Selected Publications

Scholarly and Critical Papers>

"'friend / to any / word': Steve Lacy Scores Tom Raworth." Mosaic 42.1 (March 2009): 151-167.

"All Poets Are Not Jews: Transgression and Satire in A. M. Klein." English Studies in Canada. 28 (2002): 413-45. [Actual date of publication: May 2003. This essay received the FEL Priestley Award for the best essay published in this journal in 2002.]

"Toward a Poetics of Dislocation: P. K. Page and Elizabeth Bishop Writing 'Brazil.'" Studies in Canadian Literature. 23.2 (1998): 85-108.

"I Got Ryhtmethe: The Jazz Poetics of Robert Creeley." Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz and Literature 2.2 (Summer 1998): 52-63.

"His Own Best Narrator: Franz Boas and the Kwakiutl Tales." Canadian Literature. 154 (Autumn 1997): 29-49.

"Charles Mingus Splits, or, All the Things You Could Be By Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother." Canadian Review of American Studies. 27.2 (1997): 45-70.

"Cultural Morphologies: Yeats, Spengler and Adorno." Irish University Review 27.2 (Autumn/Winter 1997): 245-61.

"A Fragment of Perfect Expression: Yeats Rewrites Pater's Mona Lisa." Yeats Eliot Review 14:3 (Winter 1997): 2-9.

"Ugly Beauty: John Zorn and the Politics of Postmodern Music." [Translated into Japanese] Eureka (Tokyo) 29.1 (January 1997): 178-191.

"Listening, Nordicity, Community: Glenn Gould's The Idea of North." Essays on Canadian Writing 59 (Fall 1996): 87-104.

"Ugly Beauty: John Zorn and the Politics of Postmodern Music." Postmodern Culture 5:2 (January 1995): 19 paragraphs, 5000 words. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/v005/5.2mcneilly.html

"Provincials and Nationals: A Weekend in Canada with W.B. Yeats." Canadian Poetry 29 (Fall/ Winter 1991): 1-16.

 

Chapters in Books

"A Few Small Essays on the Poetics of Grace" Lyric Ecology: An Appreciation of the Work of Jan Zwicky, ed. Mark Dickinson and Clare Goulet. Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2010. 94-102.

"Poetry" ["Aesthetic Experiments, 1960 and After"]. The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature, ed. Coral Ann Howells and Eva-Marie Kroller. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. 422-440.

"Dislocating America: Agnieszka Holland Directs Moral Midgetry." The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television, ed. Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall. New York: Continuum, 2009. 203-216.

"'This Might Be Hard For You to Watch': Salvage Humanity in 'Final Cut.'" In Cylons in America: Critical Studies in Battlestar Galactica, ed. Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall. London: Continuum, 2008. 185-197. (This collection was awarded the Ray and Pat Browne Award for Best Edited Collection in Popular and American Culture by the Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association.

"Extemporaneous Digital." In Michael Snow: Almost Cover to Cover, ed. Catsou Roberts. Bristol: Arnolfini, 2001.

"Culture, Race, Rhythm: Sweeney Agonistes and the Live Jazz Break." In T.S. Eliot's Orchestra, ed. John Xiros Cooper. New York: Routledge (Garland), 2000. 25-47.

 

Other Articles and Review Essays

"Listening to/at/with Marilyn Lerner's They're All in Families." Review essay on Marilyn Lerner's Sound-Art Composition "They're All in Families." Critical Studies in Improvisation / Etudes Critiques en Improvisation 4.2 (2008). Actual date of publication, May 2009. 1500 wds. http://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/csieci/article/view/965/1408.

"Word Jazz 5: Lorna Goodison Leaves Off Miles Davis." Canadian Literature 182 (Autumn 2004): 198-200.

"Word Jazz 4: Ajay Heble and Don McKay." Review article on Landing on the Wrong Note: Jazz, Dissonance and Critical Practice by Ajay Heble and Another Gravity by Don McKay. Canadian Literature 177 (Summer 2003): 195-199.

