The Four Horsemen was a

sound poetry Sound poetry is an artistic form bridging literacy and musical composition, in which the phonetic aspects of human speech are foregrounded instead of more conventional semantic and syntactic values; "verse without words". By definition, sound poetr ...

group of

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

poets A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

composed of

bpNichol Barrie Phillip Nichol (30 September 1944 – 25 September 1988), known as bpNichol, was a Canadian poet, writer, sound poet, editor, Creative Writing teacher at York University in Toronto and grOnk/Ganglia Press publisher. His body of work enc ...

Rafael Barreto-Rivera Rafael may refer to: * Rafael (given name) or Raphael, a name of Hebrew origin * Rafael, California * Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Israeli manufacturer of weapons and military technology * Hurricane Rafael, a 2012 hurricane Fiction * ''R ...

Paul Dutton Paul Dutton (born 1943) is a Canadian poet, novelist, essayist, and oral sound artist. Early life and career Dutton was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. A member of the legendary Four Horsemen sound poetry quartet (1970–1988), along with Rafae ...

and

Steve McCaffery Steven McCaffery (born January 24, 1947) is a Canadian poet and scholar who was a professor at York University. He currently holds the David Gray Chair at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. McCaffery was born in Sheffie ...

that also performed

concrete poetry Concrete poetry is an arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is more important in conveying meaning than verbal significance. It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has now developed a distinct mea ...

. The group was active from 1972 to 1988. They released 2 12-inch vinyl records of their collaborative sound poetry (Nada Canadada, 1972; Live in the West, 1977), 2 cassettes (Bootleg, 1981; 2 Nights, 1988), as well as 3 print collections (Horse d'Oeuvres, 1977; A Little Nastiness, 1980; The Prose Tattoo, 1983 ) & the unique broadside Schedule For Another Place (1981). The Four Horsemen also appeared in

Ron Mann Ronald Mann (born June 13, 1958), credited professionally as Ron Mann, is a Canadian documentary film director. His work includes the films ''Imagine the Sound'' (1981); ''Comic Book Confidential'' (1988); ''Grass'' (1999) and ''Go Further'' ( ...

's 1982 documentary film '' Poetry in Motion.'' They were Canada's first sound poetry ensemble, leading directly to the formation of at least 3 further groups: Owen Sound in Toronto (Michael Dean, David Penhale, Steven Ross Smith, Richard Truhlar), Re:Sounding in Edmonton (Douglas Barbour, Stephen Scobie) & Quatuor Gualuor in Ottawa (currently consisting of director jwcurry, Conyer Clayton, Nina Drystek, Chris Johnson & Alastair Larwill).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Four Horsemen, The Sound poets Canadian poetry