CLASSIFICATION
Swallow ID:
8346
Partner Institution:
University of Calgary
Source Collection Label:
Earle Birney fonds
Sub Series:
Earle Birney fonds
ITEM DESCRIPTION
Title:
Earle Birney reading from Selected poems 1940-1966 (Tape 5)
Title Source:
Transcribed from the artifact
Title Note:
Label of recording title and included poems taped to box. Box stamped ME 0X5.
Language:
English
Production Context:
Studio recording
Identifiers:
[7.3.5]
Rights
Rights:
The Public Domain Mark (PDM)
CREATORS
Name:
Birney, Earle
Dates:
1904-1995
CONTRIBUTORS
MATERIAL DESCRIPTION
Recording Type:
Analogue
AV Type:
Audio
Material Designation:
Reel to Reel
Physical Composition:
Magnetic Tape
Extent:
1/4 inch
Playing Speed:
7 1/2 ips
Tape Brand:
CBC Radio - Canada
Sound Quality:
Excellent
Physical Condition:
Good
DIGITAL FILE DESCRIPTION
Duration:
T00:29:04
Size:
478.87 MB
Dates
Date:
1966
Type:
Performance Date
Notes:
Date taken from creation dates listed for item level descriptions in archival finding aid for the Earle Birney fonds Item number 7.3.5
LOCATION
CONTENT
Contents:
Earle Birney
[00:00:00]
"Joe Harris, 1913-1942".
Earle Birney
[00:11:53]
Reads "Mappemounde".
Earle Birney
[00:14:09]
"Young Veterans".
Earle Birney
[00:15:53]
"Ulysses".
Earle Birney
[00:17:08]
"Canada: Case History" [Section and poem title Canada: Case History].
Earle Birney
[00:18:42]
"Atlantic Door".
Earle Birney
[00:20:36]
"Maritime Faces".
Earle Birney
[00:22:09]
"Arrivals".
Earle Birney
[00:28:06]
"Québec May”.
Notes:
Title based on contents of file.
- Concluding of the section “World Winters”
- “Joe Harris, 1913-1942”: “This is a prose poem and you must imagine a soldier killed at Dieppe, a Canadian soldier killed at Dieppe, lying in his grave as he is being given a military funeral. And if he could still remember and think and still hear he would be hearing the volley of muskets being fired over him, in his honour, and he would also hear the intoning of the so-called ‘Shortened Service for the Burial of the Dead as Approved for Use in the Canadian Army’. Which is very much like the Anglican - [?] service, but shorter. In the poem, then, you will hear bit by bit the phrases of the burial service with each phrase evoking in the dead soldier’s presumed memory what he ties in, how his mind would lead from that phrase if he were still alive and had a mind.”
- “Mappemounde”: Written at the end of the war in Europe in 1945. Written in hospital in England, finished on hospital ship, ‘El Neil’, in the Atlantic sometime in May or June. Written in Anglo-Saxon meter. ‘Mappemounde’ is a Chaucerian word meaning ‘map of the world’ but it refers to the maps of Chaucer’s time which were square, had Europe and a bit of Asia completely surrounded by water, and depicted fierce mythological creatures in the corners of the map.
- “Young Veterans”: Written in Toronto, summer 1945.
- “Ulysses”: Toronto 1946. End of section “World Winters”
- Section and title poem “Canada: Case History”: Section #4 in Selected Poems, series of poems from East to West across Canada. Written in Ottawa 1945.
- “Maritime Faces”: “coming out of the deep Atlantic and approaching Halifax.” Written in 1945, as was last poem (“Atlantic Door”).
- “Arrivals”: travelling on a small two-car train from Halifax to Wolfville, Nova Scotia in 1962. Incident which caused train to be thirty minutes late. The title is taken from signboard at Wolfville station, only indication something had happened recorded in the station was “Arrivals Wolfville – Locals from Halifax 30 Mins Late”.
- “Québec May”: Written in 1943.
NOTES
RELATED WORKS
Citation:
Selected Poems, 1940-1966