing writers included

George Bowering George Harry Bowering, (born December 1, 1935) is a prolific Canadian novelist, poet, historian, and biographer. He was the first Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. He was born in Penticton, British Columbia, and raised in the nearby town o ...

, Fred Wah, Frank Davey, Daphne Marlatt, David Cull, Carol Bolt, Dan McLeod, Robert Hogg,

Jamie Reid Jamie Reid (born 16 January 1947 in London, United Kingdom) is an English artist and anarchist. Career His work, featuring letters cut from newspaper headlines in the style of a ransom note, came close to defining the image of punk rock, p ...

, and Lionel Kearns. Influenced by the poetry theorist Warren Tallman, the Tish Group also drew inspiration from the Seed Catalogue and Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Jason Wiens Lee,

Charles Olson Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York ...

and

Jack Spicer Jack Spicer (January 30, 1925 – August 17, 1965) was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, ''My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer'' won the American Book Award for poetry. ...

. ''TISH'' launched a number of other publications including the alternative newspaper ''

The Georgia Straight ''The Georgia Straight'' is a free Canadian weekly news and entertainment newspaper published in Vancouver, British Columbia, by Overstory Media Group. Often known simply as ''The Straight'', it is delivered to newsboxes, post-secondary schools, ...

'', edited by McLeod; the poetry newsletter ''SUM'' (1963–65), edited by Wah; the magazine of the long poem ''

Imago In biology, the imago (Latin for "image") is the last stage an insect attains during its metamorphosis, its process of growth and development; it is also called the imaginal stage, the stage in which the insect attains maturity. It follows the f ...

'' (1964–74), edited by Bowering; the journal of writing and theory ''

Open Letter An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally. Open letters usually take the form of a letter addressed to an indiv ...

'' (1965–2013), edited by Davey; the prose journal ''Periodics'' (1977–81), edited by Marlatt and Paul de Barros; ''Motion: A Prose Newsletter'', edited by David Cull and Robert Hogg (1962), the ''TISHBooks'' imprint, and the online journal ''

Swift Current Swift Current is the fifth largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It is situated along the Trans Canada Highway west of Moose Jaw, and east of Medicine Hat, Alberta. Swift Current grew 6.8% between 2011 and 2016, ending up at ...

'' (1984–1990), edited by Davey and Wah, who described it as the world's first e-magazine. In 2001, George Fetherling wrote in ''The Georgia Straight'' that "the journal 'TISH''started by

, Frank Davey, David Dawson,

and Fred Wah is probably the most influential literary magazine ever produced in Canada, of greater significance than even ''

Preview Preview may refer to: Theatre, film, television * Preview (subscription service), an early subscription television service in the United States * Preview (theatre), a public performance of a theatrical show before the official opening * Previe ...

'' or ''

First Statement ''First Statement'' was a Canadian literary magazine published in Montreal, Quebec from 1942 to 1945. During its short life the magazine, along with its rival publication ''Preview'' with which it often shared contributors, provided one of the few ...

'', the two that brought poetic modernism to the country in the 1940s."Quoted in "http://www.abcbookworld.com/view_author.php?id=59 Author Bank: Warren Tallman"

References

Further reading