Paloin Biloid Biography
PaloinBiloid.com
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Paloin Biloid is the first pen name of Will Napoli, which he
came up with in high school and used for comics, (what was then
called) subprose poetry, science fiction, and within a few years
music then later as a t-shirt designer as well. The name is
actually a subprose (now called protext) piece in itself. The first
name is anagrammatic of Will's last name and the last name is a
combination and familiarization/contraction/mutation of his first
and middle names. Will adopted it, when still called Bill by most,
which he wrote as "Bil" at the time because he thought it sounded
young, poetic, futuristic, streetwise, and devolutionary. The first
name also seemed to signify creativity to him and the last name
indicated modification of the mundane, if not quite freedom from it.
The name probably owed something to the classic science fiction
novel by Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange and the music
and feel of Devo. For subprose and now protext Will uses the
name in all lower case to indicate allegiance to concrete poetry as
an art movement a few generations old now.
Blogs
Check back here for blogs (coming)
from the weird nexus that is Paloin
Biloid within Will Napoli...
Paloin's Progress
Art
Experimental Comics artist & writer
Fashion
Protext Isle™ t-shirt designer
Music
Earthman's Sound™ musician & song writer
Poetry
Experimental Poetry writer
Protext poet & inventor
Science Fiction
Cyberia™ author
Trademarks - 2011,
Earthman's Enterprises,
Cleveland, Ohio.
Bibliography
book of said (1990)
Speak'sPeak (1990)
Show'sHow! (1991)
concrete concert (1993)
artifacts (1993)
artomic bomb (2000)
water detail (2000)
ice try lip pry (2000)
the subprose onomasticon (2000)
A Better Mosaic (2002)
subprosary (2003)
water line (2003)
hot springs (2003)
fresh water (2003)
cummings and gongs i (2006)
the real read you rad diction (2006)
see green edition (2007)
head water
see water
break water
root loose (2007)
The Protext Primer (2007)
The Protext Primer 2nd Ed. (2007)
The Protext Primer, 3rd Ed. (2008)
not quite write (2008)
ultra mate 'em (2008)
insightful wry utter (2008)
The Protext Primer 4th Ed. (2008)
The Protext Primer Teachers Ed.
(2008)
book o blot (2009)
in their own write (2009)
water log edition (2009)
rose water
water bug
water fall
book of spake (2009)
the reading well (2009)
textroverts (2010)
literature feat (2010)
meaning what (2010)
informules (2010)
no word owned (2010)
eye papa (2010)
inword (2010)
water works edition (2010)
water detail
head water
see water
break water
rose water
water bug
water fall
outword (2010)
letter, doer, thing! (2010)
water mark (2010)
water proof (2011)
water skin (2011)
utter water edition (2011)
water mark
water proof
water skin
water board (2011)
paper view (2011)
cite unscene (2011)
optickle allusions (2011)
and various smaller books, poet's
cards, bookmarks, and leaves over
the years.
Biography
Protext
Protext poet, paloin biloid was influenced by the gadget aspects of some of Edgar Allen Poe's
poetry and the freeform aspects of e.e. cummings poetry to invent forms that kicked off his
protext career. He hadn't actually read any concrete poetry before he started writing it, but he
does also cite the inventiveness of Dr. Seuss, which implied that neologistics of even
nonsensical words could work and become accepted as well as the word play of Benny Hill
who explored gadget puns to create alternate readings for humorous effect. There was one
prior contact point with word poetry in biloid's education and that was key. As part of an
experimental megaclass in fifth and sixth grade one exercise that came up was to attempt to
draw a word and make it look like what it represented. Will chose the word "shark" and stylized
the letters to carry the image even further than it naturally does even in type. He later did a report
on sharks for biology because he was so taken with this piece, but it did not immediately lead to
a career in concrete or visual poetry. It was at least five years later that he started to generate
concrete and gadget poems. In the meantime he continued to draw, illustrating role playing
games he led and science fiction stories he dabbled at and started working on abstract line
drawings with a friend who was German-born and then minimalist cartoons.
Then in his senior year of high school biloid created a poem, "insomnia" that started with a
single word and created anagrammatic derivatives that read as a poem in a descent from the
root word with a single letter per line that was imitative of Japanese wall scroll paintings of
rivers, two of which he had on his wall. He called this form "subprose" and began developing
alternate forms of gadget poetry that turn out to be similar in some aspects to concrete poetry.
In his first quarter at Ohio University the next year he attended a fiction writing class with Andrew
Russ. He shared his poetry with Andrew and then showed him how his name could be
rearranged to say "End war, USSR." Since the Soviet Union was still around in those days and
both are pacifists they thought it was pretty cool. Andrew then shared that his middle name is
"Cairnes" so he was able to extend his name-poem anagram to "End war scare in USSR,"
which seemed even cooler. Biloid's own actual name is William Lloyd Napoli, so he had
previously created the name-poem anagram "Aim will, dolly! Plaino?" which also had the
sound of some near future slang that "paloin biloid" has. Andrew eventually started writing
similar poetry under the name endwar, as well as stuart pid in the early days. Both endwar and
biloid have corresponded since their initial meeting in '83 and endwar's work has been shown
in Neopolis since its first concrete poetry show, which opened in late October, 2003. It was in
2003 that biloid converted "subprose" into "protext" by name.
