[{"id":"1265","cataloger_name":["Masoumeh,Zaare"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds"],"source_collection_label":["SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds"],"collection_contributing_unit":["Records Management and Archives"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":[""],"collection_source_collection_description":["The fonds consists of some administrative records of the SGWU Department of English and the Concordia Department of English between 1971 and 2000. It also consists of some SGWU Department of English records related to student academic activities in the 1940s and to public readings and lectures, and a few interviews, produced between 1966 and 1972. The fonds mainly includes minutes of departmental meetings and some course timetables. It also includes some student papers in bound volumes and 63 sound recordings (80 audio reels) mainly composed of poetry readings (see the Concordia SpokenWeb project which uses this material) but also a few lectures given at SGWU. There are also loose typed sheets describing some of the SGWU poetry readings."],"collection_source_collection_id":["I086"],"persistent_url":["http://archives.concordia.ca/I086"],"item_title":["Charles Reznikoff at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 17 November 1967"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"CHARLES REZNIKOFF I006/SR153\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. \"I006-11-153\" written on sticker on the reel"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 2"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"creator_names":["Reznikoff, Charles"],"creator_names_search":["Reznikoff, Charles"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/51811237\",\"name\":\"Reznikoff, Charles\",\"dates\":\"1894-1976\",\"notes\":\"American poet Charles Reznikoff was born on August 31, 1894, in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were Jewish Russian émigrés, and often encountered anti-semitism, which would have a strong influence on Reznikoff’s later work. An intelligent boy, Reznikoff finished high school in 1909, at the age of fifteen- three years ahead of his class. In the hopes of becoming a writer, Reznikoff entered the journalism department at the University of Missouri, but left after a year when he realized the priorities of a journalist and a poet were different. In 1912, he enrolled in New York University’s Law school, graduating at the top of his class in 1915, and entered the Bar of the State of New York the next year. Reznikoff spent a few years practicing as a lawyer, but again, he felt he needed to spend his energy writing, not working as a lawyer. Reznikoff published his first book of poems Rhythms in 1918, on his own small press, the next year printing Rhythms II. In 1920, he met Samuel Roth, who published Poems (S.Roth at the New York Poetry Book Shop), and during that decade he was able to publish more poems in magazines and plays. Reznikoff supported himself by working on the editorial board of the American Law Book Company, writing law encyclopedias. Reznikoff married his wife, Marie Syrkin in 1930. During the 1930s, Reznikoff met and joined the Objectivist group with Louis Zukofsky, George Oppen and Carl Rakosi. The Objectivist Press published three of Reznikoff’s books, Jerusalem the Golden (Objectivist Press, 1934), In Memoriam: 1933 (Objectivist Press, 1934) and Separate Way (Objectivist Press, 1936). Reznikoff spent a short time in Hollywood in the late 30’s, working as a screenwriter. Marie Reznikoff was hired by the English Department at Brandeis University in Boston, and throughout the 40’s Charles Reznikoff stayed in New York working on freelance contracts. Reznikoff published Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down (Futuro Press, 1941). For a period of eighteen years, Reznikoff did not publish any poetry, until 1959, when Inscriptions: 1944-1956  was self-published. Reznikoff then published By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse (New Directions, 1962), his major works Testimony: The United States (1885-1890): Recitative (New Directions, 1965), Testimony: The United States (1891-1900): Recitative (Privately Published, 1968) and Holocaust (Black Sparrow Press, 1975). Reznikoff also published By the Well of Living and Seeing and The Fifth Book of the Maccabees (Self Published, 1969), By the Well of Living & Seeing: New & Selected Poems 1918-1973 (Black Sparrow Press, 1974), several works of prose including Testimony (The Objectivist Press, 1934) and Family Chronicle: An Odyssey from Russia to America (Norton Bailey with the Human Constitution, 1969). A lifelong resident of New York City, Charles Reznikoff died on January 22, 1976 after suffering from a heart attack. The most comprehensive collection of Reznikoff’s work can be found in Poems 1918-1975: The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff (Black Sparrow Press, 1976-77), edited by Seamus Cooney.\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Author\",\"Performer\"]}]"],"contributors_names":["Bowering, George"],"contributors_names_search":["Bowering, George"],"contributors":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/34469976\",\"name\":\"Bowering, George\",\"dates\":\"1935-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Series organizer\",\"Presenter\"]}]"],"Presenter_name":["Bowering, George"],"Series_organizer_name":["Bowering, George"],"Performance_Date":[1967],"material_description":["[{\"side\":\"\",\"image\":\"\",\"other\":\"\",\"extent\":\"1/4 inch\",\"AV_types\":\"Audio\",\"tape_brand\":\"Scotch\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"\",\"sound_quality\":\"Good\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"Tape\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"track_configuration\":\"\",\"material_designation\":\"Reel to Reel\",\"physical_composition\":\"Magnetic Tape\",\"accompanying_material\":\"\",\"other_physical_description\":\"\"}]"],"material_designations":["Reel to Reel"],"physical_compositions":["Magnetic Tape"],"recording_type":["Analogue"],"AV_type":["Audio"],"playback_mode":["Mono"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"1967 11 17\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Date specified in The Georgian's \\\"Op-Ed\\\"\",\"source\":\"Supplemental Material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building Art Gallery\",\"notes\":\"Location specified in The Georgian's \\\"Op-Ed\\\"\",\"address\":\"1455, Boul de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada\",\"latitude\":\"45.4972758\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57893043\"}]"],"Address":["1455, Boul de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada"],"Venue":["Hall Building Art Gallery"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Charles Reznikoff reads poems from several books, including Jerusalem the Golden (Objectivist Press, 1934), Inscriptions: 1944-1956 (Shulsinger Brothers, 1959), Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down (Futuro Press, 1941), and By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse (New Directions, 1962). Many of the poems were later re-organized, edited, and included in other publications, such as Poems 1918-1975:The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff (Black Sparrow, 1989). "],"contents":["charles_reznikoff_i006-11-153.mp3\n\nGeorge Bowering\n00:00:00\nI'd like to welcome you all to our third reading, and announce just before I have to say what I say that the next reading will be with Daryl Hine [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5226186] on the first of December. Tonight's reading will be by, as you probably all know, Mr. Charles Reznikoff [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1065911], whom I'm very happy to have the job, the chore of introducing, because I've been interested in his work for many years. He was born in Brooklyn [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18419], 1894, and graduated from the law school of New York University [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q49210], admitted to the bar of the state of New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60] but never practiced, however, the law experience has stood him in good stead for his later poetry. He's published a number of volumes of verse and several volumes of prose, but most to the point, books that you probably saw on the table outside, in print by New Directions [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q27474] and the San Francisco Review [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17087510], By the Waters of Manhattan, which was this joint effort's first book in 1962, and in 1965, Testimony, which is the first volume in a projected series of volumes about the moral and legal history of the United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30]. The main--my--the reason I said that I'm very happy about Mr. Reznikoff is because when I was going to university I was very hard looking for an alternative to the kind of poetry that was in vogue, especially in the universities, that is, that which tended towards T.S. Eliot [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37767] and highly symbolic language, and Mr. Reznikoff was one of the first poets I found able to do that for me, and I found a short poem of his which I would like to be brash enough to read, as introduction. He said, \"Not because of victories I sing, having none, but for the common sunshine, the breeze, the largesse of spring. Not for victory, but for the day's work done, as well as I was able, not for a seat upon the dais, but at the common table.\"  So to this common table, rather than dais, I'd like to welcome Mr. Charles Reznikoff.  \n \nAudience\n00:02:34\nApplause.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:02:56\nVery much obliged to the gentleman who introduced me, among other things, for reading something I did. Perhaps I should ask him to read all that I brought along. But to get down to what I have here, let me say, to begin with, a few days ago, I came across in a bookshop a collection of Chinese verse translated into English. At the beginning was the following, written a thousand years ago, and I was very much impressed with it, and permit me to read it to you as a sort of an introduction. This man who wrote in the 11th century, this Chinese, said this: \"Poetry presents the thing in order to convey the feeling.  It should be precise about the thing and reticent about the feeling.\" I thought that was...expressed exactly what I feel, and what I have tried to do, not always, not always, I'm afraid, as well as called for, but a recipe. Among other things, let me begin by reading a couple of things I did also on the way I think verse should be written. And this is from this, By the Waters of Manhattan. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:04:47\nReads \"Salmon and Red Wine\" from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse [also published in Inscriptions: 1944-1956].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:05:39\nThat's the first in this. And the second, I did on the same theme, in a way. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:05:47\nReads \"I have neither the time nor the weaving skill, perhaps\" from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse [also published in Inscriptions: 1944-1956].\n\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:06:13\nNow, let me start with a group which I've written about the city I come from, New York, and its suburbs, and some of its residents, including myself.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:06:27\nReads \"The winter afternoon darkens\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:06:44\nAnd this I call \"The Scrubwoman\". \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:06:48\nReads \"The Scrubwoman\" [from Rhythms II and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:07:07\nReads \"The peddler who goes from shop to shop\". \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:07:27\nAnd this next. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:07:31\nReads “The elevator man\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:07:54\nReads \"The shopgirls leave their work\" [from Five Groups of Verse, Rhythms, and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:08:16\nThis one I call \"Cooper Union Library\". I should add, it's no longer that way, this is the way it used to be.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:08:23\nReads \"Cooper Union Library\" [from \"Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:08:42\nReads \"Showing a Torn Sleeve\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in Poems 1918-1936: The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff]. \n\nCharles Reznikoff\n00:09:06\nReads \"Two girls of twelve or so at a table\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:09:54\nReads \"I am always surprised to meet\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:10:23\nReads \"Rails in the Subway\" [from Jerusalem the Golden and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \n \nAudience\n00:10:35\nLaughter.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:10:41\nReads \"This subway station, with its electric lights\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nAudience\n00:10:58\nLaughter.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:11:06\nReads \"Among the heaps of brick and plaster lies\" [from Jerusalem the Golden and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:11:18\nReads \"The sky is blue\" [from Jerusalem is Golden].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:11:42\nThis I call \"Suburban River, Winter\".\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:11:48\nReads \"Suburban River, Winter\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:12:07\nAnd this too I call \"Suburban River,\" this is \"Summer\".\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:12:13\nReads \"Suburban River, Summer\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:12:38\nThis I call \"Twilight\".\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:12:40\nReads \"Twilight\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in The Poems Of Charles Reznikoff 1918–1975]. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:12:56\nReads \"Fraser, I think, tells of a Roman\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse; audience laughter throughout].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:13:21\nReads \"The dogs that walk with me” [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:13:44\nThis I call a \"Fable\".\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:13:46\nReads \"Fable\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:14:15\nReads \"Scrap of paper\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].  \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:14:28\nReads \"One of my sentinels, a tree\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].   \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:14:45\nReads \"I have not even been in the fields\" [from Rhythms ll and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:15:01\nReads \"How grey you are! No, white!” [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:15:25\nReads \"Blurred sight, and trembling fingers\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:15:47\nReads \"You were young and contemptuous\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:16:03\nThis I call \"Heart and Clock\", there's a series in here. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:16:09\nReads \"Heart and Clock” [from Separate Way and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:16:51\nReads \"If my days were like the ant's\" [published as “Heart and Clock II” in By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:17:18\nReads \"Our nightingale, the clock\" [from Jerusalem the Golden and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].  \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:17:32\nReads \"The clock on the bookcase ticks\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in The Poems Of Charles Reznikoff 1918–1975].  \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:17:47\nReads \"My hair was caught in the wheels of a clock\" [from Jerusalem the Golden and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].   \n\nCharles Reznikoff\n00:17:58\nReads \"Of course we must die\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:18:20\nReads \"Now it is cold\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n\nCharles Reznikoff\n00:19:33\nReads \"It had been snowing at night\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in The Poems Of Charles Reznikoff 1918–1975].  \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:19:54\nReads \"Hardly a breath of wind\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:20:14\nReads \"After I had worked all day\" [from Five Groups of Verse and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:20:42\nNow I have a group that I will call 'religious,' for perhaps no better word, and this I call \"Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays\", and the first is “New Year's”. As many of you, or some of you may know, no doubt, the Jewish New Year's comes in the fall. This is based on it.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:21:11\nReads \"Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays: New Year's\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:23:19\nAnd I call the next one \"The Day of Atonement\".\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:23:24\nReads \"The Day of Atonement\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:24:50\nAnd this I call \"Hanukkah\" which incidentally is a holiday that's just about to come, and it, as some of you may know, it represents the victory, a festival celebrating the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrians, about 150 B.C.E.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:25:14\nReads \"Hanukkah\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:26:59\nI don't know why I should be having a cold on this occasion but, [laughter], these things [blows nose]. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:27:18\nReads \"The lamps are burning in the synagogue\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:28:40\nThis one I call \"Samuel\". Samuel in the Bible, of course.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:28:47\nReads \"Samuel\" [from Five Groups of Verse and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:30:06\nThese are all from By the Waters of Manhattan, and I'm going to read you, if I may, something quite different, from the volume called Testimony, and which I call \"Recitative\".\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:30:27\nReads \"Recitative\" [from Testimony: the United States (1885-1890); Recitative].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:31:15\nThat's the first. This, these, incidentally, I might say, are all based on law cases. Ah...I don't know what...whether that'll excuse their ferocity, but apparently something like that once happened. The names are different. The facts are the same.