Geoffrey Nilson is a writer, editor, visual artist, and the founder of pagefiftyone, a BC-based poetry micropress.
A regular contributor to Coast Mountain Culture, he is the author of four poetry chapbooks: In my ear continuously like a stream (above/ground, 2017), O (Swimmer's Group, 2017), We Have to Watch (Quilliad, 2016), and Alchemy Machine (2015).
Nilson’s poems, essays, and journalism have appeared widely in magazines and periodicals such as PRISM international, Event, Poetry is Dead, subTerrain, The Capilano Review, CV2, The Rusty Toque, Lemon Hound, Qwerty, and the Glasgow Review of Books. Nilson holds a BA in Creative Writing from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, is an alumnus of the Banff Centre Wired Writing Studio, and has been shortlisted for The Malahat Review Far Horizons Award for Poetry and the Alfred G. Bailey Poetry Prize.
As a visual artist, Nilson is preoccupied with the use of analog technologies in a digital world and what bpNichol called the “borderblur” between writing and visual art. His artistic practice includes photography, video, collage, printmaking, and visual poetry.
In a past life, Nilson was musician, songwriter, and recording engineer for various solo and collaborative projects.
He lives with his daughter in New Westminster on the unceded territory of the Qayqayt nation.
A regular contributor to Coast Mountain Culture, he is the author of four poetry chapbooks: In my ear continuously like a stream (above/ground, 2017), O (Swimmer's Group, 2017), We Have to Watch (Quilliad, 2016), and Alchemy Machine (2015).
Nilson’s poems, essays, and journalism have appeared widely in magazines and periodicals such as PRISM international, Event, Poetry is Dead, subTerrain, The Capilano Review, CV2, The Rusty Toque, Lemon Hound, Qwerty, and the Glasgow Review of Books. Nilson holds a BA in Creative Writing from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, is an alumnus of the Banff Centre Wired Writing Studio, and has been shortlisted for The Malahat Review Far Horizons Award for Poetry and the Alfred G. Bailey Poetry Prize.
As a visual artist, Nilson is preoccupied with the use of analog technologies in a digital world and what bpNichol called the “borderblur” between writing and visual art. His artistic practice includes photography, video, collage, printmaking, and visual poetry.
In a past life, Nilson was musician, songwriter, and recording engineer for various solo and collaborative projects.
He lives with his daughter in New Westminster on the unceded territory of the Qayqayt nation.
QUOTES
"Images that dislocate meaning...technical skill applied to the glosa...elegant couplets... expressionistic...dramatic and imagistic eloquence...Paraphrases from a public whiteboard exhibits much truth and daring with flair and considerable skill." -Alfred G. Bailey Prize Jury
"Geoffrey Nilson pays homage to a poet in his glosa 'Fractals,' which borrows a few lines from Michael Ondaatje’s 'The Time Around Scars.' Nilson shape-shifts through words, a bookstore, 'a spider of airborne static / between dust & light.'" -PRISM international
"The images are vivid, the metaphors unexpected. One hears traces of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder. The poems seek to both depict and question the importance of the places we inhabit...the characters are tigers, victims, colonizers, rescue medics and suburbanites. Geoffrey invites us into their complicated and very alive worlds." -Jen Currin
"Geoffrey Nilson's writing is both grounded in hard-won personal experience and elevated by mysterious notes of grace. Like the musician he is, he knows how to hit notes that please and transport, but he also insists on challenging his readers. Geoffrey has an affinity for experimental language and a deft ability at juxtaposition, which leads to new insights, new ways of seeing and thinking. For all the risks he takes as a writer, he remains committed to craft and to an unspoken pact with his readers to both connect and astonish." -Rachel Rose
"Images that dislocate meaning...technical skill applied to the glosa...elegant couplets... expressionistic...dramatic and imagistic eloquence...Paraphrases from a public whiteboard exhibits much truth and daring with flair and considerable skill." -Alfred G. Bailey Prize Jury
"Geoffrey Nilson pays homage to a poet in his glosa 'Fractals,' which borrows a few lines from Michael Ondaatje’s 'The Time Around Scars.' Nilson shape-shifts through words, a bookstore, 'a spider of airborne static / between dust & light.'" -PRISM international
"The images are vivid, the metaphors unexpected. One hears traces of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder. The poems seek to both depict and question the importance of the places we inhabit...the characters are tigers, victims, colonizers, rescue medics and suburbanites. Geoffrey invites us into their complicated and very alive worlds." -Jen Currin
"Geoffrey Nilson's writing is both grounded in hard-won personal experience and elevated by mysterious notes of grace. Like the musician he is, he knows how to hit notes that please and transport, but he also insists on challenging his readers. Geoffrey has an affinity for experimental language and a deft ability at juxtaposition, which leads to new insights, new ways of seeing and thinking. For all the risks he takes as a writer, he remains committed to craft and to an unspoken pact with his readers to both connect and astonish." -Rachel Rose