Eventually endwar and later Chris Franke shared concrete poetry anthologies with biloid that
gave him a chance to relate to the larger community and history of concrete poetry. He had
already started to find other examples of it, including the work of Chris Franke who also resides
in Cleveland, but also in advertising more and more. Then the whole micropress community of
concrete poets became more known to biloid as Andrew hipped him to more and more
contemporaries, which led to joining the Spidertangle group, which helped enormously to
create great shows of the genre at Neopolis. Endwar's interest in bpNichol is now shared by
biloid, but endwar has always been a better collector than biloid so it was that in 1990 endwar's
distilled water emerged as a takeoff on beep's 1970 still water and in 2000 paloin followed with
water detail that referenced both still water and distilled water. Biloid continued the experiment
in 2003 with subprosary which was similarly presented as loose leaves in a black wrap, but
was more a representation of a catalog of the forms biloid used at the time. Also in the same
cluster were water line, hot springs, and fresh water. Whereas water line was an attempt to
imitate the style of still water but with forms from biloid's own repertoire, hot springs repeated
forms and fresh water used fewer forms, mostly the "molecularty" form, which was used to
generate the rap name "Hot Water" as a protext piece using the molecular notation for water
and adding a "t" to it. However, in 2007 biloid created three new take-offs on still water that are
all close to it stylistically and presented with green dividers wrapped together with a short white
wrap, which having the appearance of squarish bundles of cash is called the "see green
edition" of the three works: head water, see water, and break water. There is also another
takeoff on still water by Geof Huth released in 2005 entitled water vapour, which biloid saw
briefly a few years ago. In 2009, biloid created a second three-in-one edition that referenced the
still water group: water log (rose water, water bug, water fall). This edition featured blue dividers
and end papers wrapped in brown, giving the appearance of a log in water. In 2010, biloid
joined endwar, Huth, and many other visual poets as presenters at the 2nd Ohio State
University Avant Writers Symposium. For the event, biloid reprinted his seven take-offs on the
still water group on heavy stock paper in a silvery box as water works. Later in the year, he
released water mark then in 2011 yet more editions in the group with water proof, water skin,
and water board. The first three of these next four were also released as the third three-in-one
edition: utter water. As each of the most recent editions were released they were reprinted and
added to the copies of water works on hand (the boxes having room to accommodate them) to
create water works 8, water works 9, water works 10, and water works 11.
Spidertangle.net
water vapour info
Biloid's first books of protext also came out in 1990, the first year of visual poetry publication for
endwar as well. The first, book of said, was submitted in a Creative Writing class at Tri-C East
for a grade and received a B. The low-quality hand-drawn xerographic micropress style was
admittedly crude, but this was acknowledged in the presentation of the cover with a crude
magnification and reproduction of the typewritten title. Other similar books followed, all chap
books, and then in 2000 the first subprose onomasticon was published, which is a glossary of
forms in use by biloid. A Better Mosaic was submitted in a Creative Writing class at Cleveland
State University, but only features a few experimental visual poems at the end and is instead an
exploration of numerous forms of poetry. In 2006 paloin wrote and published cummings and
gongs i, an homage to e.e. cummings and the real read you rad diction, which is a collection of
poems that appear in pairs with each having the same sequence of letters, just separated into
different words. Selections from both were read by biloid at the Blends and Bridges show
curated by Marcus Bales of Gallery 324 in the Galleria, a few streets over from Neopolis in
downtown Cleveland. A few of biloid's framed pieces, (hanging words 8^), were included in the
show along with these books. In 2007 paloin released a new minibook, root loose, a take-off
on Geof Huth's ampersand squared, which is an impressive collection of word poems by a
variety of authors from the beginning of concrete poetry to today. It includes works by endwar
and biloid. Biloid's take-off is not an anthology, but rather a collection of his own word poems in
the style of those collected in ampersand squared.
Biloid was joined by endwar and Chris Franke as panel members in a discussion of concrete
poetry for Heights Arts in Cleveland Heights, which was moderated by Suzanne DeGaetano of
Mac's Backs bookstore on November 4, 2007. The subprose onomasticon has been updated
and expanded with examples as The Protext Primer for the Heights Arts presentation. Already
in its fourth and fifth (teachers') editions, a sixth edition underway greatly expands this
experimental poetry reference. Look for continued update information in issues of Opus Soup.
Some of the works of endwar, Chris Franke, and biloid can be found at Mac's Backs or ordered
through them.
Blends and Bridges info
Mac's Backs Books
Fashion
Biloid sometimes makes t-shirts out of his word poems or short protext pieces. Of course, he
has a catalog of works that can be placed on canvas and framed or made into a t-shirt for those
who are interested. This service will be available through this website at some point. However,
Paloin does have other thoughts for wilder fashion statements, but limited by the already wide
range of work underway hasn't pursued these thoughts just yet, but maybe.
Experimental Comics
Biloid's experimental comics include his early minimalist comics and a recent return to these
as well as others in between and following. Some of these will be posted within the next few
months at least.
Science Fiction
Biloid has a lot of science fiction in the works and a few pieces have been published, as far
back as the early '90s. Cyberia and its introduction, Cyberian Front are the most notable and
the works coming out now. However, Biloid has mapped out a sprawling series and hopes to
be able to write at least as much as he has outlined so far. Covert Science is the vehicle for
this science fiction at the moment. Check it out.
Music
Biloid has recorded some songs that will be posted here soon. They are heavily electronic and
some have tie-ins with his science fiction. Stay tuned.