''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 university, 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 a ...

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 most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. Th ...

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 educatio ...

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 Frederick James Wah, OC, (born January 23, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, scholar and former Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. Life Wah was born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, but grew up in the interior (West Kootenay) of British Columbi ...

Frank Davey Frankland Wilmot Davey, FRSC (born April 19, 1940) is a Canadian poet and scholar. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, he grew up in the Fraser Valley village of Abbotsford. In 1957 he enrolled at the University of British Columbia where, in ...

Daphne Marlatt Daphne Marlatt, born Buckle, CM (born July 11, 1942 in Melbourne, Australia), is a Canadian poet and novelist who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. At a young age her family moved to Malaysia and at age nine they moved to British Columb ...

, David Cull,

Carol Bolt Carol Bolt (August 25, 1941 – November 28, 2000) was a Canadian playwright. She was a founding member and, for several years, president of the Playwrights Union of Canada. Career Bolt's play ''Buffalo Jump'', an examination of Canada during ...

Dan McLeod Dan McLeod (born 1943) is one of the founders and the former owner, publisher, and editor of the influential weekly newspaper, the ''Georgia Straight'' in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Dan was born and raised in Vancouver. He graduated fr ...

, 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, pa ...

, and Lionel Kearns. Influenced by the poetry theorist Warren Tallman, the Tish Group also drew inspiration from the

Seed Catalogue A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiosperm ...

and

Robert Creeley Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. He was close with Ch ...

, Robert Duncan,

Jason Wiens Lee Jason ( ; ) was an ancient Greek mythological hero and leader of the Argonauts, whose quest for the Golden Fleece featured in Greek literature. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea. He w ...

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 Yor ...

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. H ...

. ''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 fi ...

'' (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 individ ...

'' (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

, David Dawson,

and

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