"Cabbages and Crysanthemums." Review article on Polish Subtitles: Impressions from a Journey by Daryl Hine. Canadian Literature 174 (Fall 2002): 196-201.

(With Christina Sylka and Susan R. Fisher) "Kiss the Librarian, But Close the Hellmouth: It's, Like, a Whole Big Sucking Thing." Slayage: The On-Line International Journal of Buffy Studies 2 (Spring 2001). 4000 words. http://www.middleenglish.org/slayage/essays/slayage2/mcneilly.htm

"Word Jazz 3." Review article on Headed for the Blues by Josef Skvoercky and Stopping Time: Paul Bley and the Transformation of Jazz by Paul Bley and David Lee. Canadian Literature 170/171 (Autumn/Winter 2001): 277-281.

"Word Jazz 2." Review article on Beatrice Chancy by George Elliott Clarke and The Clamourous Alphabet by Catriona Strang and Francois Houle. Canadian Literature 165 (Summer 2000): 176-181.

"Word Jazz 1." Review article on Such Melodious Racket: The Lost History of Jazz in Canada by Mark Miller and A Genealogy of Resistance and Other Essays by M. NourbeSe Philip. Canadian Literature 164 (Spring 2000): 179-184.

 

Interviews

"Jazz and the Queer Aesthetic" by John Murph. (I'm interviewed about sexualities and music.) Jazz Times 40.10 (December 2010): 38-43.

"Lessons in Literacy," on-air interview for The Current (CBC Radio One) on Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling and the NEA's report on American literacy, July 2007.

"The Greatest Story Ever Told" by Kate Taylor. (I'm interviewed about Harry Potter and literacy). The Globe and Mail. Saturday, July 6, 2007: R1-2.

Video interview with Francois Houle, the Vancouver Jazz Heritage Project, Vancouver B. C., August 2006.

Video interview with Peggy Lee, the Vancouver Jazz Heritage Project, Vancouver B. C., August 2006.

(with Wayde Compton) "The Crime of Poetry: George Elliott Clarke in Conversation." Canadian Literature 182 (Autumn 2004): 53-66.

"Gifts and Questions: An Interview with Anne Carson." Canadian Literature 176 (Spring 2003): 12-25.

"Old Style in New Novels" by Patchen Barss. The National Post Tuesday, June 13, 2000. A17.

"Interview with Graeme Gibson." The Literary Review (London, Ontario) 1.1 (Spring 1983): 30-4.

 

Reviews and Editorials

Rev. of The Irrationalist by Suzanne Buffam, Patient Frame by Steven Heighton and The Annotated Bee & Me by Tim Bowling. Event 40.2  (Autumn 2011): 121-124

(with Julie Dawn Smith) "Connective Tissues." Editorial. Critical Studies in Improvisation / Etudes Critiques en Improvisation 4.2 (2008). Actual date of publication, May 2009. 2000 wds. http://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/csieci/article/view/963/1401

Rev. of The Tree of Meaning: Thirteen Talks by Robert Bringhurst. University of Toronto Quarterly 77.1 (Winter 2008): 451-453.

"Sight Lines" (on Chester Brown's Louis Riel: A Comic Strip History and bp Nichol's First Screening). Canadian Literature 194 (Autumn 2007): 196-199.

"Poetic Terrain of Sound, Sense, Noise and Word." Rev. of Fumms bu wo taa zaa Uu, ed. Urs Engeler and Christian Schloz. Musicworks 94 (Spring 2006): 62-63.

"What Remains." Review article on Anne Simpson's Loop. Canadian Literature 185 (Summer 2005): 197-200.

"Earth Enough and Time." Rev. of Planet Earth; Poems Selected and New by P. K. Page and Facsimiles of  Time: Essays on Poetry and Translation by Eric Ormsby. Canadian Literature 181 (Summer 2004): 168-170.

"Pray Meditate Upon Its Poetry." Rev. of Disturbances of Progress and the soft signature by Lise Downe. Canadian Literature 182 (Autumn 2004): 118-119.

