For more than 40 years, Paul Dutton has been pushing the borders of literary expression in books, recordings, and live performances, solo and collaborative, in print and film, on TV, radio, and the Web. He has performed throughout Canada and across the USA, Europe, and South America. Dutton’s artistic focus continues to be the exploration of consciousness and perception through the creation of multi-sensory works, employing written poetry and prose, visual poetry, and the sonic dimensions of language and oral expression.

Dutton joined fellow poets Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Steve McCaffery, and the late bpNichol in 1970 to form The Four Horsemen, a group that introduced elements of theatre, music, and sound poetry into poetry readings. The group produced records and books, and travelled extensively until the untimely death of bpNichol in 1988. (In 1989, Dutton became the inaugural winner of the bpNichol Chapbook Award.) The group’s ensemble and solo works were a major influence in the 2007 play The Four Horsemen Project, which won awards in Toronto and toured in Canada and Europe. In 1989, Dutton joined forces with the free-improvisation band CCMC. Dutton’s other collaborations have included the sound-voice group Five Men Singing and the poetry-music group Quintette à Bras.

Having published his work in Canadian literary magazines since 1965, Dutton has maintained an output of poetry for the page, accumulating credits in a multitude of magazines and journals, and publishing books of poetry and fiction. His essays have appeared in literary and scholarly publications in Canada, Europe, and Russia, and his poems continue to appear in anthologies in Canada, USA, and the UK. Books by Paul Dutton include: the poetry collections Right Hemisphere, Left Ear (Coach House Press, 1979); Aurealities (Coach House Books, 1991); Visionary Portraits (Mercury Press, 1991); and Partial Additives (Underwhich Editions, 1994); and the novel Several Women Dancing (Mercury Press, 2002).

He also has 2 solo CDs: Mouth Pieces: Solo Soundsinging (OHM Editions, 2000); and Oralizations (Ambiances Magnétiques, 2005) and his collaborative work can be heard on the CD Five Men Singing (Victo, 2004) and the CCMC CD aCCoMpliCes (Victo, 1998).

Jazzstory

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bass drums trumpet line guitar speaks support
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line bass guitar speaks support trumpet drums
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guitar trumpet line support drums bass speaks

strum peaks pet line
pumps out a gut art

drum sum, traps a part
rump air a sport

bass gets tugged
gets gutted
gets mud dump

drum murders beats
spurts pus
raps a lass as tar leaks
lines outta time

a glass part spits spots sputtered at
rum murmurs names o’ ports a nipper got potted in
bump ’n’ grind lined up ’n’ out
pout past pumped garter
art or
ardour

an eager leap
a tumble, a gulp
an ultimate mustard
a lapsed map

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