Who was the first blog poet? Wrong answer, whatever it was. The best candidate is bpNichol, a Canadian who died in 1988 (at age forty-three), before the blogosphere arrived. Reading Nichol now is unbelievably poignant. It’s at once a time capsule and an intimation of the end of days. Nichol’s work radiates an innocence on the far side of life, an innocence unrivaled since Adam (yes, that Adam). But it’s augmented by an acute sense of situation—historical, geographic, and psychological (Nichol worked for many years as a lay therapist). The Alphabet Game: A bpNichol Reader is infused with everything