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Nelson Ball (1942 - August 16, 2019) was a Canadian poet, editor, publisher, and bookseller.

Biography
Nelson Ball was born in 1942 in Clinton, Ontario. He attended the University of Waterloo in 1962 to study Psychology, where he worked as a reporter for the student newspaper, The Coryphaeus, and launched his first editorial project in 1963 as co-founder and co-editor of the literary magazine Volume 63 (with Steve Buri). As a young man, he worked a number of different jobs, including library assistant at the University of Toronto Library. He worked at the Village Book Store in Toronto in the mid-1960s, and opened his own bookselling operation in 1972, first as William Nelson Books and later, beginning in 1985, as Nelson Ball, Bookseller. He retired from bookselling in 2017.

Ball was married to artist, writer, and publisher Barbara Caruso. They lived first in Toronto, and later in Paris, Ontario. Catherine Stevenson produced a photo documentary about Ball and Caruso’s home in Paris, Ontario, and an accompanying documentary about Caruso’s art , both of which are available online.

Ball died on August 16, 2019. He chose a medically assisted death.

Writing and Editing
As an editor, he was responsible for three literary magazines (Volume 63 [1963-1967], Weed [1966-1967], and Hyphid [1968]). As a publisher, he was responsible for landmark Canadian small press Weed/Flower Press (1965-1973). Through Weed/Flower and his literary magazines, Ball published work by a number of Canada’s most important poets (including George Bowering, Victor Coleman, Margaret Atwood, bpNichol, and David McFadden, among many others).

As a poet, Ball published approximately 50 books and chapbooks during his lifetime, as well as dozens of leaflets and pieces of small press ephemera. His work was published by many presses and magazines, including Ganglia, Coach House, ECW Press, The Mercury Press, Mansfield Press, CURVD H&z, Proper Tales Press, Canadian Forum, Canadian Poetry, Blewointment, El Corno Emplumado, Hamilton Arts & Letters, illiterature, Open Letter, Spudburn, The Ant’s Forefoot, The Café Review, and many others. His poems have been published in translation in Chinese, Romanian, Russian, and Swedish.

Ball was renowned for his minimalism. His poetry has been reviewed in Canadian and International journals, including A B C. [excerpts from select reviews for which I can find links]. Ball has been profiled in Canadian Notes and Queries, The Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star.

In 2016, Ball won the bpNichol Chapbook Award for the collection Small Waterways (Apt. 9 Press). Also in 2016, he published a book of poems for children, illustrated by JonArno Lawson. In 2017, his selected poems Certain Details (edited by Stuart Ross) was published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press in the Laurier Poetry Series. In 2020, “The Nelson Ball Prize” was founded and honors Canadian poetry featuring “poetry of observation.” To date, it has been won by Mark Truscott and Chantal Neveu (translated by Erin Moure).

His literary papers are held at the McMaster University Library.

Selected Publications
Rooms of Clocks: Poems (1964-65). Kitchener: Weed/Flower press, 1965.

Beaufort’s Scale. Kitchener: Weed/Flower press, 1967.

Sparrows. Toronto: Weed/Flower press, 1968.

Force Movements. Toronto: Ganglia, 1969. [Second edition—Toronto: CURVD H&Z, 1990]

Water-Pipes & Moonlight. Toronto: Weed/Flower Press, 1969.

The Pre-Linguistic Heights. Toronto: The Coach House Press, 1970.

Points of Attention. With Barbara Caruso. Toronto: Weed/Flower Press, 1971.

Round Stone. Toronto: Weed/Flower Press, 1971.

Sparrows. Paris: presspresspress, 1990.

With Issa: Poems 1964-1971. Toronto: ECW Press, 1991.

Sightings. Toronto: CURVD H&Z, 1992.

Bird Tracks on Hard Snow. Toronto: ECW Press, 1994.

Round Table. twobitter 62. Toronto: Letters, 1996.

The Concrete Air. Stratford: The Mercury Press, 1996.

Visitation. Paris: Rubblestone Press, 1998.

Almost Spring. Toronto: The Mercury Press, 1999.

A Gathering. Paris: Rubblestone Press, 2003. [Second edition—Toronto: BookThug, 2014]

Scrub Cedar. Ottawa: above/ground press, 2003.

With Held. Mount Pleasant: Laurel Reed Books, 2004.

At the Edge of the Frog Pond. Toronto: The Mercury Press, 2004.

Three-Letter Words. Mount Pleasant: Laurel Reed Books / Paris: Rubblestone Press, 2006.

In This Thin Rain. Toronto: Mansfield Press, 2012.

The Continuous Present. Cobourg: Proper Tales Press, 2012.

Minutiae. Ottawa: Apt. 9 Press, 2014.

A Rattle of Spring Frogs. Hamilton: HA&L / samizdat press, 2014

You Must Look Hard to See What’s There. Portland, Oregon: press-press-pull, 2014

Some Mornings. Toronto: Mansfield Press, 2014.

All and Everything. Mount Pleasant: Laurel Reed Books, 2015.

Small Waterways. Ottawa: Apt. 9 Press, 2015.

This Close to Being a Tree. Delhi: Monk Press, 2015.

Chewing Water. Toronto: Mansfield Press, 2016.

A Vole on a Roll. With JonArno Lawson. Dundas: Shapes & Sounds Press, 2016.

You Can’t Make the Sky a Different Blue. Sarnia: Big Pond Rumours Press, 2017.

Walking with Catherine at Lake Erie. Paris: Rubblestone Press, 2016. [Second edition—Dundas: Shapes & Sounds Press, 2017)

Certain Details: The Poetry of Nelson Ball. Selected with an Introduction by Stuart Ross. Laurier Poetry Series. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2017.

Walking. Toronto: Mansfield Press, 2017.

A Letter to Amanda Bernstein and a Checklist of Weed/Flower Press. Ottawa: Apt. 9 Press, 2019.

54. [Swedish Translation by Charlotte Jung and Eva Ribich.] Gothenburg, Sweden: Trombone, 2022.