His most famous published work is probably The Martyrology. The Martyrology is a long poem, encompassing 9 books in 6 volumes.
Nichol also worked in a wide variety of other genres, including musical theatre, children's books, collage/assemblage, pamphlets, spoken word, computer texts, fiction, and television. For having such a brief lifespan, Nichol produced a highly prolific volume of work. However, it was often ephemeral, such as performance.
Fortunately for those interested in Nichol's less publishable work, his early work in sound poetry was documented in Michael Ondaatje's film Sons of Captain Poetry (1970); in Borders, a small phonodisc included with his poetic work Journeying & the returns (1967); and in the long-playing record Motherlove (1968). Also, the 1998 film bp/pushing the boundaries was made on Nicol and his contributions to art by Brian Nash (director) and Elizabeth Yake (producer).
Although Nichol had been writing since 1961, he first attracted public notice in the mid-1960s with his hand-drawn or "concrete" poems, and received international acclaim. The "visual book" Still water, together with the booklets The true eventual story of Billy the Kid and Beach Head as well as the anthology of concrete poetry, The cosmic chef, won the Governor General's Award for poetry.
In 1970, he began to collaborate with fellow poets Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Paul Dutton, and Steve McCaffery, forming the sound-poetry group The Four Horsemen.
He is known as a promoter of poetry and the small press, a manipulator of the lines between genres, and a prolific Canadian word artist. It is next to impossible to form a complete list of what Nichol has accomplished, but below is a list of some of his published work.
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Published Works
Poetry
Booklets
(and many others)Prose
Visual Books
Recordings
Television