"Almosting." Rev. of Apocrypha: Further Journeys by Stan Dragland. Canadian Literature 182 (Autumn 2004): 119-20.

Rev. of Ragas of Longing: The Poetry of Michael Ondaatje by Sam Solecki. University of Toronto Quarterly 74.1 (Winter 2004/2005): 595-596.

"This Ain't No Time for Innocence: George Elliott Clarke's Quebecite." The Canadian Theatre Review. 118 (Spring 2004): 121-123.

"Many and Other." Rev. of Five Part Invention: A History of Literary History in Canada and An Ark of Koans by E.D. Blodgett. Canadian Literature 180 (Spring 2004): 103-105.

"A Blues of One's Own: Poetry on CD 2." Review Article on Why I Sing the Blues, edited by Jan Zwicky and Brad Cran. Canadian Literature 179 (Winter 2003): 185-188.

"Al Purdy and Paul Dutton: Poetry on CD." Review article on Necropsy of Love, a spoken word CD by Al Purdy, and Mouth Pieces, a spoken word CD by Paul Dutton. Canadian Literature 178 (Autumn 2003): 199-201.

"Five Fairly Short Talks on Anne Carson." Editorial. Canadian Literature 176 (Spring 2003): 6-10.

"Trans Layton." Rev. of Layton, l'essential by Irving Layton, translated by Michel Albert. Canadian Literature 175 (Winter 2003):159-161.

"Walter Benjamin in Vancouver." Review article on The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin and The Complete Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno. Canadian Literature 173 (Summer 2002): 194-198.

"Implications of Improv." Rev. of The Promise, a compact disc by Thurston Moore, Evan Parker and Walter Prati. Musicworks 81 (fall 2001): 59.

"Body Sounds and Bent Pitches." Rev. of homard et autre pieces inquietantes et capitales, a compact disc by Vincent Barras and Jacques Demierre. Musicworks 81 (Fall 2001): 56-57.

"Smuggled, With Feeling." Rev. of Con Affetto: Live in Moscow, a compact disc by the Ganelin Trio. Musicworks 81 (Fall 2001): 54-55.

Rev. of Wishbone Dance: New and Selected Medical Poems by Glen Downie, Geometry of the Odd by Stan Rogal, and The Parable Boat by Hannah Main-van der Kamp. Journal of Canadian Poetry 16 (2001): 80-90.

"Translator Retranslated." Rev. of Selected Poems by Adam Czerniawski, trans. Iain Higgins. Canadian Literature 170/171 (Autumn/Winter 2001): 204-206.

"Extemporaneous Digital." Rev. of SNOW SOLO PIANO SOLO SNOW [3 PHASES]: piano antique, piano biologique, piano mecanique, compact discs by Michael Snow. Musicworks 79 (Spring 2001): 53-56.

"Cutting Both Ways: Robert Bringhurst and Classical Haida Literature." Review article on A Story as Sharp as a Knife and Native American Oral Literatures and the Unity of the Humanities by Robert Bringhurst and Raven Steals the Light by Bill Reid and Robert Bringhurst. Canadian Literature 167 (Winter 2000): 167-174.

"Home Economics." Editorial. Canadian Literature 166 (Autumn 2000): 5‑16.

"Historical Present." Rev. of News from the 70s [compact disc] by Anthony Braxton. Musicworks 77 (Summer 2000): 50‑51.

"Double Double Bass." Rev. of Jo‘lle et Tetsu: Live at Yokohama Jazz Promenade Festival [compact disc] by Jo‘lle LŽandre and Tetsu Saitoh. Musicworks 77 (Summer 2000): 55.

"Critical Plurals." Review article on New Contexts of Canadian Criticism, ed. Ajay Heble, Donna Palmateer Pennee, and J. R.(Tim) Struthers. Essays in Canadian Writing 67 (Spring 1999): 126-33.

"Simply Someplace Else the Same." Rev. of aCCoMpliCes, a recording by CCMC (Michael Snow, Paul Dutton, John Oswald). Musicworks 75 (Fall 1999): 56.

