McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Person
Gold, Artie, 1947-2007
1947-2007
Arthur (Artie) Mark Gold was born on January 14, 1947, in Brockville, Ontario.
He was a Canadian poet who rose to prominence in the 1970s as a member of the circle of Montreal-based writers known as The Vehicule Poets. Characterized as one of the wildest and most daring of the Vehicule poets, Gold was influenced by the work of Jack Spicer and Frank O'Hara, his cats (to whom he was allergic) and his myriad eclectic autodidact interests. Around 1977, Gold became one of the first poetry editors of Vehicule Press. Though plagued by illness throughout his life, he worked prolifically and was always less interested in fame or academic placement than he was in creating poetry "at the front of the arts". Gold was the author of eight collections of poems, e.g., "cityflowers" (1974), "Some of the Cat Poems" (1978), "The Beautiful Chemical Waltz" (1992), "Hotel Victoria" (2003), and "The Collected Books of Artie Gold" (2010).
He died on February 14, 2007, in Montreal, Quebec.