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J. Michael Yates

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J. Michael Yates. Courtesy J.Michael Yates.

Joel Michael Yates[1] (April 10, 1938 - April 17, 2019) was a U.S.-born Canadian poet and dramatist, and the founder of Sono Nis Press.

Life[]

Youth and education[]

Yates was born in Fulton, Missouri, in the Ozark Mountains.[2]

He earned a B.A. in 1960 and an M.A. in 1961 from the University of Missouri.[2] He then studied at the University of Michigan, where he earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature in 1967.[3]

Career[]

Yates taught comparative literature at Ohio University and the University of Alaska from 1963 to 1966.[2]

In July 1966, he moved to Vancouver,[3] British Columbia, where he served until 1971 as writer in residence and professor of creative writing at the University of British Columbia.[2] He became a Canadian citizen in 1972.[3]

He and his wife also taught languages, history of ideas, and science in their home in Vancouver.

He founded Sono Nis Press in 1966, and managed the company until 1976.[3]

Yates also worked as a logger, a powder monkey, a motorcycle racer, a broadcasting executive, a broadcaster, an advertising executive, a print salesman, a commercial photographer, and a publisher.

On the way to work as a Vancouver CBC radio public-relations employee in 1978, Yates was injured in a car accident. He suffered memory loss and temporarily stopped writing. He took a job as a prison guard and for 12 years worked in 3 different prisons.

Yates is a widely published author of poetry, fiction, drama, translations, and philosophical essays. He has edited several anthologies and founded and edited several literary magazines.

His work has been translated into 14 languages and has appeared in hundreds of periodicals and anthologies around the world,[4] and his dramas for radio, television, and stage dramas have been produced both nationally and internationally.

Writing[]

Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature: "Yates was a key figure in the early 1970s in the development of a distinctive style of fiction and poetry that he called ‘West Coast surrealism’. Widely read in European and Latin American literatures, he writes in a ‘non-realist’ or abstract style; his subject is consciousness itself, not the description of the external details of everyday life. Much of his work centres on ‘the polarities between absolute wilderness and absolute technology’. Dismantling accepted views of reality and discourse, his poetry is innovative, moody, intellectual, metaphysical, and occasionally puzzling. Critics have called him self-indulgent, referring not only to his work but to his lavish self-published collections, which often reprint existing volumes."[2]

Recognition[]

Yates has won many literary prizes including the Major Hopwood Awards (for both poetry and drama in the same year); the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts and Sciences from University of Missouri; The Look of Books (for Volvox: Poetry from the unofficial languages of Canada in English translation); and the Olympic Arts Award for Schedules of Silence.

He received an honorary doctorate from Ohio University.

Awards[]

  • International Broadcasting Award, 1960 and 1961
  • Major Hopwood Award for Poetry and Drama from the University of Michigan, 1964
  • Look of Books Award, 1972
  • Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts and Sciences from the University of Missouri
  • Writer's Choice Award, 1987, for Schedules of Silence.[4]
  • Vancouver Award for Line Screw, 1994

Publications[]

Poetry[]

  • Spiral of Mirrors. Francestown, NH: Golden Quill Press, 1967.[5]
  • Hunt in an Unmapped Interior, and other poems. Francestown, NH: Golden Quill Press, 1967.
  • Cantacle for Electronic Music. Vancouver: Morriss Printing, 1967.
  • Parallax: Poems. Surrey, BC: Sono Nis, 1971.
  • The Great Bear Lake Meditations. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1971. ISBN 0-88750-028-5
  • Nothing Speaks for the Blue Moraines: New and selected poems. Delta, BC: Sono Nis, 1973.
  • Breath of the Snow Leopard. Delta, BC: Sono Nis, 1974.
  • The Qualicum Physics. San Francisco: Kanchenjunga Press, 1975.
  • Esox Nobilior Non Esox Lucius. Fredericton, NB: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1978.
  • Fugue Brancusi: poem. Victoria, BC: Sono Nis, 1983.
  • Insel: The Queen Charlotte Islands meditations. Moonbeam, ON: Penumbra Press, 1983.
  • Various Northern Meditations. Toronto: League of Canadian Poets, 1984.[5]
  • The Completely Collapsible Portable Man: Selected shorter lyrics. Oakville, ON: Mosaic Press, 1984.
  • Schedules of Silence: The collected longer poems, 1960-1986. Vancouver: Pulp Press, 1986. ISBN 0-88978-188-5
  • Wings of the Snow Goose. Aylmer, QC: Haiku Canada, 1989.
  • During: A book of interrogatives. San Francisco: Alsop Review, 1999.[5]
  • Hongyun: New and collected shorter poems, 1955-2005. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2005. ISBN 1-4208-2771-5

Plays[]

  • Subjunction: A play in two scenes. Vancouver: New Play Centre, [1968?]
  • The Abstract Beast (fiction & drama). Port Clemens, BC: Sono Nis, 1971.
  • Night Freight: A play in one act. Vancouver: Sono Nis / Toronto: Playwrights Co-op, 1972.
  • Quarks: Three one-act plays. Toronto: Playwrights Co-op, 1975.
  • The Passage of Sono Nis: Collected plays. Surrey, BC: Libros Libertad, 2007.

Short fiction[]

  • Man in the Glass Octopus. Vancouver: Sono Nis Press, 1968.
  • Fazes in Elsewhen: New and selected fiction. Vancouver: Intermedia Press, 1977.
  • Torque. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1987. ISBN 0-88978-191-5
  • Torpor: Collected fiction, 1960-1987. (2 volumes), Coquitlam, BC: Cacanadadada Press, 1989. ISBN 0-921870-00-0

Non-fiction[]

  • Line Screw: My twelve riotous years working behind bars in some of Canada's toughest jails: An unrepentant memoir. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1993.
  • An Easy Existential Approach to High School and University Essay Writing (with Hongyun Chen). Vancouver: Cacanadadada Press, 2008.

Edited[]

  • Contemporary Poetry of British Columbia. Vancouver: Sono Nis / Dept. of Creative Writing, University of British Columbia, 1970.
  • Volvox: Poetry from the unofficial languages of Canada, in English translation. Port Clements, BC: Sono Nis, 1971.
  • Light Like a Summons: Five poets (by Mary Choo, Margaret Fridel, Eileen Kernaghan, Sue Nevill, & Laurel Wade). Coquitlam, BC: Cacanadadada Press, 1989.


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[6]

See also[]

References[]

Fonds[]

Notes[]

  1. ↑ Yates, J. Michael, VIAF, Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, May 2, 2015.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 J. Michael Yates, Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, Oxford University Press, 2001. Answers.com, Internet Archive, Web, June 21, 2019.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 #531 J. Michael Yates, 1938-2019, ABC Bookworld, April 17, 2019. Web, June 21, 2019.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 J. Michael Yates, Ronsdale Press. Web, June 21, 2019.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Yates, J. Michael, ABC Bookworld. Web, May 2, 2015.
  6. ↑ Search results = J. Michael Yates, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, May 2, 2015.

External links[]

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