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:31:39\nReads \"Tilda was just a child...” [from Testimony: the United States (1885-1890); Recitative].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:32:49\nAnd this is the third in this. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:32:53\nReads \"Years ago, a company procured a body of land...\" [from Testimony: the United States (1885-1890); Recitative].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:33:44\nNow...let's see, if I may, the time...Here is a poem with which I generally end these readings but I don't intend to end this unless you wish me to because I have some other things to read. But I'll end it right here anyway and then we'll see how much time is left. I call this \"Kaddish\". Now, it's not the Kaddish for mourners that you might know about. It was written at the beginning of the rise of Hitler [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q352]. I did it; I mean, I did the writing, not the Kaddish, which is very old. It was written at the beginning of the rise of Hitler and his influence, and before his extermination program was put into effect. It's really an ancient blessing in the Jewish ritual. And incidentally, I use that word \"Torah,\" and I doubt, it may be strange to many, but James Parks, I notice, in his History of the Jewish People, has defined it, correctly, I think, \"The word Torah,\" he says, \"has been defined as law, but is much wider in meaning. It applies a way of life\".  Now this is this \"Kaddish\".\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:35:09\nReads \"Kaddish\" [from Separate Way and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:36:43\nThis ends the, let's say the first part. And I'll continue, if you like, with some others, unless you're all...[inaudible]\n \nAudience\n00:36:51\nApplause.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:37:04\nWell I, if, I shall continue, if you're not all exhausted. I have here, quite a few things that are not arranged in any way, so they're more or less haphazard. And...this is one. Let's see...well this one is “After Reading Translations of Ancient Texts on Stone and Clay”.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:37:37\nReads “After Reading Translations of Ancient Texts on Stone and Clay”.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:38:47\nNow, these, these are much less organized than that, haphazard, you'll have to take them as they come if we keep on. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:39:00\nReads \"As I was wandering with my unhappy thoughts\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n\nCharles Reznikoff\n00:39:36\nReads \"The young fellow walks about with nothing to do\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:40:09\nReads “A well-phrased eulogy\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:40:44\nReads \"On a Sunday, when the place was closed\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down].  \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:41:12\nNow here are two earlier testimony, two or more things based on a law case, which I call \"Testimony\", and these were included in that same By the Waters of Manhattan. \n \nBy the Waters of Manhattan. \n00:41:28\nReads \"The Company had advertised for men\" from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:43:13\nThat's the first, and this is the second.\n \nCharles Reznikoff \n00:43:16\nReads \"Amelia was just fourteen\" from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:44:33\nThat's the second. I have some more I'd like to get at before I close. Well, this I wrote for my wife. Pity she isn't here, but we'll read it in her absence.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:44:55\nReads \"Malicious women greet you, saying...\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in The Poems Of Charles Reznikoff 1918–1975].  \n\n Charles Reznikoff\n00:45:38\nNow, this, this is a kind of counterpiece to this I have just read. It was not written for my wife. [Laughter].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:45:56\nReads \"He had with him a bag\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in The Poems Of Charles Reznikoff 1918–1975].  \n \nAudience\n00:46:38\nLaughter. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:46:42\nI'm reading this 'cause...\"On a seat\"...maybe it would....I think this is rather appropriate in view of all the Hebrew things I read.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:46:56\nReads \"On a seat in the subway\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down].  \n\nCharles Reznikoff\n00:47:41\nReads \"Permit me to warn you\" [from Jerusalem the Golden and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nAudience\n00:47:51\nLaughter.\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:47:59\nReads \"These days, the papers in the street\" [from Jerusalem the Golden and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:48:36\nLet me close, unless it...if I should...with something that I tried to do which may be something to close with. This is based on the Book of Ezra [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q131635], and the Book of Ezra, according to my note, I've probably forgotten by this time, is, 'This is a rearrangement and a versification of parts of the Fourth Book of Ezra.' And that's what it's called in the appendix to the Vulgate [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q131175], or two Esdras of the Protestant Apocrypha. And I based this upon a translation of this Book of Ezra from the Syriac by a friend of mine who taught, and I have their permission and all, but the original was probably, there's quite a discussion as to what the original was right, and some scholars believe that it was in Greek, and a Doctor Bocks, who was in, G.H. Bocks, thinks that it was in Hebrew, and Bloch, who was, they had in 42nd Street at the library, didn't think that it was in either Greek or Hebrew, but Aramaic. Anyway, excuse me just, [laughter], anyway, I will read it, and its adaptation of it, and see what one can do with things that you...clear up. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:50:12\nReads “Because I saw the desolation of Zion\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in The Poems of Charles Reznikoff: 1918-1975]. \n \nCharles Reznikoff\n00:53:33\nAnd I think this is enough, perhaps, for a time. \n \nAudience\n00:53:36\nApplause.\n \nGeorge Bowering\n00:54:01\nWhat else, thank you very much, Mr. Reznikoff, and I'd just like to repeat that the next reading is at, two weeks from tonight, December the first, Daryl Hine, who's a graduate of the other university.\n \nEND\n00:54:21\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:\\n \\nIn 1967, Reznikoff held several other readings, including one at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The next year, 1968, Testimony: The United States (1891-1900): Recitative was published.\\n\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nNo direct connections to Sir George Williams University are known. However, Charles Reznikoff was an established and highly regarded poet from New York. Reznikoff was involved in the Objectivist movement and an important American poet during the 60’s and 70’s.\\n\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Reel-to-reel tape>CD>digital file\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript by Rachel Kyne\\n\\nOriginal print catalogue, introduction, research and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-twentieth-century-poetry-in-english/oclc/807465072&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Heller, Michael. “Reznikoff, Charles\\\". The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Ian Hamilton (ed). Oxford University Press, 1996. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/charles-reznikoff-at-sgwu-1967/\",\"citation\":\"Nemiroff, Michael. “Nemiroff on Reznikoff.” OP-ED. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 28 November 1967, p. 7. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/history-of-the-jewish-people/oclc/32303940&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Parks, James Williams. A History of the Jewish People. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1952. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/charles-reznikoff-at-sgwu-1967/\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry: Bards Heard”. OP-ED. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 14 November 1967, page 6. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.concordia.ca/content/dam/concordia/offices/archives/docs/postgrad/Postgrad-1967-Spring.pdf\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry Readings”. Post-Grad. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, Spring 1967, page 20. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/charles-reznikoff-at-sgwu-1967\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry Readings - Sir George Williams”. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 1967. \"},{\"url\":\"https://library.ucsd.edu/speccoll/findingaids/mss0009.html\",\"citation\":\"“The Register of Charles Reznikoff Papers 1912-1976”. Mandeville Special Collections Library, Geisel Library, University of California, San Diego. \"},{\"url\":\"http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/694\",\"citation\":\"“Reznikoff, Charles”. Poets.org. The Academy of American Poets, 2007-2009. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-american-literature/oclc/54356940&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"\\\"Reznikoff, Charles\\\". The Oxford Companion to American Literature. James D. Hart (ed.), Phillip W. Leininger (rev). Oxford University Press, 1995. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/concise-oxford-companion-to-american-literature/oclc/1146399202&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"\\\"Reznikoff, Charles\\\". The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature. James D. Hart (ed). Oxford University Press, 1986. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/by-the-waters-of-manhattan-selected-verse-introduction-by-cp-snow/oclc/503805384&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Reznikoff, Charles. By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse. San Francisco: San Francisco Review, 1962. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/five-groups-of-verse-by-charles-reznikoff/oclc/457809461&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Reznikoff, Charles. Five Groups of Verse. New York: Charles Reznikoff, 1927. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/going-to-and-fro-and-walking-up-and-down/oclc/644000166&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Reznikoff, Charles. Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down. New York: Futuro Press, 1941. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/inscriptions-1944-1956-by-charles-reznikoff/oclc/459778991&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Reznikoff, Charles. Inscriptions: 1944-1956. New York: Shulsinger Brothers, 1959. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/jerusalem-the-golden-poems/oclc/503805492&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Reznikoff, Charles. Jerusalem The Golden. New York: Objectivist Press, 1934. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/rhythms/oclc/11216921&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Reznikoff, Charles. Rhythms. New York: Charles Reznikoff, 1918. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/rhythms-ii-poems/oclc/4400024&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Reznikoff, Charles. Rhythms ll. New York: Charles Reznikoff, 1919. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/separate-way/oclc/2377996&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Reznikoff, Charles. Separate Way. New York: Objectivist Press, 1936. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/testimony-the-united-states-1885-1890-recitative/oclc/1079271632&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Reznikoff, Charles. Testimony: The United States (1885-1890); Recitative. New York: Charles Reznikoff, 1965. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/testimony-the-united-states-1891-1900-recitative/oclc/49565&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Reznikoff, Charles. Testimony: The United States (1891-1900); Recitative. New York: Charles Reznikoff, 1968.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/poems-1918-1975-the-complete-poems-of-charles-reznikoff-edited-by-seamus-cooney/oclc/1167716778&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Reznikoff, Charles. The Poems of Charles Reznikoff: 1918-1975. Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1989. \"},{\"url\":\"http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=np8tAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PKAFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4195,2837932&dq=sir+george+williams+poetry&hl=en\",\"citation\":\"“SGWU To Have Poetry Series”. The Gazette. 14 September 1967, page 15.\"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry Readings”. OP-ED. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 6 October 1967, page 6. \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Reznikoff, Charles, 1894-1976”. Literature Online Biography. Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 2000. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670548825964544,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0153_back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0153_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Charles Reznikoff Tape Box - Back\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0153_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0153_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Charles Reznikoff Tape Box - Front\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0153_side.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0153_side.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Charles Reznikoff Tape Box - Spine\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0153_tape.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0153_tape.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Charles Reznikoff Tape Box - Reel\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/charles_reznikoff_i006-11-153.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"charles_reznikoff_i006-11-153.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:54:21\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"130.4 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"George Bowering\\n00:00:00\\nI'd like to welcome you all to our third reading, and announce just before I have to say what I say that the next reading will be with Daryl Hine [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5226186] on the first of December. Tonight's reading will be by, as you probably all know, Mr. Charles Reznikoff [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1065911], whom I'm very happy to have the job, the chore of introducing, because I've been interested in his work for many years. He was born in Brooklyn [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18419], 1894, and graduated from the law school of New York University [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q49210], admitted to the bar of the state of New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60] but never practiced, however, the law experience has stood him in good stead for his later poetry. He's published a number of volumes of verse and several volumes of prose, but most to the point, books that you probably saw on the table outside, in print by New Directions [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q27474] and the San Francisco Review [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17087510], By the Waters of Manhattan, which was this joint effort's first book in 1962, and in 1965, Testimony, which is the first volume in a projected series of volumes about the moral and legal history of the United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30]. The main--my--the reason I said that I'm very happy about Mr. Reznikoff is because when I was going to university I was very hard looking for an alternative to the kind of poetry that was in vogue, especially in the universities, that is, that which tended towards T.S. Eliot [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37767] and highly symbolic language, and Mr. Reznikoff was one of the first poets I found able to do that for me, and I found a short poem of his which I would like to be brash enough to read, as introduction. He said, \\\"Not because of victories I sing, having none, but for the common sunshine, the breeze, the largesse of spring. Not for victory, but for the day's work done, as well as I was able, not for a seat upon the dais, but at the common table.\\\"  So to this common table, rather than dais, I'd like to welcome Mr. Charles Reznikoff.  \\n \\nAudience\\n00:02:34\\nApplause.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:02:56\\nVery much obliged to the gentleman who introduced me, among other things, for reading something I did. Perhaps I should ask him to read all that I brought along. But to get down to what I have here, let me say, to begin with, a few days ago, I came across in a bookshop a collection of Chinese verse translated into English. At the beginning was the following, written a thousand years ago, and I was very much impressed with it, and permit me to read it to you as a sort of an introduction. This man who wrote in the 11th century, this Chinese, said this: \\\"Poetry presents the thing in order to convey the feeling.  It should be precise about the thing and reticent about the feeling.\\\" I thought that was...expressed exactly what I feel, and what I have tried to do, not always, not always, I'm afraid, as well as called for, but a recipe. Among other things, let me begin by reading a couple of things I did also on the way I think verse should be written. And this is from this, By the Waters of Manhattan. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:04:47\\nReads \\\"Salmon and Red Wine\\\" from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse [also published in Inscriptions: 1944-1956].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:05:39\\nThat's the first in this. And the second, I did on the same theme, in a way. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:05:47\\nReads \\\"I have neither the time nor the weaving skill, perhaps\\\" from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse [also published in Inscriptions: 1944-1956].\\n\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:06:13\\nNow, let me start with a group which I've written about the city I come from, New York, and its suburbs, and some of its residents, including myself.