Tom Konyves

Tom Konyves (born July 13, 1947) is a Canadian poet, video producer, educator and a pioneer in the field of videopoetry. He teaches creative visual writing at the University of the Fraser Valley.

Born Könyves Tamás [ˈkøɲvɛʃˌtɒmɑ̈ːʃ] in Budapest, Hungary, he emigrated to Canada following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. He lived in Montreal from 1957–1983, when he moved to Vancouver, where he resides with his wife, Marlene, sons Alexander, Gabriel and daughter, Hannah. He graduated from Concordia University in 1969, worked as a teacher, editor and journalist until 1977, when he became a poet-member of Vehicule Art Gallery, Montreal's first artist-run non-profit centre. As a poet at Vehicule Art, he collaborated with Endre Farkas, Ken Norris, Artie Gold, Stephen Morrissey, Claudia Lapp and John McAuley to form a group of 7 who became known as The Vehicule Poets. Their exploits were documented in the 1993 book, Vehicule Days: An Unorthodox History of Montréal's Vehicule Poets, edited by Ken Norris.

Between 1977 and 1983, Konyves produced his first videopoems – Sympathies of War,Mummypoem, Yellow Light Blues, No Parking, And Once They Have Tasted Freedom, Not Before Nor After (with Linda Lee Tracy), Quebecause and Thus Spoke Tzarathustra.

In 1978, Vehicule Press published No Parking, his first book of poetry.

To promote the poetry reading series he was organizing at Vehicule Art, he approached the daily newspaper, The Montreal Star; subsequently, he was hired to write a monthly column, Poetry Corner, which he wrote until the demise of The Star, 13 months later.

He published 2 issues of a poetry magazine, Hh (invented acronym for the word "hobbyhorse", considered the dictionary definition of Dada), that included some visual poems and text collages.

In 1979, with a grant from the Montreal Arts Council, he produced the controversial public poetry project, Poetry On The Buses,Poésie en Mouvement; fifty copies of 20 poems, 10 by Anglophone Quebec poets, 10 by Francophone Quebec poets, on 11 “x 28” styrene panels, were to be posted on 1000 buses. At first, the MUCTC (Montreal Urban Community Transport Commission) agreed only to post the French poems. Following a protest by the poets, led by Louis Dudek, the Commission relented and agreed to post 30% of the English poems, reflecting the Anglo population of Montreal. The project, the first of its kind in Canada, was launched on Thursday, December 13, 1979, with all major media present in a bus provided by the MUCTC in front of the old bus terminal on St. Antoine St. The Consultant for the English poems was Louis Dudek; the Consultant for the French poems was Claude Beausoleil.

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