Vehicule Days: An Unorthodox History of Montreal's Vehicule Poets AUTHOR: Ken Norris ISBN: 0921833113 192 PAGES $16.95 CDN $14.95 US ABOUT THE BOOK: This group of poets who gathered in the mid-70s around the alternative gallery Vehicule Art Inc. and the printing operation Vehicule Press was initially interested in gaining access to the means of production. But a funny thing happened on the way to print. The various poets coalesced into a group, feeding off each other's experiences and innovations. Inspired by the experimental environment of the gallery, the Vehicule Poets worked at the cutting edge of mixed media, poetry and video art. They took poetry out of the closet and put it on the buses, in the parks, on the dance floor and in the subway. The Vehicule Poets were an irreverent, adventurous lot, provoking both praise and vitriol from the public and the critics. Vehicule Days is an important record of literary and cultural history. The collection includes articles, essays and interviews, as well as a sampling from the works of the Vehicule Poets then and now.   REVIEWS: "In the 70s two English literary movements expressed other realities of 'montréalitude,' to borrow a term coined by Clark Blaise. In prose, then youthful literati John Metcalf, Ray Smith, Ray Fraser, Blaise, and Hugh Hood banded together—'a jolly band of prose-troubadours'—to form the original Montreal Story Tellers... Simultaneously, a group of young poets associated with the experimental gallery Vehicule Art began to challenge the conservative and academic mindsets which had once again beset the English-language poetry scene. Experimenting with 'form, content, and collectivity,' the original group consisted of Ken Norris, Artie Gold, Stephen Morrissey, Claudia Lapp, John McAuley, Tom Konyves, and Endre Farkas." —The Montreal Gazette