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:06:27\\nReads \\\"The winter afternoon darkens\\\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:06:44\\nAnd this I call \\\"The Scrubwoman\\\". \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:06:48\\nReads \\\"The Scrubwoman\\\" [from Rhythms II and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:07:07\\nReads \\\"The peddler who goes from shop to shop\\\". \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:07:27\\nAnd this next. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:07:31\\nReads “The elevator man\\\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:07:54\\nReads \\\"The shopgirls leave their work\\\" [from Five Groups of Verse, Rhythms, and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:08:16\\nThis one I call \\\"Cooper Union Library\\\". I should add, it's no longer that way, this is the way it used to be.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:08:23\\nReads \\\"Cooper Union Library\\\" [from \\\"Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:08:42\\nReads \\\"Showing a Torn Sleeve\\\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in Poems 1918-1936: The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff]. \\n\\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:09:06\\nReads \\\"Two girls of twelve or so at a table\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:09:54\\nReads \\\"I am always surprised to meet\\\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:10:23\\nReads \\\"Rails in the Subway\\\" [from Jerusalem the Golden and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \\n \\nAudience\\n00:10:35\\nLaughter.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:10:41\\nReads \\\"This subway station, with its electric lights\\\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nAudience\\n00:10:58\\nLaughter.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:11:06\\nReads \\\"Among the heaps of brick and plaster lies\\\" [from Jerusalem the Golden and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:11:18\\nReads \\\"The sky is blue\\\" [from Jerusalem is Golden].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:11:42\\nThis I call \\\"Suburban River, Winter\\\".\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:11:48\\nReads \\\"Suburban River, Winter\\\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:12:07\\nAnd this too I call \\\"Suburban River,\\\" this is \\\"Summer\\\".\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:12:13\\nReads \\\"Suburban River, Summer\\\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:12:38\\nThis I call \\\"Twilight\\\".\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:12:40\\nReads \\\"Twilight\\\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in The Poems Of Charles Reznikoff 1918–1975]. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:12:56\\nReads \\\"Fraser, I think, tells of a Roman\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse; audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:13:21\\nReads \\\"The dogs that walk with me” [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:13:44\\nThis I call a \\\"Fable\\\".\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:13:46\\nReads \\\"Fable\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:14:15\\nReads \\\"Scrap of paper\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].  \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:14:28\\nReads \\\"One of my sentinels, a tree\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].   \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:14:45\\nReads \\\"I have not even been in the fields\\\" [from Rhythms ll and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:15:01\\nReads \\\"How grey you are! No, white!” [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:15:25\\nReads \\\"Blurred sight, and trembling fingers\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:15:47\\nReads \\\"You were young and contemptuous\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:16:03\\nThis I call \\\"Heart and Clock\\\", there's a series in here. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:16:09\\nReads \\\"Heart and Clock” [from Separate Way and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:16:51\\nReads \\\"If my days were like the ant's\\\" [published as “Heart and Clock II” in By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:17:18\\nReads \\\"Our nightingale, the clock\\\" [from Jerusalem the Golden and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].  \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:17:32\\nReads \\\"The clock on the bookcase ticks\\\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in The Poems Of Charles Reznikoff 1918–1975].  \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:17:47\\nReads \\\"My hair was caught in the wheels of a clock\\\" [from Jerusalem the Golden and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].   \\n\\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:17:58\\nReads \\\"Of course we must die\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:18:20\\nReads \\\"Now it is cold\\\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n\\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:19:33\\nReads \\\"It had been snowing at night\\\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in The Poems Of Charles Reznikoff 1918–1975].  \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:19:54\\nReads \\\"Hardly a breath of wind\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:20:14\\nReads \\\"After I had worked all day\\\" [from Five Groups of Verse and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:20:42\\nNow I have a group that I will call 'religious,' for perhaps no better word, and this I call \\\"Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays\\\", and the first is “New Year's”. As many of you, or some of you may know, no doubt, the Jewish New Year's comes in the fall. This is based on it.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:21:11\\nReads \\\"Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays: New Year's\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:23:19\\nAnd I call the next one \\\"The Day of Atonement\\\".\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:23:24\\nReads \\\"The Day of Atonement\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:24:50\\nAnd this I call \\\"Hanukkah\\\" which incidentally is a holiday that's just about to come, and it, as some of you may know, it represents the victory, a festival celebrating the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrians, about 150 B.C.E.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:25:14\\nReads \\\"Hanukkah\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:26:59\\nI don't know why I should be having a cold on this occasion but, [laughter], these things [blows nose]. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:27:18\\nReads \\\"The lamps are burning in the synagogue\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:28:40\\nThis one I call \\\"Samuel\\\". Samuel in the Bible, of course.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:28:47\\nReads \\\"Samuel\\\" [from Five Groups of Verse and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:30:06\\nThese are all from By the Waters of Manhattan, and I'm going to read you, if I may, something quite different, from the volume called Testimony, and which I call \\\"Recitative\\\".\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:30:27\\nReads \\\"Recitative\\\" [from Testimony: the United States (1885-1890); Recitative].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:31:15\\nThat's the first. This, these, incidentally, I might say, are all based on law cases. Ah...I don't know what...whether that'll excuse their ferocity, but apparently something like that once happened. The names are different. The facts are the same.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:31:39\\nReads \\\"Tilda was just a child...” [from Testimony: the United States (1885-1890); Recitative].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:32:49\\nAnd this is the third in this. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:32:53\\nReads \\\"Years ago, a company procured a body of land...\\\" [from Testimony: the United States (1885-1890); Recitative].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:33:44\\nNow...let's see, if I may, the time...Here is a poem with which I generally end these readings but I don't intend to end this unless you wish me to because I have some other things to read. But I'll end it right here anyway and then we'll see how much time is left. I call this \\\"Kaddish\\\". Now, it's not the Kaddish for mourners that you might know about. It was written at the beginning of the rise of Hitler [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q352]. I did it; I mean, I did the writing, not the Kaddish, which is very old. It was written at the beginning of the rise of Hitler and his influence, and before his extermination program was put into effect. It's really an ancient blessing in the Jewish ritual. And incidentally, I use that word \\\"Torah,\\\" and I doubt, it may be strange to many, but James Parks, I notice, in his History of the Jewish People, has defined it, correctly, I think, \\\"The word Torah,\\\" he says, \\\"has been defined as law, but is much wider in meaning. It applies a way of life\\\".  Now this is this \\\"Kaddish\\\".\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:35:09\\nReads \\\"Kaddish\\\" [from Separate Way and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:36:43\\nThis ends the, let's say the first part. And I'll continue, if you like, with some others, unless you're all...[inaudible]\\n \\nAudience\\n00:36:51\\nApplause.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:37:04\\nWell I, if, I shall continue, if you're not all exhausted. I have here, quite a few things that are not arranged in any way, so they're more or less haphazard. And...this is one. Let's see...well this one is “After Reading Translations of Ancient Texts on Stone and Clay”.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:37:37\\nReads “After Reading Translations of Ancient Texts on Stone and Clay”.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:38:47\\nNow, these, these are much less organized than that, haphazard, you'll have to take them as they come if we keep on. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:39:00\\nReads \\\"As I was wandering with my unhappy thoughts\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n\\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:39:36\\nReads \\\"The young fellow walks about with nothing to do\\\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse]. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:40:09\\nReads “A well-phrased eulogy\\\" [from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:40:44\\nReads \\\"On a Sunday, when the place was closed\\\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down].  \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:41:12\\nNow here are two earlier testimony, two or more things based on a law case, which I call \\\"Testimony\\\", and these were included in that same By the Waters of Manhattan. \\n \\nBy the Waters of Manhattan. \\n00:41:28\\nReads \\\"The Company had advertised for men\\\" from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:43:13\\nThat's the first, and this is the second.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff \\n00:43:16\\nReads \\\"Amelia was just fourteen\\\" from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:44:33\\nThat's the second. I have some more I'd like to get at before I close. Well, this I wrote for my wife. Pity she isn't here, but we'll read it in her absence.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:44:55\\nReads \\\"Malicious women greet you, saying...\\\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in The Poems Of Charles Reznikoff 1918–1975].  \\n\\n Charles Reznikoff\\n00:45:38\\nNow, this, this is a kind of counterpiece to this I have just read. It was not written for my wife. [Laughter].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:45:56\\nReads \\\"He had with him a bag\\\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in The Poems Of Charles Reznikoff 1918–1975].  \\n \\nAudience\\n00:46:38\\nLaughter. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:46:42\\nI'm reading this 'cause...\\\"On a seat\\\"...maybe it would....I think this is rather appropriate in view of all the Hebrew things I read.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:46:56\\nReads \\\"On a seat in the subway\\\" [from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down].  \\n\\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:47:41\\nReads \\\"Permit me to warn you\\\" [from Jerusalem the Golden and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nAudience\\n00:47:51\\nLaughter.\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:47:59\\nReads \\\"These days, the papers in the street\\\" [from Jerusalem the Golden and from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse].\\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:48:36\\nLet me close, unless it...if I should...with something that I tried to do which may be something to close with. This is based on the Book of Ezra [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q131635], and the Book of Ezra, according to my note, I've probably forgotten by this time, is, 'This is a rearrangement and a versification of parts of the Fourth Book of Ezra.' And that's what it's called in the appendix to the Vulgate [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q131175], or two Esdras of the Protestant Apocrypha. And I based this upon a translation of this Book of Ezra from the Syriac by a friend of mine who taught, and I have their permission and all, but the original was probably, there's quite a discussion as to what the original was right, and some scholars believe that it was in Greek, and a Doctor Bocks, who was in, G.H. Bocks, thinks that it was in Hebrew, and Bloch, who was, they had in 42nd Street at the library, didn't think that it was in either Greek or Hebrew, but Aramaic. Anyway, excuse me just, [laughter], anyway, I will read it, and its adaptation of it, and see what one can do with things that you...clear up. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:50:12\\nReads “Because I saw the desolation of Zion\\\" [from By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse and published later in The Poems of Charles Reznikoff: 1918-1975]. \\n \\nCharles Reznikoff\\n00:53:33\\nAnd I think this is enough, perhaps, for a time. \\n \\nAudience\\n00:53:36\\nApplause.\\n \\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:54:01\\nWhat else, thank you very much, Mr. Reznikoff, and I'd just like to repeat that the next reading is at, two weeks from tonight, December the first, Daryl Hine, who's a graduate of the other university.\\n \\nEND\\n00:54:21\\n\",\"notes\":\"Charles Reznikoff reads poems from several books, including Jerusalem the Golden (Objectivist Press, 1934), Inscriptions: 1944-1956 (Shulsinger Brothers, 1959), Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down (Futuro Press, 1941), and By the Waters of Manhattan: Selected Verse (New Directions, 1962). Many of the poems were later re-organized, edited, and included in other publications, such as Poems 1918-1975:The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff (Black Sparrow, 1989). \\n\\n00:00- Unknown Introducer introduces Charles Reznikoff. [INDEX: Daryl Hine reading on December 1, 1967; born in Brooklyn in 1894, graduated from law school New York       University, state bar of NY, New Directions Press and the San Francisco Review, By the Waters of Manhattan (1962), Testimony (1965), moral and legal history of United States; Reznikoff as an alternative to popular poetry taught at universities; quote from “Te Deum” by Charles Reznikoff.]\\n02:56- Charles Reznikoff introduces “Salmon and Red Wine”. [INDEX: collection of Chinese verse translated in English, quotes from it as introduction, 11th century, \\\"Poetry presents the thing in order to convey the feeling.  It should be precise about the thing and reticent about the feeling\\\"; reading from By the Waters of Manhattan (New Directions, 1962).]\\n04:47- Reads first line “Salmon and red wine”. [INDEX: process, writing life, travel, Bible; found in By the Waters of Manhattan (New Directions, 1962).]\\n05:39- Introduces first line “I have neither the time nor the weaving skill, perhaps...”. [INDEX: second poem in the same theme; found in By the Waters of Manhattan (New    Directions, 1962).]\\n05:47- Reads first line “I have neither the time nor the weaving skill, perhaps...”. [INDEX: craft, descriptive.]\\n06:13- Introduces unknown poem, first line “The winter afternoon darkens...” [INDEX: group of poems about New York.]\\n06:27- Reads unknown poem, first line “The winter afternoon darkens...”. [INDEX: cities, New York, work.]\\n06:44- Introduces “The Scrubwoman”.\\n06:48- Reads “The Scrubwoman”. [INDEX: cities, New York, work, poverty.]\\n07:07- Reads unknown poem, first line “The peddler who goes from shop to shop...”. [INDEX: cities, New York, Work.]\\n07:31- Reads first line “The elevator man”. [INDEX: cities, New York, poverty, work; from the poem “Autobiography: New York” in By the Waters of Manhattan (New Directions, 1962).]\\n07:54- Reads unknown poem, first line “The shopgirls leave their work...”. [INDEX: cities, New York, work.]\\n08:16- Introduces “Cooper Union Library”.\\n08:23- Reads “Cooper Union Library”. [INDEX: cities, New York, reading, from the poem        “Autobiography: New York” in By the Waters of Manhattan (New Directions, 1962).]\\n08:42- Reads unknown poem, first line “Showing a torn sleeve...”. [INDEX: cities, New York, poverty, food, age.]\\n09:06- Reads “Two girls of twelve or so at a table”. [INDEX: cities, New York, poverty, food, age; from Inscriptions: 1944-1956.]\\n09:54- Reads first line “I am always surprised to meet...” [INDEX: cities, New York, death; from the poem “Autobiography: New York” in Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down (1941).]\\n10:23- Reads unknown poem, first line “Rails in the subway”. [INDEX: cities, New York,         transportation, building.]\\n10:41- Reads unknown poem, first line “This subway station, with its electric lights”.   [INDEX: cities, New York, transportation, building, from the poem “Autobiography:      \\tNew York” in Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down (1941).]\\n11:06- Reads unknown poem, first line “Among the heaps of brick and plaster lies...”. [INDEX: cities, New York, building.]\\n11:18- Reads unknown poem, first line “The sky is [a peculiar] blue...”. [INDEX: cities, New York, water, pollution; from “Sightseeing Tour: New York”, from Inscriptions:   1944-1956 (1959), By the Waters of Manhattan (1962).]\\n11:48- Reads “Suburban River, Winter”. [INDEX: cities, New York, water.]\\n12:13- Reads “Suburban River, Summer”. [INDEX: cities, New York, water, women.]\\n12:40- Reads “Twilight”. [INDEX: nature, sky, horse.]