"Canonizing the Heretical?" Rev. of John Zorn, ed. Walter Rovere and Carla Chiti.  Musicworks 75 (Fall 1999): 60-62.

"Intense Immediacy." Rev. of Urban Voices, with Lauren Newton, Jo‘lle LŽandre and Uschi BrŸning, Not Missing Drums Project [compact disc].Musicworks 73 (Spring 1999): 58-59.

"Graceful Clarities." Rev. of Hologram by P. K. Page. Canadian Literature. 157 (Summer 1998): 160-63.

"Twice the Culture Cringe." Rev. of The Wild Is Always There: Canada Through the Eyes of Foreign Writers and There Very Richness of That Past: Canada Through the Eyes of Foreign Writers, Volume 2, ed. Greg Gatenby. Canadian Literature 156 (Spring 1998): 133-6.

"Visions Out Loud." Rev. of Collapse #2: The Verbal and the Visual, ed. Judith Mastai, Hanif JanMohamad, John O'Brien. Canadian Literature 155 (Winter 1997): 193-4.

"Fictions of the Mind." Rev. of Narcissism and the Novel by Jeffrey Berman, Telling Tales: The Hysteric's Seduction by Katherine Cummings, and Reading the Other: Novels and the problem of Other Minds by Carol de Dobay Rifelj. Canadian Literature 149 (Summer 1996): 155-7.

Rev. of 2 Legs in the Afternoon by John Castlebury, A Velvet Increase of Curiosity by Lise Downe, and Phoenix Time by Hilda Kirkwood. Journal of Canadian Poetry 10 (1995): 43-54.

"Abusing Lacan." Rev. of Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction by Elizabeth Grosz and Using Lacan, Reading Fiction by James Mellard. Canadian Literature 138 (Fall 1993): 141-2.

Rev. of I.A. Richards: His Life and Work by John Paul Russo. Queen's Quarterly 97.3 (Fall 1990): 478-9.

Rev. of novels by Matt Cohen, Hugh Hood, Brian Moore and Morley Callaghan. Queen's Quarterly 96.3 (Autumn 1989): 717-9.

 

Conference Papers

"Ecologies of Estrangement: Robert Bringhurst and Anne Carson Translating Antigone." Beyond the Nature of Culture: Rethinking Canadian and Environmental Studies. University of British Columbia, 28-30 September 2012.

"'We jimmied the radio': Gillian Jerome, Brad Cran and the Lyric in Public." Public Poetics: Critical Issues in Canadian Poetry and Poetics. Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB, 20-23 September 2012.

"What Remains: Steve Lacy, Jo‘lle LŽandre and the Untimely Body." Skin Surface Circuit: Embodying the Improvisatory. McGill University, Montreal, June 14-16, 2012.

"Listening in the Margins: Kathleen Jamie, Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts." Acoustic Communication and Soundscape Design. A Symposium at the University of British Columbia, hosted by Simon Fraser University Soundscape Studies. September 16, 2011.

"Pierre HŽbert, Scratching Dissent." Colloquium of the Guelph International Jazz Festival, University of Guelph, Guelph Ontario, September 2011.

"Michael Jackson, Miles Davis and Late Human Nature." The Ghost in the Machine: Technologies, Performance, Publics. Conference of the Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas, McGill University, Montreal, February 2-3, 2011.

"Charles Lloyd and Charles Simic: The Poetics of Listening." Conference of the International Society for Improvised Music, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz California, December 2009.

"I Just Want to Feel Your Rhythm: Bruce Springsteen and Social Prosody" Popular Music Worlds, Popular Music Histories. Biannual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. University of Liverpool, Liverpool, England, July 2009.

"George Lewis, Quincy Troupe and Basketball." (Respondent to a keynote presentation by Paul Steinbeck) Power Play: Improvisation and Sport, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, February, 2009.

"The Film as Graphic Score: StŽphan Oliva and Pandora's Box." Text, Media, and Improvisation<. McGill University, Montreal QC, June, 2008.