\\n13:16- Reads first line “Frasier, I think, tells of a Roman...”. [INDEX: nature, New York; from poem “Sightseeing Tour: New York” from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 (1959), By the Waters of Manhattan (1962).]\\n13:31- Reads first line “The dogs that walk with me...”. [INDEX: time, nature, now, here, if; from By the Waters of Manhattan.]\\n13:46- Reads “Fable”. [INDEX: solitude, friendship, woods, song, joke, from By the Waters of Manhattan.]\\n14:15- Reads first line “Scrap of paper”. [INDEX: money, streets, from Inscriptions:  \\t1944-1956 (1959), By the Waters of Manhattan (1962).]\\n14:28- Reads first line “One of my sentinels, a tree...”. [INDEX: summer, seasons, time, nature, from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 (1959), By the Waters of Manhattan (1962).]\\n14:45- Reads poem, first line “I have not even been in the fields...”. [INDEX: age, time,        seasons, wind.]\\n15:01- Reads poem, first line “How grey are you, no white...”. [INDEX: age, body, death,     friends, dog; from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 (1959), By the Waters of Manhattan (1962).]\\n15:25- Reads poem, first line “Blurred sight, and trembling fingers...”. [INDEX: age; from  “Notes on the Spring Holiday” from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 (1959), By the Waters of  Manhattan (1962).]\\n16:03- Introduces “Hardened Clock”. [INDEX: series.]\\n16:09- Reads “Hardened Clock”. [INDEX: time, sun, cycles, clocks, stars.]\\n16:51- Reads poem, fist line “If my days were like the ant’s...”. [INDEX: time, ant, carpe diem; perhaps part of “Hardened Clock”.]\\n17:18- Reads poem, first line “Our nightingale, the clock...”. [INDEX: time, clocks, birds,        nightingale, nature; perhaps part of “Hardened Clock”.]\\n17:32- Reads poem, first line “The clock on the bookcase ticks...”. [INDEX: time, clocks,     insects, consumption; perhaps part of “Hardened Clock”.]\\n17:47- Reads poem, first line “My hair was caught in the wheels of a clock...”. [INDEX: age, clocks, time, baldness; perhaps part of “Hardened Clock”.]\\n17:58- Reads poem, first line “Of course we must die...”. [INDEX:  death, telephone numbers; perhaps from “Hardened Clock”, from By the Waters of Manhattan.]\\n18:20- Reads poem, first line “Now it is cold...”. [INDEX: age, winter, time, seasons, death, birds, sparrow, sun, tree, anger, statues, weather, Don Juan, St. Francis; perhaps part of “Hardened Clock”.]\\n19:33- Reads poem, first line “It had been snowing at night...”. [INDEX: winter, time, snow, weather, morning; perhaps part of “Hardened Clock”.]\\n19:54- Reads poem, first line “Hardly a breath of wind...”. [INDEX: wind, leaves, fate;        perhaps part of “Hardened Clock”.]\\n20:14- Reads poem, first line: “After I had worked all day...”. [INDEX: work, fatigue, strength, tide; perhaps part of “Hardened Clock”.]\\n20:42- Introduces group called ‘religious’, poem called “Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays”. [INDEX: religious, Jewish New Year's.]\\n21:11- Reads “New Year’s” from “Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays”. [INDEX:   religious, holiday, water, farewell, death, harvest, autumn, trees, beginning, God,  \\tholidays, seasons, Israel, Judaism, grief, peace, servants, inheritance, remembrance; from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 (1959), By the Waters of Manhattan (1962).]\\n23:19- Introduces “Day of Atonement”. [INDEX: from “Meditations on the Fall and Winter         Holidays” from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 (1959), By the Waters of Manhattan    \\t(1962).]\\n23:24- Reads “Day of Atonement”. [INDEX: time, religious holidays, Judaism, Yom Kippur, God, time, day, write, rabbi, creation, world, men.]\\n24:50- Introduces “Hanukah”. [INDEX: victory of Maccabees over Syrians in 150 BCE, festival celebration; from “Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays”, from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 (1959), By the Waters of Manhattan (1962).]\\n25:14- Reads “Hanukah”. [INDEX: religious holiday, Judaism, death, water, songs,    \\tremembrance, power, God.]\\n27:18- Reads poem, first line, “The lamps are burning in the synagogue...” [INDEX: religious, Judaism, travel, tradition, remembrance, names, knowledge, ignorance, eternal life; from “Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays”, from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 (1959), By the Waters of Manhattan (1962).]\\n28:40- Introduces “Samuel”. [INDEX: Samuel in the Bible.]\\n28:47- Reads “Samuel”. [INDEX: religious, Judaism, Bible, tradition, spirit, fire, seasons,      waiting, service.]\\n30:06- Introduces “Recitative”. [INDEX: from Inscriptions: 1944-1956 (1959), By the Waters of Manhattan (1962), Testimony (1965-8).]\\n30:27- Reads “Recitative”. [INDEX: birth, water, fire, murder, death]\\n31:15- Introduces poem, first line “Tilda was just a child...”. [INDEX: Testimony about law cases, different names, facts same.]\\n31:59- Reads poem, first line “Tilda was just a child...”. [INDEX: adolescence, girl,   \\tmenstruation, work, rural, domestic; from “The North: Boys & Girls, 5.” from Testimony.]\\n32:53- Reads poem, first line, “Years ago, a company procured a body of land...”. [INDEX: company land, urban planning, city, Mississippi City, streets, railroad, depot, pier, bankruptcy; from “The South: Negroes, X” from Testimony.]          \\n33:44- Introduces “Kaddish”. [INDEX: mourning, written at the beginning of the rise of Hitler, extermination program, ancient blessing in the Jewish ritual, Torah, quote from James Parks’ History of the Jewish People; from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down (1941).]\\n35:09- Reads “Kaddish”. [INDEX: religious, Judaism, Kaddish, Torah, Israel, blessing.]\\n37:04- Introduces “After Reading Translations of Ancient Texts on Stone and Clay”. [INDEX: from Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down (1941).]\\n37:37- Reads “After Reading Translations of Ancient Texts on Stone and Clay”. [INDEX: religious, Bible, Judaism, Moses, Israel, Pharaoh, Egypt, soldiers.]\\n38:47- Introduces “As I was wandering with my unhappy thoughts...”\\n39:00- Reads “As I was wandering with my unhappy thoughts...”. [INDEX: unhappiness, sun, wind, paradise, Adam.]\\n39:36- Reads “The young fellow walks about with nothing to do”. [INDEX: work,   \\tunemployment, cigarettes, youth, stranger.]\\n40:09- Reads “A well-phrased eulogy”. [INDEX: funeral, death, eulogy, politeness.]\\n40:44- Reads “On a Sunday, when the place was closed”. [INDEX: mouse, food, God, blessing.]\\n41:12- Introduces “Testimony”. [INDEX: earlier testimony, based on law case, included in By the Waters of Manhattan.]\\n41:28- Reads “The company had advertised for men...”. [INDEX: company, work, dock,   water, ice, river, death.]\\n43:13- Introduces “Amelia was just fourteen...”.\\n43:16- Reads “Amelia was just fourteen...” [INDEX: work, orphanage, youth, girl, books,   wound.]\\n44:33- Introduces “Malicious women greet you, saying...”. [INDEX: poem written for his wife, wife not in attendance.]\\n44:55- Reads “Malicious women greet you, saying...”.  [INDEX: love poem, women, beauty, timeless.]\\n45:38- Introduces “He had with him a bag”. [INDEX: counter-piece, not written for wife.]\\n45:56- Reads “He had with him a bag”. [INDEX: scolding, walking, wives, husbands,   marriage.]\\n46:38- Introduces “On a seat in the subway”. [INDEX: Hebrew.]\\n46:56- Reads “On a seat in the subway”. [INDEX: cities, subway, Judaism, work,      \\tdiscrimination, racial, sadness, Aryan.]\\n47:41- Reads “Permit me to warn you...”. [INDEX: car, accident.]\\n47:59- Reads “These days, the papers in the street...”. [INDEX: cities, streets, sun.]\\n48:36- Introduces “Because I saw the desolation of Zion...”. [INDEX: Book of Ezra, fourth book of Ezra, appendix to the Vulgate, Protestant Apocrypha, translation, Syriac, original, Greek, Doctor G.H. Bocks, Hebrew, Bloch, 42nd Street Library, Aramaic.]\\n50:12- Reads “Because I saw the desolation of Zion”. [INDEX: Bible, Judaism, Ezra, Zion, God, prayer, angel, heaven, hell, fire, wind, sea, dialogue, Israel, plants, seeds, earth.]\\n54:01- Unknown introducer thanks Charles Reznikoff, announces next reading: Daryl Hine on December 1st. [INDEX: Daryl Hine reading, December 1.]\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"Yes\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/charles-reznikoff-at-sgwu-1967/\"}]"],"score":3.5533829},{"id":"1269","cataloger_name":["Bindu,Reddy"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds"],"source_collection_label":["SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds"],"collection_contributing_unit":["Records Management and Archives"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":[""],"collection_source_collection_description":["The fonds consists of some administrative records of the SGWU Department of English and the Concordia Department of English between 1971 and 2000. It also consists of some SGWU Department of English records related to student academic activities in the 1940s and to public readings and lectures, and a few interviews, produced between 1966 and 1972. The fonds mainly includes minutes of departmental meetings and some course timetables. It also includes some student papers in bound volumes and 63 sound recordings (80 audio reels) mainly composed of poetry readings (see the Concordia SpokenWeb project which uses this material) but also a few lectures given at SGWU. There are also loose typed sheets describing some of the SGWU poetry readings."],"collection_source_collection_id":["I086"],"persistent_url":["http://archives.concordia.ca/I086"],"item_title":["Earle Birney at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 23 February 1968"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"EARLE BIRNEY Recorded February 23, 1968 3.75 ips, on 1/2 track on 1 mil. tape\" written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. \"EARLE BIRNEY i006/SR18\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. \"I006-11-018\" also written on sticker on the reel.\n"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 2"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"creator_names":["Birney, Earle"],"creator_names_search":["Birney, Earle"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/97679781\",\"name\":\"Birney, Earle\",\"dates\":\"1904-1955\",\"notes\":\"Poet Earle Birney was born in Calgary, Alberta in 1904, when it was still part of the Northwest Territories. Birney spent his early years on a remote farm, until his family moved to Banff in 1911, and then again in 1916 to Creston, British Columbia. Upon graduation from high-school, Birney worked odd jobs as a bank clerk, a farm labourer and as a general labourer at national parks in B.C. before enrolling at the University of British Columbia, in chemistry, in 1922. He quickly switched into english literature and became the associate editor and subsequently editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, The Ubyssey. Birney graduated in Honours English in 1926, and completed a Master’s Degree from the University of Toronto in 1927. Birney pursued further graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley, until leaving in 1930 for the University of Utah to become a lecturer for two years. He returned to Toronto to complete his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, and became a party organizer for the Trotskyist branch of the Communist Party. Birney received a fellowship to the University of London, England to study and thus traveled to Norway to interview Leon Trotsky. In 1938, with Ph.D. in hand, Birney taught at the University of Toronto and became the editor of the Canadian Forum until 1940. After enlisting in the Canadian Army, he published his first volume of poetry, David (Ryerson Press, 1942) which won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. Birney then shipped off to serve in the Second World War, returning with a manuscript for Now is time (Ryerson Press, 1945), which also won a Governor General’s Award. Birney was editor of The Canadian Poetry Magazine (1946-48) and a professor at the University of British Columbia (1948-62). There, Birney created the very first department of creative writing in Canada. His subsequent publications include The strait of Anian (Ryerson Press, 1948), Trial of a city (Ryerson Press,1952) which was later published with its original title, The damnation of Vancouver (McClelland and Stewart, 1957), Ice cod bell or stone (McClelland and Stewart, 1962). Throughout the 60’s and 70’s, his poetry became more innovative and radical, publishing Near false creek mouth (McClelland and Stewart, 1964), a collaboration with bp Nichol, Pnomes, jukollages & other stunzas (Ganglia Press, 1969), Rag and bone shop (McClelland and Stewart, 1971), What’s so big about green? (McClelland and Stewart, 1973), The rugging and the moving times (Black Moss Press, 1976), Alphbeings and other seasyours (Pikadilly Press, 1976), and Fall by fury (McClelland and Stewart, 1978). Along with poetry, Birney published two prose novels, Turvey  (McClelland and Stewart, 1949) and Down the long table (McClelland and Stewart, 1955), a collection of stories Big bird in the bush (Mosaic Press, 1978), non fiction The creative writer (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1966), and The cow jumped over the moon (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972) among others. Birney’s poems have been collected in Selected poems (McClelland and Stewart, 1966), The poems of Earle Birney (McClelland and Stewart, 1969), Collected poems (McClelland and Stewart, 1975), and his last volume, Last makings (McClelland and Stewart, 1991). Birney received an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Earle Birney died in 1995.\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Author\",\"Performer\"]}]"],"contributors_names":["Bowering, George"],"contributors_names_search":["Bowering, George"],"contributors":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/34469976\",\"name\":\"Bowering, George\",\"dates\":\"1935-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Series organizer\"]}]"],"Series_organizer_name":["Bowering, George"],"Performance_Date":[1968],"material_description":["[{\"side\":\"\",\"image\":\"\",\"other\":\"\",\"extent\":\"1/4 inch\",\"AV_types\":\"Audio\",\"tape_brand\":\"Scotch\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"3 3/4 ips\",\"sound_quality\":\"Good\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"06:00:00\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"track_configuration\":\"Half-track\",\"material_designation\":\"Reel to Reel\",\"physical_composition\":\"Magnetic Tape\",\"accompanying_material\":\"\",\"other_physical_description\":\"\"}]"],"material_designations":["Reel to Reel"],"physical_compositions":["Magnetic Tape"],"recording_type":["Analogue"],"AV_type":["Audio"],"playback_mode":["Mono"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"1968 2 23\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Date written on tape box\",\"source\":\"Accompanying material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Sir George Williams University\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1455  Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal\",\"latitude\":\"45.4972758\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57893043\"}]"],"Address":["1455  Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal"],"Venue":["Sir George Williams University"],"content_notes":["Earle Birney reads from Near False Creek Mouth (McClelland and Stewart, 1964) and Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966), as well as poems later collected in Rag & Bone Shop (McClelland and Stewart, 1971), The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1 (McClelland and Stewart, 1975), and Ghost in the Wheels: Selected Poems (McClelland and Stewart, 1977)."],"contents":["earle_birney_i006-11-018.mp3\n\nGeorge Bowering\n00:00:00\nI think it's, it's either redundant or futile to do anything more than the formality of introducing Earle Birney [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3046415] who's probably the most famous poet we've ever had and who you will see described on those pieces of paper, pink that flit around, as always as a, the Dean of Canadian Poetry, though I prefer to think of him as the federal Minister for Poetry, and the times he has been a semi-official courier of Canadian poetry around the world. Sadly enough, as he tells me, the only book of his still generally in print is the Selected Poems of 1966, which we do have on sale outside the door and of which, I should remind you, he gets a cut from his publisher. [Audience laughter]. Luckily there, I have, have heard that there will be a couple of Birney books within the next little while, one of them published in the United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30] and the other one by the Coach House Press [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5137585], presuming always that there will be a Coach House Press in the next little while. I would just like to mention that my association with Earle Birney has always been very, a good one, for me, and I wouldn't be here today to be talking about him unless I happened to be a member of the Poetry Committee, and, except that if it hadn't been for him, and the fact that both he and I were in Vancouver [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24639] at one time, I probably wouldn't have been writing any poems at all. Either that, or he would be writing mine. So without any further ado, and probably to our great delectation, I would like to introduce Earle Birney. \n \nAudience\n00:02:15 \nApplause.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:02:26\nThank you very much, George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280]. I should, in all fairness to George, say that he actually wrote all this information about me and probably a good number of the poems, which I will be reading under my own name tonight. I would also like to say that I have, was recently corresponding with a man who had just resigned as president of a University to become a Dean of another University and had said, well, at least I will show them that if a Dean is a mouse in training to be a rat, then some rats can revert to being mice. Now, if we apply this to the world of poetry, I would say that I am a mouse in training to be less than a mouse, to be something in another category--I think I'd like to be Bursar of Canadian Poetry. But nobody has really set me up for that. I'm going to start by making sure that I read one good poem tonight by reading a poem of W. B. Yeats [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q40213] [audience laughter] called \"A Prayer for Old Age\", which has, I think, I'm afraid, more and more pertinence to my condition. He wrote it at 69. \n \nEarle Birney\n00:04:10\nReads \"A Prayer for Old Age\"  by W. B. Yeats.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:04:54\nThat I will use as an excuse for some of the poems I now shall read you, if I can find my list. The last thing. Ah yes, here it is. Now there's no mic and I want to make sure that everyone is hearing me. If I'm not talking loud enough, those that cannot hear, would you please put a hand up now. I'm very sorry, I'm very sorry--well, you will have to go to the back and then somebody who's standing can come here. I'm sorry there aren't, that some of you have to stand, and I'll try to make it as fast as possible so we can all get out of here. [Audience laughter]. I'm going to begin with some poems that are, alas, too well known to my fellow poets, most of them in this room, but I had planned it this way and I'm stuck with it now and so are they. I'm going to begin with a series that came out, some members of a series that came out in Ice Cod Bell or Stone, and later others in, Near False Creek Mouth, that have to do with wandering around the global village, and this one begins in, well it since begins in Vancouver, but it's about Honolulu [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18094]. I got a fellowship to go to England [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21] and I was in Vancouver and I discovered that it only cost me two hundred dollars and some odd cents more to go to London [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q84] and back to Vancouver by way of going around the world, you know, just heading west. The air tickets were accommodating me that way. So I decided to go west, and my first stop, I noticed, was Honolulu, and I began to get a bit of a temperature about that, and I thought, how 'bout, I might as well live it up, I'm going to Honolulu tomorrow morning, going to be there tomorrow night, and so I will engage a room in Hawaiian Village Hotel for the one night, because first night, I know I have a little money. After that, God knows what's going to happen to me because I intend to stay in a lot of places before I get to London. So I did this, I reserved a room before I left Vancouver, not realizing that this had put me in a bit of a box, because this is one of the Kaiser-Hilton hotels on Waikiki Beach [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q254861], and they have a special greeter who meets all the planes, just for people coming to them. And it happened, through another mischance, that I was the only one for that hotel, and this unsettled me so much I had to write about it. [Audience laughter]. Something which I call \"Twenty-Third Flight\" for reasons, well, the poem is imitative of another poet, much older, much greater, by the name of David. Not the one that I pushed off the cliff [audience laughter], the one who was a harpist.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:08:39\nReads \"Twenty-Third Flight\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966; audience laughter throughout].\n \nAudience\n00:10:58\nApplause and laughter.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:11:06\nThank you very much, I hesitate to look as if I anticipated more applause, but I would much prefer it if you'd just let me rattle ahead here, for one thing it's getting hotter in here and more and more uncomfortable and as I say, let me get ahead with it, and so if at the end, of course, if anybody is still here with enough energy left, fine. Is there anybody who knows where water is available, any water hole out there in those vast cement deserts?\n \nGeorge Bowering\n00:11:50\nThere should be some beside you, there.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:11:52\nUh, well, there's a water pitcher, and a water glass…[audience laughter]. I'll prove it... [audience laughter].\n \nGeorge Bowering\n00:12:05\nIf I drink it, it's okay.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:12:06\nYeah! ...Well, while George is away I'll read one of his poems. This one is called \"Honolulu\" and follows immediately after the other, but in between was about forty, twenty-four hours, I guess, in which I visited the very famous outdoor aviary, one of the world's famous aviaries, and also the aquarium and so on, and I also encountered a type, a Honolulu type of sorts. So this poem, which is perhaps about the involvement of people with animals through self-projection, and the involvement of human animals with each other. \n \nEarle Birney\n00:13:05\nReads \"Honolulu\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nEarle Birney\n00:14:41\nThen I went to Japan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17], and I want to read you one little poem, this is my Zen poem, I guess. [Audience laughter]. Every poet has to have a Zen poem. Thank you, George. \n \nGeorge Bowering\n00:14:54\nOh ho, I could give you a Zen greeting. Alright. It's really cold. I tried to get it out of the Coke [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2813] machine but it just didn't work. \n \nEarle Birney\n00:15:03\nGood gin, thank you. \"Windchimes in a Temple Ruin\"--you know these little glass-leave things, which one expects to see in Japan, but not suddenly to hear when you're all alone in an old ruin. Some left up in the rafters.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:15:31\nReads \"Windchimes in a Temple Ruin\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nEarle Birney\n00:16:12\nBut I think I'm going to leave Asia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q48] for the moment, and get on to Europe [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q46], briefly, been around to Spain [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q29], at any rate. I was sitting, more or less minding my own business, on a plaza in Madrid [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2807] one morning, having my coffee, and something happened, which again I felt I should chronicle. Desmond Pacey [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5264782] says I'm a chronicler, and so I, having learned that, I now use the word [audience laughter] to explain what I'm doing. I renamed the plaza, it had a rather dull name, I call it Plaza de Inquisicion. \n \nEarle Birney\n00:17:09\nReads “Plaza de Inquisicion” [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nEarle Birney\n00:17:44\nI also went to the Prado [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q160112] of course, and saw, for the first time, the original of one of the three studies by El Greco [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q301] of The Espolio [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q52301456], or the taking-off and rending of Christ's garments, which was one of El Greco's themes. And I was struck, as I had never been really before, I suppose because I never had really looked at these paintings properly, I had looked at them in small illustrations--I was struck by the extraordinary amount of space which had been taken up, which El Greco had devoted to the carpenter who was making the holes in the cross preparatory to having Christ nailed to the cross. In fact, the whole lower third of the canvas is devoted to him in one of these three versions, and not only that but he is, they're facing us, with his back to Christ, and on the right and left are two of the Marys, whose eyes are on him. I felt that perhaps El Greco was trying to say something here, apart from what he was saying about the actual scene of the crucifixion, in a symbolic way, perhaps about something that happened to do, really, with this religion, but with, whatever we'd call it, religion, whatever we'd call it, of art. Or if not of art, but craft. It's a little, perhaps, exaggerated, to call the carpenter an artist, but it's obvious that he'd been very much at that moment a craftsman. And so I wrote \"El Greco: Espolio\".\n \nEarle Birney\n00:20:04\nReads \"El Greco: Espolio\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nEarle Birney\n00:22:29\nWhen I come to Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16], now, I'm going to kind of sneak in on the side by reading you a poem that has to do with a very remote, I suppose the most remote part of Canada, in fact, the piece of land that is even nearer to the North Pole [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q934] than Greenland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q223] or anything the Russians have, Ellesmereland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q146841]. And I will read it first of all in English, and then, more or less for the hell of it, I'm going to read it in a translation into Spanish, but anyway, because I think I like the sound of it in Spanish. It's short, so I've practiced my Spanish on it, and maybe I won't make too many boobs.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:23:30\nReads \"Ellesmereland\" in English [published later in The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1].\n \nEarle Birney\n00:24:10\nReads \"Ellesmereland\" in Spanish.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:24:59\nWell I'll get down and turn to more familiar territory. \"Canada Case History\". This is a poem written quite a long time ago, in 1945, in fact, when I'd just got back from World War Number Two [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q362], I always have to be careful to name which one it is, people getting confused about how far back I go now. And I found that in 1967 I had to do a little patching and changing of this, because history had not only caught up with me, it had changed me. But here, first of all is the original. No, I don't think, I can't, I don't think I can bear to read the original, I think I'll just read you what, what happened to this poem in 1967 in the centennial year.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:26:09\nReads \"Canada: Case History\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966; audience laughter throughout].\n \nEarle Birney\n00:28:15\nWell now I'm going to read you other various scrappy things about Canadian literature which have never been published and never will be, I think, sneak them out like this once in a while. \n \nEarle Birney\n00:28:38\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nAudience \n00:29:20\nLaughter.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:29:29\nThen there's John, Jean Cabot, as I think my school teacher, trying very hard to be bilingual, made us say, but it turns out he wasn't French at all, but Italian. His name was Giovanni Caboto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q85642]. \n \nEarle Birney\n00:29:48\nReads \"John Cabot\" [published later as “giovanni caboto - john cabot” in Rag & Bone Shop].\n \nAudience\n00:30:27\nLaughter.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:30:36\nThis is something to my publisher, when they brought out a book of mine, Ice Cod Bell or Stone, full of beautiful artwork, except that the man in charge of the artwork had never read the little poem, the \"Klein Ellesmereland\" that I've just read to you, and so never discovered that when I was talking about bells, I was talking about harebells, or flowers, and he put very large iron church bells into all the illustrations. [Audience laughter]. I had asked to see the artwork in advance and was told that the authors, that this was not the custom to show authors the artwork in advance, so I didn't see it. So all I could do at the end was write something. \"To the reader”, which was not included in the volume.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:31:45\nReads \"To the reader\".\n \nEarle Birney\n00:32:39\nI went to spend a weekend a couple of years ago for the first time with Al Purdy [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4704621] in his shack in Ameliasburg [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4742321], and I had read a lot of his Ameliasburg poems before, and I knew Al, but this was a new experience to be actually in the country of the poet, particularly as it was so well staked out--nobody else has ever written about Ameliasburg and the country north of there. Or ever will, I think. But Al has used it, and the country, and developed it into part of the remarkable fineness of his poetry. \n \nEarle Birney\n00:33:33\nReads \"In Purdy's Ameliasburg\" [published later in Rag & Bone Shop]. \n \nEarle Birney\n00:37:13\nNow a poem about another part of Canada. Still Ontario [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1904], part of the north. This is a poem about driving west with somebody else, another guy, and...well there it is. It's called \"Way to the West\". Summertime.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:37:46\nReads \"Way to the West\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nEarle Birney\n00:41:45\nWell, I'm going to get out to the West Coast very briefly. I'm going to read you something toward the end of a long poem. The trouble with long poems is, you could never dare to read the whole thing to any audience. So I'll read you, it's toward the end of the thing called \"November walk near False Creek mouth\". The last page.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:42:26\nReads final section of \"November walk near False Creek mouth\" [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected later in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nEND\n00:45:06\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nEarle Birney\n00:45:07\nI'm going to read you a few odd things which are to some extent experimental, I suppose. Most of these have not been published, and some of them I haven't read before. This one is called a \"Swahili Serenade\" and I'll tell you about it after I read it. It's Swahili Found Serenade, really. \n \nEarle Birney\n00:45:44\nReads \"Swahili Serenade\" [published later as “found swahili serenade” in Rag & Bone Shop; audience laughter throughout].\n \nEarle Birney\n00:46:13\nWell, as some of you have already perceived, already noticed, this is made up, each line is a juke-box tune, it's just a very easy kind of poem to make up; I offer it to you as a formula for quick poetry, just sit down by a jukebox and pick off some titles. [Audience laughter]. Five minute poem. Here's another kind of found poem of a different sort, called, I call it \"Space Conquest\". That's about all that I've contributed to it. \"Space Conquest\".\n \nEarle Birney\n00:46:56\nReads \"Space Conquest\".\n \nEarle Birney\n00:47:33\nWell those ten lines, each of five syllables, came out of a computer at the University of Waterloo [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1049470] last week, into which we had programmed a hundred and eleven, the one hundred and eleven words of George Meredith's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q90238] \"Lucifer in Starlight,\" and the last thirty-three words of Archibald MacLeish's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q633354] \"The End of the World.\" Don't ask me why we picked those two poems, I had nothing to do with the picking of the poems. But some of us, two linguists, two linguist-isists, a mathematician, and myself, and masses of computers are producing this sort of poetry. It took point eight-three seconds, not even one second, to produce the hundred-some-odd lines, out of which I chose those ten. So you can see it doesn't take very long, once you've programmed the machine, to find the, you know, the entire text of Hamlet [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41567], but this is what we have done so far, we haven't put too much time on it yet. Some things that I haven't had computers write for me, although perhaps I might have, or should have. This one's called \"Kooks of the Monk\". \n \nEarle Birney\n00:49:24\nReads \"Kooks of the Monk\".\n \nAudience\n00:49:37\nLaughter.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:49:39\nThat is sometimes called \"concrete\". Fun anyway, to do. This is something that I may not be able to finish, but I'll try it. It's the train from Cardiff [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10690] to London. English trains sound different, of course. \n \nEarle Birney\n00:50:03\nPerforms \"Train from Cardiff to London\".\n \nAudience\n00:50:53\nLaughter.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:50:59\nThis is a found collage from one issue of the Toronto Daily Star [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1067299], called \"Toronto Daily Tele-Starlings\", and this is only a small part of the poem which has no beginning or end, it goes on forever if you read the whole of the Star.  \n \nEarle Birney\n00:51:22\nReads \"Toronto Daily Tele-Starlings\" [audience laughter throughout].\n \nEarle Birney\n00:53:26\nA series of poems with reference back to the Yeats poem I read at the beginning, perhaps. \n \nEarle Birney\n00:53:36\nReads \"Like an eddy\" [published later in Rag & Bone Shop and collected in Ghost in the Wheels: Selected Poems].\n\nEarle Birney\n00:55:42\nAnd, two short haikus.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:55:47\nReads [two of three haikus from “hokkai in the dew line snow”, published later in Rag & Bone Shop and collected in Ghost in the Wheels: Selected Poems].\n \nEarle Birney\n00:56:16\nReads [\"BUILDINGS\", published later in Rag & Bone Shop and collected in The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1].\n \nEarle Birney\n00:56:50\nAnd, a poem that is written in kind of an attempt to write something to express a tiny little bit of the pleasure I've had, through most of my life, in reading Chaucer [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5683]. Called \"I'm always going back to Chaucer\".\n \nEarle Birney\n00:57:20\nReads \"I'm always going back to Chaucer\" in Middle English.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:59:06\nNow something that has to do with my Shetland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q47134] grand-aunt. Tea with my Shetland grand-aunt. This is a little, slightly different dialect. And there's a kind of an opposition of styles going on here. It's a very old poem, refurbished.\n \nEarle Birney\n00:59:32\nReads \"Tea at my Shetland Aunt’s\" in a Shetland dialect [published later in The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1].