"Improvising Diaspora: Fred Ho, John Coltrane and the Music of Radical Respect" People Get Ready: Colloquium of the Guelph International Jazz Festival. University of Guelph. Guelph Ontario, September, 2007.

"Prodigals and Permanent Tourists: Derek Walcott and P. K. Page" Literature for Our Times. Triennial Conference of the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, Vancouver, August, 2007.

"Late Rhapsody: Tyrone Power Reading Byron" Byron and Modernity. Vancouver, B. C., October, 2007

"Connective Tissues: Fred Hersch Does Justice to Thelonious Monk." Comin' Out Swingin': Sexualities in Improvisation. University of British Columbia, November 17-18, 2007.

"George Lewis Teaching the North Star Boogaloo." Symposium of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute. Vancouver, June, 2005.

"'This Ain't No Time for Innocence': George Elliott Clarke's QuŽbŽcitŽ.' Transculturalisms. U. B. C. October, 2003.

"A Windy Boy and a Bit: Dylan Thomas's Canadian Influence." Dylan Thomas in Vancouver: Conference of the Vancouver Dylan Thomas Circle. Vancouver, October, 2003.

"Bruise Blue: George Elliott Clarke Does Miles Davis." Colloquium of the Guelph International Jazz Festival. University of Guelph. Guelph Ontario, September, 2003.

"Fainter Music: Charlotte Mew's Historical Dissolve." Material Modernisms. U.B.C., July, 2001.

"Radical Piety: John Zorn, Walter Benjamin, William Meyerowitz." Improvising in Global Communities. Colloquium of the Guelph International Jazz Festival. University of Guelph. Guelph Ontario, September, 2000

"Robert Bringhurst, Walter Benjamin, and the Poetics of Alterity." Canadian Comparative Literature Association, Learned Societies Conferences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, May, 2000.

"This Saying, This Being Unsaid: Robert Bringhurst and Emmanuel Levinas." ACCUTE, Learned Societies Conferences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, May, 2000.

"Radical Jewish Culture: John Zorn and Walter Benjamin." Rethinking the Avant Garde: Politics and Aesthetics, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, April, 2000.

"friend/ to any/ word: Steve Lacy Scores Tom Raworth (pace Maurice Blanchot)." Twentieth Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, February, 2000

"Elegy in Tatters: John Zorn and Jean Genet." Digging Cthonic Culture, a conference on underground culture, U.B.C., February, 1999.

"Bud Freeman in Belfast: Cultural Cross-Talk in British Jazz Poetry." ACCUTE, Learned Societies Conferences, Brock University, St. Catherine's, June, 1996.

"Charles Mingus Splits, or, All the Things You Could Be By Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother." Trash, a conference of the Canadian Association for American Studies, Vancouver, B.C., October, 1995.

"All Poets Are Not Jews: Transgression and Satire in A.M. Klein." ACCUTE, Learned Societies Conferences, UniversitŽ de QuŽbec ˆ MontrŽal, MontrŽal, QuŽbec, June, 1995.

"Feminist Music, Hysteric Noise: Cixous, ClŽment, and the Voice." Canadian Society for Hermeneutics and Postmodern Thought, Learned Societies Conferences, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, June, 1994.

"Education in Cinders: Hulme, Bergson and the Canadian Prairies."Thinking Between Poetry and Philosophy: a Conference of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature. University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, May, 1994.

"His Own Best Narrator: Franz Boas and the Kwakiutl Tales." Narrativity and Nativity: International Conference of the Society for the Study of Narrative Literature. Vancouver, B.C., April, 1994.

"Ugly Beauty: John Zorn and the Politics of Postmodern Music." Canadian Society for Hermeneutics and Postmodern Thought, Learned Societies Conferences, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, June, 1993.

"The Necessity of Critique: Emmanuel Levinas and the Ethics of Literature." Canadian Society for Aesthetics, Learned Societies Conferences, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, P.E.I., May, 1992.

"Poetry as Witness: Geoffrey Hill's Paul Celan." Twentieth Century Literature, University of Louisville, Louisville Kentucky, February, 1992.