\n\n \nEarle Birney\n01:01:21\nWell now I'm going to turn back to older poems. To conclude. Hum...I'm going to read two or three poems that, who have some relationship to California [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q99] and Oregon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q824]. First of all, a poem that, when I wrote it, I wrote it on the day of its date. I thought the date was going to be very significant. August the seven, 1964, Florence [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q862740], Oregon. And that was because on that day, the American fleet moved into the coast and shelled the coast of North Vietnam [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q881], against the international agreements into which the United States had entered some years before. And I thought that this would surely go down in living memory, as a deed of aggression and perfidy. But there have been so many since, almost every day, that everybody has forgotten about that first shelling of the shore from the Gulf of Tonkin [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q212428]. But I happened to be on the shore of the Pacific [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q98] almost directly across from the Gulf of Tonkin, in fact, the waves that were coming in perhaps had their pulsing first on the other side. And this, one couldn't get it out of one's mind, having seen the morning papers and heard the radio, and I went, I had gone fishing with an American poet and his two boys. The salmon were running, coming in, but I have got less and less interested in killing even fish as I get older and softer, and I soon gave up even wanting to cook fish, and left it to the others, and I went up, because I had nothing to do then, I went up and I sat on a cliff, and started thinking about the sea out there, and cormorants fishing, and once in a while the flash of a seal coming up, also fishing, and I also suddenly realized I was sitting there just staring out at the sea and I began to think, I remembered Frost's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q168728] poem about how odd human beings are, you know, they go down to the sea and they sit and they all, they always look out at the sea, although they can't look very far out or very far in. And I thought that was exactly what I was feeling, the whole thing. But I thought well it's not really Frost's ocean, this is Robinson Jeffers' [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q734955] ocean, and here is this great eye of indifference, so I began my poem, called \"Looking from Oregon\" with a line from Robinson Jeffers about the Pacific: \"And what it watches is not our wars\".\n \nEarle Birney\n01:04:54\nReads \"Looking from Oregon\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nEarle Birney\n01:06:20\nAnd another little poem which is really a video poem, and I should put it on a screen but I forgot to bring my slides. Brought them as far as the hotel, but I forgot to bring them up here.  o you'll just have to visualize a poem shaped like a pair of stairs but coming up at you, and visualize yourself at the top of these stairs with your back against the side of a theatre, a campus theatre at the University of Oregon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q766145], with signs of last week's shows, this one to go on tonight, that I'm waiting to go into, waiting for my friends, who have the tickets, and watching people come up these steps, the cars coming by and discharging people. \"Campus Theatre Steps\". Summertime, a beautiful summer night. \n \nEarle Birney\n01:07:14\nReads \"Campus Theatre Steps\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nEarle Birney\n01:08:04\nThen I was driving along the coast, a long time, and I was confronted with a sign that hadn't been there before. A billboard, with the same message multiplied up and down the coast and everywhere I went, since the last time I was there. Now I, this is my favourite state of the American Union, Oregon, absolutely beautiful, still, despite whatever, all the attempts of man to un-beautify it, there's still this great volcanic, snow-covered mountains, such, shaped a bit like Fujiyama [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39231], there is also all those beautiful rocks and sea-lion caves and the pounding surf and the rhododendrons, the whole works. And there's these, this sign saying, \"Billboards Build Freedom of Choice, Courtesy of Oregon Chamber of Commerce\". I brooded about this, and being alone, I couldn't get the answer. What is the philosophy behind this? So I invented a hitchhiker, and I picked him up, and he told me, and this is what he said. This poem is dated 61-62, and Khruschev [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q35314] is still in power in Russia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q159]. \n \nEarle Birney\n01:09:36\nReads \"Billboards Build Freedom of Choice\" [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected later in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nEarle Birney\n01:11:42\nWell, I think we'll slip down into Mexico [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q96] for a moment before we wind this show up. There's a very short little thing called Irapuato [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q816845]. Well it's all part, it's like, poetry is like guidebooks, you know, guidebooks are always pointing out irrational connections between things, and so is poetry, so sometimes they get together, and in this case the guidebook had told me that there were two things, sort of, that this place was famous for, and I had discovered they were right.\n \nEarle Birney\n01:12:29\nReads \"Irapuato\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nEarle Birney\n01:13:06\nReads \"Memory No Servant\" [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected later in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nEarle Birney\n01:14:20\nA poem addressed to friend and writer George Lamming [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1340511], who's perhaps best known for his autobiography of his child as a poor negro boy on the island of Barbados [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q244]. George Lamming who wrote In the Castle of My Skin [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q23307454], and who happened to be in Jamaica [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q766] when I went there, and was extremely hospitable to me, and so were all his friends. And when I left I wrote him this poem, which had to do with a split-second feeling, something, thing happening inside me, an internal happening, the night of the last party, the last night of the last party. \n \nEarle Birney\n01:15:18\nReads \"For George Lamming\" [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected later in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nEarle Birney\n01:16:32\nWell just in case you would think that I am soft about this and I'm going to like anybody if their skin is darker than mine, I'll read you a counter-poem that happened to come out of the island of Trinidad [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q128323], out of some little external happening, perhaps in part, perhaps really just an internal happening.\n \nEarle Birney\n01:17:20\nReads \"Meeting of Strangers\" [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected later in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nEarle Birney\n01:19:06\nAnd then a very brief little, Irving Layton [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1673289]-type poem from Curacao [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25279]. Very much a...very pallid compared with Irving's, I must say.\n \nEarle Birney\n01:19:22\nReads \"Curacao\" [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected later in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\n \nAudience\n01:19:45\nLaughter.\n \nEarle Birney\n01:19:54\nNow I'm going to conclude with two pieces. One is about the farthest back of these poems. Although some things I've read tonight began earlier but have been revised, this one has not been particularly revised. It's called \"The Road to Nijmegen\" and was written in Holland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q55] in January of 1945, the last winter of the war. Which was the coldest winter, and in this part of Holland, first the Germans in coming and then in retreating had cut down every tree anywhere around. The trees were used for fuel and for mine props and...And then we had come in, and if there were any trees left, we'd got them. And in fact, it was no longer a matter of trees, it was a matter of trying to find bits and pieces of coal and getting the coal working and getting the coal out of the hands of black marketeers. And meantime the people were cold, even colder than we were, and they also lacked food. This is a letter home to a friend.\n \nEarle Birney\n01:22:10\nReads \"The Road to Nijmegen\" [published later in The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1].\n \nEarle Birney\n01:24:38\nAnd finally, “From The Hazel Bough”.\n \nEarle Birney\n01:24:48\nReads \"From the Hazel Bough\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966 and collected ater in The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1].\n \nEarle Birney\n01:25:41\nThank you very much.\n \nAudience\n01:25:43\nApplause.\n \nGeorge Bowering\n01:26:12\nI guess you've already said it for us, and I can only repeat, thanks very much, Earle.\n \nEND\n01:26:25\n[Cut off abruptly]."],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:\\n\\nIn 1968, Birney left for Australia on a trip financed by a Canada Council Medal and Award. He also went on a Canadian reading tour, which this reading might have been part of (see Elspeth Cameron’s Earle Birney: A Life, pg 492). Birney was also working on Pnomes, jukollages & other stunzas (Ganglia Press, 1969), a collaboration with bp Nichol.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nEarle Birney was an influential poet and professor at the University of British Columbia thus influencing a younger generation of poets like Frank Davey, George Bowering, Daphne Marlatt, David Bromige, Phyllis Webb, John Newlove, Joe Rosenblatt, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Michael Ondaatje, bill bissett and Lionel Kearns among many others during the early 60’s. Birney was also connected to poets like A.J.M. Smith, Irving Layton, Al Purdy and Robert Creeley. *On an interesting note, a trip to Montreal to read at Sir George Williams in 1970 was cancelled due to a car accident Birney was involved in. (Elspeth Cameron’s Earle Birney: A Life (Viking Press, 1994), page 498).\\n\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Reel-to-reel tape>2 CDs>digital file\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/encyclopedia-of-post-colonial-literatures-in-english-vol-1/oclc/32566813&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Adam, Ian. “Birney, Earle (1904-). Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. Eugene Benson and L.W. Connolly (eds). London: Routledge, 1994. 2 vols.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/ice-cod-bell-or-stone-new-poems/oclc/61536179&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Birney, Earle. Ice Cod Bell or Stone. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1962. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/near-false-creek-mouth-new-poems/oclc/301604488&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Birney, Earle. Near False Creek Mouth. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1964.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/rag-bone-shop/oclc/877159326&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Birney, Earle. Rag & Bone Shop. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/ghost-in-the-wheels-selected-poems/oclc/906091320&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Birney, Earle. Ghost in the Wheels: Selected Poems. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/collected-poems-of-earle-birney-volume-1/oclc/941923628&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Birney, Earle. The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/selected-poems-1940-1966/oclc/256837965&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Birney, Earle. Selected Poems 1940-1966. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1966.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/earle-birney-a-life/oclc/30973945&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Cameron, Elspeth. Earle Birney: A Life. Toronto: Penguin Books, 1995. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/earle-birney-at-sgwu-1968/#reading1\",\"citation\":\"Charney, Marty. “Georgiantics”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 23 February 1968.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-canadian-literature/oclc/605246871&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Davey, Frank. \\\"Birney, Earle\\\". The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Eugene Benson and William Toye (eds). Oxford University Press 2001.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/15-canadian-poets-x2/oclc/40224711&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Geddes, Gary. “Earle Birney (b. 1904)”. Fifteen Canadian Poets Times Two. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-twentieth-century-poetry-in-english/oclc/807465072&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"New, W.H. \\\"Birney, (Alfred) Earle\\\". The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Ian Hamilton (ed). Oxford University Press, 1996. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.concordia.ca/content/dam/concordia/offices/archives/docs/postgrad/Postgrad-1967-Spring.pdf\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry Readings”. Post-Grad. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, Spring 1967, page 20. \"},{\"url\":\"http://news.google.com/newspapersid=np8tAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PKAFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4195,2837932&dq=sir+george+williams+poetry&hl=en\",\"citation\":\"“SGWU To Have Poetry Series”. Montreal: The Gazette, 14 September 1967, page 15. \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Freeland, Petra. “Birney, Earle, 1904-1995”. Literature Online Biography.\"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry Readings”. OP-ED. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 6 October 1967, page 6. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670548842741760,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0018_back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0018_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Earle Birney Tape Box - Back\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0018_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0018_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Earle Birney Tape Box - Front\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0018_side.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0018_side.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Earle Birney Tape Box - Spine\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0018_tape.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0018_tape.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Earle Birney Tape Box - Reel\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/earle_birney_i006-11-018.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"earle_birney_i006-11-018.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"01:26:25\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"207.2 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"George Bowering\\n00:00:00\\nI think it's, it's either redundant or futile to do anything more than the formality of introducing Earle Birney [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3046415] who's probably the most famous poet we've ever had and who you will see described on those pieces of paper, pink that flit around, as always as a, the Dean of Canadian Poetry, though I prefer to think of him as the federal Minister for Poetry, and the times he has been a semi-official courier of Canadian poetry around the world. Sadly enough, as he tells me, the only book of his still generally in print is the Selected Poems of 1966, which we do have on sale outside the door and of which, I should remind you, he gets a cut from his publisher. [Audience laughter]. Luckily there, I have, have heard that there will be a couple of Birney books within the next little while, one of them published in the United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30] and the other one by the Coach House Press [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5137585], presuming always that there will be a Coach House Press in the next little while. I would just like to mention that my association with Earle Birney has always been very, a good one, for me, and I wouldn't be here today to be talking about him unless I happened to be a member of the Poetry Committee, and, except that if it hadn't been for him, and the fact that both he and I were in Vancouver [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24639] at one time, I probably wouldn't have been writing any poems at all. Either that, or he would be writing mine. So without any further ado, and probably to our great delectation, I would like to introduce Earle Birney. \\n \\nAudience\\n00:02:15 \\nApplause.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:02:26\\nThank you very much, George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280]. I should, in all fairness to George, say that he actually wrote all this information about me and probably a good number of the poems, which I will be reading under my own name tonight. I would also like to say that I have, was recently corresponding with a man who had just resigned as president of a University to become a Dean of another University and had said, well, at least I will show them that if a Dean is a mouse in training to be a rat, then some rats can revert to being mice. Now, if we apply this to the world of poetry, I would say that I am a mouse in training to be less than a mouse, to be something in another category--I think I'd like to be Bursar of Canadian Poetry. But nobody has really set me up for that. I'm going to start by making sure that I read one good poem tonight by reading a poem of W. B. Yeats [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q40213] [audience laughter] called \\\"A Prayer for Old Age\\\", which has, I think, I'm afraid, more and more pertinence to my condition. He wrote it at 69. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:04:10\\nReads \\\"A Prayer for Old Age\\\"  by W. B. Yeats.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:04:54\\nThat I will use as an excuse for some of the poems I now shall read you, if I can find my list. The last thing. Ah yes, here it is. Now there's no mic and I want to make sure that everyone is hearing me. If I'm not talking loud enough, those that cannot hear, would you please put a hand up now. I'm very sorry, I'm very sorry--well, you will have to go to the back and then somebody who's standing can come here. I'm sorry there aren't, that some of you have to stand, and I'll try to make it as fast as possible so we can all get out of here. [Audience laughter]. I'm going to begin with some poems that are, alas, too well known to my fellow poets, most of them in this room, but I had planned it this way and I'm stuck with it now and so are they. I'm going to begin with a series that came out, some members of a series that came out in Ice Cod Bell or Stone, and later others in, Near False Creek Mouth, that have to do with wandering around the global village, and this one begins in, well it since begins in Vancouver, but it's about Honolulu [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18094]. I got a fellowship to go to England [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21] and I was in Vancouver and I discovered that it only cost me two hundred dollars and some odd cents more to go to London [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q84] and back to Vancouver by way of going around the world, you know, just heading west. The air tickets were accommodating me that way. So I decided to go west, and my first stop, I noticed, was Honolulu, and I began to get a bit of a temperature about that, and I thought, how 'bout, I might as well live it up, I'm going to Honolulu tomorrow morning, going to be there tomorrow night, and so I will engage a room in Hawaiian Village Hotel for the one night, because first night, I know I have a little money. After that, God knows what's going to happen to me because I intend to stay in a lot of places before I get to London. So I did this, I reserved a room before I left Vancouver, not realizing that this had put me in a bit of a box, because this is one of the Kaiser-Hilton hotels on Waikiki Beach [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q254861], and they have a special greeter who meets all the planes, just for people coming to them. And it happened, through another mischance, that I was the only one for that hotel, and this unsettled me so much I had to write about it. [Audience laughter]. Something which I call \\\"Twenty-Third Flight\\\" for reasons, well, the poem is imitative of another poet, much older, much greater, by the name of David. Not the one that I pushed off the cliff [audience laughter], the one who was a harpist.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:08:39\\nReads \\\"Twenty-Third Flight\\\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966; audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nAudience\\n00:10:58\\nApplause and laughter.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:11:06\\nThank you very much, I hesitate to look as if I anticipated more applause, but I would much prefer it if you'd just let me rattle ahead here, for one thing it's getting hotter in here and more and more uncomfortable and as I say, let me get ahead with it, and so if at the end, of course, if anybody is still here with enough energy left, fine. Is there anybody who knows where water is available, any water hole out there in those vast cement deserts?\\n \\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:11:50\\nThere should be some beside you, there.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:11:52\\nUh, well, there's a water pitcher, and a water glass…[audience laughter]. I'll prove it... [audience laughter].\\n \\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:12:05\\nIf I drink it, it's okay.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:12:06\\nYeah! ...Well, while George is away I'll read one of his poems. This one is called \\\"Honolulu\\\" and follows immediately after the other, but in between was about forty, twenty-four hours, I guess, in which I visited the very famous outdoor aviary, one of the world's famous aviaries, and also the aquarium and so on, and I also encountered a type, a Honolulu type of sorts. So this poem, which is perhaps about the involvement of people with animals through self-projection, and the involvement of human animals with each other. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:13:05\\nReads \\\"Honolulu\\\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:14:41\\nThen I went to Japan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17], and I want to read you one little poem, this is my Zen poem, I guess. [Audience laughter]. Every poet has to have a Zen poem. Thank you, George. \\n \\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:14:54\\nOh ho, I could give you a Zen greeting. Alright. It's really cold. I tried to get it out of the Coke [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2813] machine but it just didn't work. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:15:03\\nGood gin, thank you. \\\"Windchimes in a Temple Ruin\\\"--you know these little glass-leave things, which one expects to see in Japan, but not suddenly to hear when you're all alone in an old ruin. Some left up in the rafters.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:15:31\\nReads \\\"Windchimes in a Temple Ruin\\\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:16:12\\nBut I think I'm going to leave Asia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q48] for the moment, and get on to Europe [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q46], briefly, been around to Spain [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q29], at any rate. I was sitting, more or less minding my own business, on a plaza in Madrid [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2807] one morning, having my coffee, and something happened, which again I felt I should chronicle. Desmond Pacey [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5264782] says I'm a chronicler, and so I, having learned that, I now use the word [audience laughter] to explain what I'm doing. I renamed the plaza, it had a rather dull name, I call it Plaza de Inquisicion. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:17:09\\nReads “Plaza de Inquisicion” [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:17:44\\nI also went to the Prado [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q160112] of course, and saw, for the first time, the original of one of the three studies by El Greco [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q301] of The Espolio [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q52301456], or the taking-off and rending of Christ's garments, which was one of El Greco's themes. And I was struck, as I had never been really before, I suppose because I never had really looked at these paintings properly, I had looked at them in small illustrations--I was struck by the extraordinary amount of space which had been taken up, which El Greco had devoted to the carpenter who was making the holes in the cross preparatory to having Christ nailed to the cross. In fact, the whole lower third of the canvas is devoted to him in one of these three versions, and not only that but he is, they're facing us, with his back to Christ, and on the right and left are two of the Marys, whose eyes are on him. I felt that perhaps El Greco was trying to say something here, apart from what he was saying about the actual scene of the crucifixion, in a symbolic way, perhaps about something that happened to do, really, with this religion, but with, whatever we'd call it, religion, whatever we'd call it, of art. Or if not of art, but craft. It's a little, perhaps, exaggerated, to call the carpenter an artist, but it's obvious that he'd been very much at that moment a craftsman. And so I wrote \\\"El Greco: Espolio\\\".\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:20:04\\nReads \\\"El Greco: Espolio\\\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:22:29\\nWhen I come to Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16], now, I'm going to kind of sneak in on the side by reading you a poem that has to do with a very remote, I suppose the most remote part of Canada, in fact, the piece of land that is even nearer to the North Pole [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q934] than Greenland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q223] or anything the Russians have, Ellesmereland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q146841]. And I will read it first of all in English, and then, more or less for the hell of it, I'm going to read it in a translation into Spanish, but anyway, because I think I like the sound of it in Spanish. It's short, so I've practiced my Spanish on it, and maybe I won't make too many boobs.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:23:30\\nReads \\\"Ellesmereland\\\" in English [published later in The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:24:10\\nReads \\\"Ellesmereland\\\" in Spanish.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:24:59\\nWell I'll get down and turn to more familiar territory. \\\"Canada Case History\\\". This is a poem written quite a long time ago, in 1945, in fact, when I'd just got back from World War Number Two [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q362], I always have to be careful to name which one it is, people getting confused about how far back I go now. And I found that in 1967 I had to do a little patching and changing of this, because history had not only caught up with me, it had changed me. But here, first of all is the original. No, I don't think, I can't, I don't think I can bear to read the original, I think I'll just read you what, what happened to this poem in 1967 in the centennial year.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:26:09\\nReads \\\"Canada: Case History\\\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966; audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:28:15\\nWell now I'm going to read you other various scrappy things about Canadian literature which have never been published and never will be, I think, sneak them out like this once in a while. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:28:38\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nAudience \\n00:29:20\\nLaughter.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:29:29\\nThen there's John, Jean Cabot, as I think my school teacher, trying very hard to be bilingual, made us say, but it turns out he wasn't French at all, but Italian. His name was Giovanni Caboto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q85642]. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:29:48\\nReads \\\"John Cabot\\\" [published later as “giovanni caboto - john cabot” in Rag & Bone Shop].\\n \\nAudience\\n00:30:27\\nLaughter.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:30:36\\nThis is something to my publisher, when they brought out a book of mine, Ice Cod Bell or Stone, full of beautiful artwork, except that the man in charge of the artwork had never read the little poem, the \\\"Klein Ellesmereland\\\" that I've just read to you, and so never discovered that when I was talking about bells, I was talking about harebells, or flowers, and he put very large iron church bells into all the illustrations. [Audience laughter]. I had asked to see the artwork in advance and was told that the authors, that this was not the custom to show authors the artwork in advance, so I didn't see it. So all I could do at the end was write something. \\\"To the reader”, which was not included in the volume.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:31:45\\nReads \\\"To the reader\\\".\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:32:39\\nI went to spend a weekend a couple of years ago for the first time with Al Purdy [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4704621] in his shack in Ameliasburg [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4742321], and I had read a lot of his Ameliasburg poems before, and I knew Al, but this was a new experience to be actually in the country of the poet, particularly as it was so well staked out--nobody else has ever written about Ameliasburg and the country north of there. Or ever will, I think. But Al has used it, and the country, and developed it into part of the remarkable fineness of his poetry. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:33:33\\nReads \\\"In Purdy's Ameliasburg\\\" [published later in Rag & Bone Shop]. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:37:13\\nNow a poem about another part of Canada. Still Ontario [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1904], part of the north. This is a poem about driving west with somebody else, another guy, and...well there it is. It's called \\\"Way to the West\\\". Summertime.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:37:46\\nReads \\\"Way to the West\\\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:41:45\\nWell, I'm going to get out to the West Coast very briefly. I'm going to read you something toward the end of a long poem. The trouble with long poems is, you could never dare to read the whole thing to any audience. So I'll read you, it's toward the end of the thing called \\\"November walk near False Creek mouth\\\". The last page.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:42:26\\nReads final section of \\\"November walk near False Creek mouth\\\" [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected later in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nEND\\n00:45:06\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:45:07\\nI'm going to read you a few odd things which are to some extent experimental, I suppose. Most of these have not been published, and some of them I haven't read before. This one is called a \\\"Swahili Serenade\\\" and I'll tell you about it after I read it. It's Swahili Found Serenade, really. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:45:44\\nReads \\\"Swahili Serenade\\\" [published later as “found swahili serenade” in Rag & Bone Shop; audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:46:13\\nWell, as some of you have already perceived, already noticed, this is made up, each line is a juke-box tune, it's just a very easy kind of poem to make up; I offer it to you as a formula for quick poetry, just sit down by a jukebox and pick off some titles. [Audience laughter]. Five minute poem. Here's another kind of found poem of a different sort, called, I call it \\\"Space Conquest\\\". That's about all that I've contributed to it. \\\"Space Conquest\\\".\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:46:56\\nReads \\\"Space Conquest\\\".\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:47:33\\nWell those ten lines, each of five syllables, came out of a computer at the University of Waterloo [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1049470] last week, into which we had programmed a hundred and eleven, the one hundred and eleven words of George Meredith's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q90238] \\\"Lucifer in Starlight,\\\" and the last thirty-three words of Archibald MacLeish's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q633354] \\\"The End of the World.\\\" Don't ask me why we picked those two poems, I had nothing to do with the picking of the poems. But some of us, two linguists, two linguist-isists, a mathematician, and myself, and masses of computers are producing this sort of poetry. It took point eight-three seconds, not even one second, to produce the hundred-some-odd lines, out of which I chose those ten. So you can see it doesn't take very long, once you've programmed the machine, to find the, you know, the entire text of Hamlet [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41567], but this is what we have done so far, we haven't put too much time on it yet. Some things that I haven't had computers write for me, although perhaps I might have, or should have. This one's called \\\"Kooks of the Monk\\\". \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:49:24\\nReads \\\"Kooks of the Monk\\\".\\n \\nAudience\\n00:49:37\\nLaughter.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:49:39\\nThat is sometimes called \\\"concrete\\\". Fun anyway, to do. This is something that I may not be able to finish, but I'll try it. It's the train from Cardiff [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10690] to London. English trains sound different, of course. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:50:03\\nPerforms \\\"Train from Cardiff to London\\\".\\n \\nAudience\\n00:50:53\\nLaughter.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:50:59\\nThis is a found collage from one issue of the Toronto Daily Star [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1067299], called \\\"Toronto Daily Tele-Starlings\\\", and this is only a small part of the poem which has no beginning or end, it goes on forever if you read the whole of the Star.  \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:51:22\\nReads \\\"Toronto Daily Tele-Starlings\\\" [audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:53:26\\nA series of poems with reference back to the Yeats poem I read at the beginning, perhaps. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:53:36\\nReads \\\"Like an eddy\\\" [published later in Rag & Bone Shop and collected in Ghost in the Wheels: Selected Poems].\\n\\nEarle Birney\\n00:55:42\\nAnd, two short haikus.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:55:47\\nReads [two of three haikus from “hokkai in the dew line snow”, published later in Rag & Bone Shop and collected in Ghost in the Wheels: Selected Poems].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:56:16\\nReads [\\\"BUILDINGS\\\", published later in Rag & Bone Shop and collected in The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:56:50\\nAnd, a poem that is written in kind of an attempt to write something to express a tiny little bit of the pleasure I've had, through most of my life, in reading Chaucer [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5683]. Called \\\"I'm always going back to Chaucer\\\".\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:57:20\\nReads \\\"I'm always going back to Chaucer\\\" in Middle English.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:59:06\\nNow something that has to do with my Shetland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q47134] grand-aunt. Tea with my Shetland grand-aunt. This is a little, slightly different dialect. And there's a kind of an opposition of styles going on here. It's a very old poem, refurbished.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n00:59:32\\nReads \\\"Tea at my Shetland Aunt’s\\\" in a Shetland dialect [published later in The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1].\\n\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:01:21\\nWell now I'm going to turn back to older poems. To conclude. Hum...I'm going to read two or three poems that, who have some relationship to California [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q99] and Oregon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q824]. First of all, a poem that, when I wrote it, I wrote it on the day of its date. I thought the date was going to be very significant. August the seven, 1964, Florence [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q862740], Oregon. And that was because on that day, the American fleet moved into the coast and shelled the coast of North Vietnam [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q881], against the international agreements into which the United States had entered some years before. And I thought that this would surely go down in living memory, as a deed of aggression and perfidy. But there have been so many since, almost every day, that everybody has forgotten about that first shelling of the shore from the Gulf of Tonkin [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q212428]. But I happened to be on the shore of the Pacific [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q98] almost directly across from the Gulf of Tonkin, in fact, the waves that were coming in perhaps had their pulsing first on the other side. And this, one couldn't get it out of one's mind, having seen the morning papers and heard the radio, and I went, I had gone fishing with an American poet and his two boys. The salmon were running, coming in, but I have got less and less interested in killing even fish as I get older and softer, and I soon gave up even wanting to cook fish, and left it to the others, and I went up, because I had nothing to do then, I went up and I sat on a cliff, and started thinking about the sea out there, and cormorants fishing, and once in a while the flash of a seal coming up, also fishing, and I also suddenly realized I was sitting there just staring out at the sea and I began to think, I remembered Frost's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q168728] poem about how odd human beings are, you know, they go down to the sea and they sit and they all, they always look out at the sea, although they can't look very far out or very far in. And I thought that was exactly what I was feeling, the whole thing. But I thought well it's not really Frost's ocean, this is Robinson Jeffers' [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q734955] ocean, and here is this great eye of indifference, so I began my poem, called \\\"Looking from Oregon\\\" with a line from Robinson Jeffers about the Pacific: \\\"And what it watches is not our wars\\\".\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:04:54\\nReads \\\"Looking from Oregon\\\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:06:20\\nAnd another little poem which is really a video poem, and I should put it on a screen but I forgot to bring my slides. Brought them as far as the hotel, but I forgot to bring them up here.  o you'll just have to visualize a poem shaped like a pair of stairs but coming up at you, and visualize yourself at the top of these stairs with your back against the side of a theatre, a campus theatre at the University of Oregon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q766145], with signs of last week's shows, this one to go on tonight, that I'm waiting to go into, waiting for my friends, who have the tickets, and watching people come up these steps, the cars coming by and discharging people. \\\"Campus Theatre Steps\\\". Summertime, a beautiful summer night. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:07:14\\nReads \\\"Campus Theatre Steps\\\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:08:04\\nThen I was driving along the coast, a long time, and I was confronted with a sign that hadn't been there before. A billboard, with the same message multiplied up and down the coast and everywhere I went, since the last time I was there. Now I, this is my favourite state of the American Union, Oregon, absolutely beautiful, still, despite whatever, all the attempts of man to un-beautify it, there's still this great volcanic, snow-covered mountains, such, shaped a bit like Fujiyama [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39231], there is also all those beautiful rocks and sea-lion caves and the pounding surf and the rhododendrons, the whole works. And there's these, this sign saying, \\\"Billboards Build Freedom of Choice, Courtesy of Oregon Chamber of Commerce\\\". I brooded about this, and being alone, I couldn't get the answer. What is the philosophy behind this? So I invented a hitchhiker, and I picked him up, and he told me, and this is what he said. This poem is dated 61-62, and Khruschev [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q35314] is still in power in Russia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q159]. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:09:36\\nReads \\\"Billboards Build Freedom of Choice\\\" [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected later in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:11:42\\nWell, I think we'll slip down into Mexico [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q96] for a moment before we wind this show up. There's a very short little thing called Irapuato [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q816845]. Well it's all part, it's like, poetry is like guidebooks, you know, guidebooks are always pointing out irrational connections between things, and so is poetry, so sometimes they get together, and in this case the guidebook had told me that there were two things, sort of, that this place was famous for, and I had discovered they were right.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:12:29\\nReads \\\"Irapuato\\\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:13:06\\nReads \\\"Memory No Servant\\\" [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected later in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:14:20\\nA poem addressed to friend and writer George Lamming [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1340511], who's perhaps best known for his autobiography of his child as a poor negro boy on the island of Barbados [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q244]. George Lamming who wrote In the Castle of My Skin [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q23307454], and who happened to be in Jamaica [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q766] when I went there, and was extremely hospitable to me, and so were all his friends. And when I left I wrote him this poem, which had to do with a split-second feeling, something, thing happening inside me, an internal happening, the night of the last party, the last night of the last party. \\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:15:18\\nReads \\\"For George Lamming\\\" [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected later in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:16:32\\nWell just in case you would think that I am soft about this and I'm going to like anybody if their skin is darker than mine, I'll read you a counter-poem that happened to come out of the island of Trinidad [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q128323], out of some little external happening, perhaps in part, perhaps really just an internal happening.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:17:20\\nReads \\\"Meeting of Strangers\\\" [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected later in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:19:06\\nAnd then a very brief little, Irving Layton [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1673289]-type poem from Curacao [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25279]. Very much a...very pallid compared with Irving's, I must say.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:19:22\\nReads \\\"Curacao\\\" [from Near False Creek Mouth and collected later in Selected Poems 1940-1966].\\n \\nAudience\\n01:19:45\\nLaughter.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:19:54\\nNow I'm going to conclude with two pieces. One is about the farthest back of these poems. Although some things I've read tonight began earlier but have been revised, this one has not been particularly revised. It's called \\\"The Road to Nijmegen\\\" and was written in Holland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q55] in January of 1945, the last winter of the war. Which was the coldest winter, and in this part of Holland, first the Germans in coming and then in retreating had cut down every tree anywhere around. The trees were used for fuel and for mine props and...And then we had come in, and if there were any trees left, we'd got them. And in fact, it was no longer a matter of trees, it was a matter of trying to find bits and pieces of coal and getting the coal working and getting the coal out of the hands of black marketeers. And meantime the people were cold, even colder than we were, and they also lacked food. This is a letter home to a friend.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:22:10\\nReads \\\"The Road to Nijmegen\\\" [published later in The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:24:38\\nAnd finally, “From The Hazel Bough”.\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:24:48\\nReads \\\"From the Hazel Bough\\\" [from Selected Poems 1940-1966 and collected ater in The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1].\\n \\nEarle Birney\\n01:25:41\\nThank you very much.\\n \\nAudience\\n01:25:43\\nApplause.\\n \\nGeorge Bowering\\n01:26:12\\nI guess you've already said it for us, and I can only repeat, thanks very much, Earle.\\n \\nEND\\n01:26:25\\n[Cut off abruptly].\",\"notes\":\"Earle Birney reads from Near False Creek Mouth (McClelland and Stewart, 1964) and Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966), as well as poems later collected in Rag & Bone Shop (McClelland and Stewart, 1971), The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1 (McClelland and Stewart, 1975), and Ghost in the Wheels: Selected Poems (McClelland and Stewart, 1977).\\n\\n00:00- George Bowering introduces Earle Birney. [INDEX: most famous poet, flyers for readings, ‘Dean of Canadian Poetry’, Selected Poems of 1966, publisher, sale of book at reading, United States, Coach House Press, SGWU Poetry Committee, inspiration for  writing poems, Vancouver.]\\n02:26- Earle Birney introduces reading. [INDEX: George Bowering’s introduction, university Dean, ‘Bursar of Canadian Poetry’.]\\n03:41- Introduces W.B. Yeats poem “A Prayer for Old Age”. [INDEX: good poem, old age, written at age 69.]\\n04:10- Reads W.B. Yeats poem “A Prayer for Old Age”.\\n04:54- Introduces “Twenty-Third Flight” [INDEX: no microphone at reading, other poets in the room, well-known poems, reading plan, series that came out in Ice Cod Bell or Stone near False Creek mouth, wandering around a global village, Vancouver, Honolulu, fellowship to go to England, traveling West around the world, Hawaiian Village Hotel, Kaiser-Hilton hotels on Wakiki Beach, greater poet named David, push off a cliff,       harpist; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n08:39- Reads “Twenty-Third Flight”.\\n11:06- Thanks audience for applause, asks for water\\n12:06- Introduces “Honolulu”. [INDEX: George Bowering, twenty-four hours after previous poem’s action, outdoor aviary, aquarium, Honolulu, people and animals, self-projection, involvement of human animals with each other; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n13:05- Reads “Honolulu”.\\n14:41- Introduces “Wind Chimes in a Temple Ruin”. [INDEX: Japan, Zen poem, George        Bowering; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).] \\n14:54- George Bowering brings Earle Birney a cold drink from a vending machine. [INDEX: Zen greeting, Coke Machine.]\\n15:03- Birney continues introducing “Wind Chimes in a Temple Ruin”. [INDEX: Japan, old ruins, chimes left in rafters.]\\n15:31- Reads “Wind Chimes in a Temple Ruin”.\\n16:12- Introduces “Plaza de Inquisicion”. [INDEX: Leave Asia, Europe, Spain, plaza in        Madrid, coffee, Desmond Pacey, chronicler, renaming plaza; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n17:09- Reads “Plaza de Inquisicion”.\\n17:44- Introduces “El Greco: Espolio”. [INDEX: Prado, one of the three studies by El Greco of the Espolio, Christs’ garments, El Greco’s themes, struck by the painting, amount of space, carpenter making the holes in the cross, Virgin Mary, religion of art, craft, carpenter as artist; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n20:04- Reads “El Greco: Espolio”.\\n22:29- Introduces “Ellesmereland”. [INDEX: Canada, remotest part of Canada, nearest to the North Pole, Greenland, Russians, English, translation into Spanish, sound of poem in Spanish; found in The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1 (McClelland and Stewart, 1975).]\\n23:30- Reads “Ellesmereland”.\\n24:10- Reads “Ellesmereland” in Spanish.\\n24:59- Introduces “Canada Case History”. [INDEX: familiar territory, written in 1945, Birney’s return from WWII, edited the poem in 1967 because history had ‘changed’       \\tBirney, original, 1967 Centennial year; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n26:09- Reads “Canada Case History”.\\n28:15- Introduces unknown poem, first line “Our forefathers literary...”. [INDEX: Canadian literature, poems never published.]\\n28:38- Reads unknown poem, first line “Our forefathers literary...”.\\n29:29- Introduces “John Cabot”. [INDEX: Jean Cabot, schoolteacher, bilingual, French, Italian, Giovanni Cabotto; from unknown source.]\\n29:48- Reads “John Cabot”.\\n30:36- Introduces “To the Reader Who Was Not Included in the Volume”. [INDEX:   publisher, Ice Cod Bell or Stone, artwork, artist never read “Ellesmereland”, didn’t    \\tknow that bells were harebells or flowers, church bells, authors barred from viewing art \\tbefore publication, poem as a result; unknown source.]\\n31:45- Reads “To the Reader...”\\n32:39- Introduces “In Purdy’s Ameliasburg”. [INDEX: weekend spent with Al Purdy, shack in Ameliasburg, Ameliasburg poems, country of the poet; unknown source.]\\n33:33- Reads “In Purdy’s Ameliasburg”.\\n37:13- Introduces “Way to the West”. [INDEX: poem about Canada, north Ontario, driving west, summertime; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).] 37:46- Reads “Way to the West”.\\n41:45- Introduces selection from “November Walk Near False Creek Mouth”. [INDEX: West Coast, end of a long poem, problems reading long poems, audience, last page of the poem; unknown source; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart,    1966).]\\n42:26- Reads selection from “November Walk Near False Creek Mouth”.\\n45:06.96- END OF RECORDING.\\n\\n00:00- Earle Birney introduces second part of reading and “Swahili Serenade”. [INDEX:        experimental poems, not been published, never read, “Swahili Found Serenade”;   unknown source.]\\n00:37- Reads “Swahili Serenade”.\\n01:06- Explains “Swahili Serenade”, introduces  “Space Conquest”. [INDEX: poem composed of line from a juke-box tune, formula for quick poetry, five minute poem, found poem, title; unknown source.]\\n01:49- Reads “Space Conquest”.\\n02:26- Explains “Space Conquest”, introduces “Kooks of the Monk”. [INDEX: ten lines, five syllables, constraint poetry, computer at the University of Waterloo, programmed 111 words of George Meredith’s “Lucifer in Starlight”, 33 words from Archibald MacLeish’s “The End of the World”, random poems; linguists, mathematician, computers composed poem; 0.83 seconds to compose, chose ten lines, entire text of Hamlet; unknown source]\\n04:17- Reads “Kooks of the Monk”. [INDEX: list, wordplay, onomatopaeic, nonsense poem.]\\n04:32- Explains “Kooks of the Monk”, introduces “Train from Cardiff to London”. [INDEX:        concrete poetry; Cardiff, London, English trains, sound of train; unknown source.]\\n04:56- Reads “Train from Cardiff to London”. [INDEX: sound poem.] \\n05:52- Introduces “Toronto Daily Tele-Starlings”. [INDEX: found collage poem, issue of the Toronto Daily Star “Toronto Daily Tele-Starlings”, small part of the poem, no beginning   or end, goes on forever; unknown source.]\\n06:15- Reads “Toronto Daily Tele-Starlings”.\\n08:19- Introduces unknown poem, “Like an eddy, my words move...”. [INDEX: reference to Yeats poem “A Prayer for Old Age”; published in Ghost in the Wheels: Selected Poems (McClelland and Stewart, 1977).]\\n08:29- Reads unknown poem, “Like an eddy, my words move...”.\\n10:35- Introduces haiku “To sleep under real stars...”\\n10:40- Reads “To sleep under real stars...” [INDEX: Haiku; unknown source]\\n10:53- Reads “A north door opens...” [INDEX: Haiku; unknown source]\\n11:09- Reads “Walls”. [INDEX: unknown source]\\n11:43- Introduces “I’m always going back to Chaucer”. [INDEX: poem an attempt to express pleasure of reading Chaucer; unknown source.]\\n12:13- Reads “I’m always going back to Chaucer”. [INDEX: written and read in Middle      English.]\\n13:59- Introduces “Tea with my Shetland Grand-Aunt” [INDEX: dialect, opposition of styles, old poem ‘refurbished’; published later as “Tea at my Shetland Aunt’s” in The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1 (McClelland and Stewart, 1975).]\\n14:25- Reads “Tea with my Shetland Grant-Aunt”. [INDEX: read in voice of aunt in a rolling Shetland dialect.]\\n16:15- Introduces “Looking from Oregon”. [INDEX: older poems, California, oregon, date, August 7, 1964; Florence, Oregon; American fleet shelled the coast of North Vietnam, international agreements, United States, deed of aggression, living memory, forgetting, shelling of the Gulf of Tonkin, Pacific Ocean, morning papers, radio, fishing with an American poet, salmon, killing fish, old age, cormorants fishing, seal, Robert Frost poem, Robinson Jeffers line “And what it watches is not our wars”; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n19:47- Reads “Looking from Oregon”.\\n21:13- Introduces “Campus Theatre Steps” [INDEX: video poem, screen, slides, hotel, visualize poem shaped like a pair of stairs, theatre, campus, University of Oregon, shows, friends, tickets, cars, people, summertime, nighttime; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n22:07- Reads “Campus Theatre Steps”.\\n22:57- Introduces unknown poem “Billboards Build Freedom of Choice”. [INDEX: driving along coast, billboard, Oregon, man, volcanic snow-covered mountains, Fujiyama, sea-lion caves, surf, rhododendrons, sign says “Billboards Build Freedom of Choice, Courtesy of Oregon Chamber of Commerce”, philosophy, invented hitchhiker, poem dated 61-62, Khruschev in power in Russia; from Selected Poems 1940-1966        \\t(McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n24:29- Reads “Billboards Build Freedom of Choice”\\n26:35- Introduces “Irapuato” [INDEX: Mexico, Irapuato, poetry like a guidebook, irrational connections; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n27:22- Reads “Irapuato”.\\n27:59- Reads “Memory No Servant”. [INDEX: from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n29:13- Introduces “For George Lamming”. [INDEX: George Lamming, autobiography of        childhood, poor boy on the island of Barbados, book In the Castle of my Skin, Jamaica, the last night of the last party; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n30:11- Reads “For George Lamming”.\\n31:25- Introduces “Meeting of Strangers”. [INDEX: race issues, Trinidad, external/internal ‘happenings’; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n33:59- Introduces “Curacao”. [INDEX: Irving Layton poem; from Selected Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n34:15- Reads “Curacao”.\\n34:47- Introduces “The Road to Nijmegen”. [INDEX: oldest poem, not revised, written in     Holland in January 1945, last winter of the war, Germans invading and then retreating,   \\tcut down trees, used for fuel and mine props, coal, lacked food, letter home to a friend,   published later in The Collected Poems of Earle Birney, Vol 1 (McClelland and Stewart, 1975).]\\n36:54- Reads “The Road to Nijmegen”.\\n39:31- Introduces “From the Hazel Bough” [INDEX: from Selected Poems 1940-1966   (McClelland and Stewart, 1966).]\\n39:41- Reads “From the Hazel Bough”.\\n41:05- George Bowering thanks Earle Birney for the reading.\\n41:18.21- END OF RECORDING\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"Yes\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/earle-birney-at-sgwu-1968/\"}]"],"score":3.5533829}]