[{"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":2.9270062},{"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":2.9270062},{"id":"1272","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":["Lionel Kearns and bpNichol at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 22 November 1968"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"POETRY READING NOV 22/68 BP. NICHOL + LIONEL KEARNS PART ONE  #1 I086-11-026.1\" written partially on sticker on the spine of the tape's box and directly on the spine of the tape's box. \"POETRY 1 NOV 22\" written on sticker on the reel. \"RT 531 Pt.1\" written on sticker on the front of the tape's box.\n\n\"POETRY READING NOV 22/68 2 BP. NICHOL + LIONEL KEARNS PART TWO  #1 I086-11-026.12\" written partially on sticker on the spine of the tape's box and directly on the spine of the tape's box. \"POETRY 2 NOV 22\" and \"I086-11-026.2\" written on stickers on the reel. \"RT 531 Pt.2\" written on sticker on the front of the tape's box."],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 3"],"item_identifiers":["[I086-11-026.1, I086-11-026.2]"],"creator_names":["Nichol, Barrie Phillip","Kearns, Lionel"],"creator_names_search":["Nichol, Barrie Phillip","Kearns, Lionel"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/76350280\",\"name\":\"Nichol, Barrie Phillip\",\"dates\":\"1944-1988 \",\"notes\":\"Canadian avant-garde poet bpNichol (Barrie Phillip) was born in Vancouver, British Columbia on September 30, 1944. Nichol spent his childhood in Vancouver, in Winnipeg, Manitoba and in Port Arthur, Ontario before returning to his birthplace in 1960. Although Nichol was writing by 1961, he enrolled into the education faculty at the University of British Columbia and received a teaching degree in 1963. At UBC, Nichol audited writing classes and met younger members of the Tish group. Then Nichol taught grade four students in Port and Coquitlam, B.C. for a year before moving to Toronto, where he worked as a book searcher for the University of Toronto and entered therapy with lay analyst Lea Hindley-Smith. In 1967, Nichol established the lay-therapy foundation and community Therafields, and served as an administrator and therapist until 1983. His first publication, a ‘bp box’ included Journeying & the returns (a book), Letters Home (visual poems), Borders (a record), Wild Thing (a flip book) and Statement (printed on the back of the box) was published by Coach House Press in 1967 was followed by a collection of concrete poetry, Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer (Writer’s Forum, 1967). Nichol began working with sound poetry in the mid-1960’s, but also valued the textuality and visual materiality of words and books. Nichol collaborated with Steve McCaffery to found the Toronto Research Group through which they wrote and published essays on the materiality of writing, which were later collected in Rational Geomancy: The Kids of the Book Machine (1992). The duo also formed a sound poetry group, The Four Horsemen, with Rafael Barreto-Rivera and Paul Dutton. Nichol founded Ganglia Press in 1965, and started a series of pamphlets in 1969 called grOnk. Nichol also published The Complete Works (Ganglia, 1969), a package of booklets Still Water, The true eventual story of Billy the Kid, Beach head, and The cosmic chef (Talonbooks, 1970) which won a Governor General’s Award for Poetry, ABC: the aleph beth book (Oberon Press, 1971), Monotons (Talonbooks, 1971), The Other Side of the Room (Weed/Flower Press, 1971) and Two Novels (Coach House Press, 1969).  At this time, Nichol began writing his life-long serial long poem, The Martyrology Books 1 & 2 (Coach House Press, 1972), a series which Nichol published Books 3 and 4 (C.H.P., 1976), Book 5 (C.H.P., 1982), Book 6 (1987), after which Books 7-10 were published posthumously through Coach House Press. Nichols worked tirelessly as an unpaid volunteer for Coach House Press, and personally edited or acquired almost one quarter of the titles published during that time. Nichols was not only a poet, visual artist and editor, he wrote songs and scripts for the TV programs Fraggle Rocks and The Racoons, musical comedies Group (1980) and Tracks (1986), and the bestselling children’s books ONCE: A Lullaby (Black Moss Press, 1983), Moosequakes and other disasters (Black Moss Press, 1981), The man who loved his knees (Black Moss Press, 1993) and To the end of the block (Black Moss Press, 1984). His later publications include Unit of four (Seripress, 1973), Zygal (Coach House Press, 1985), Selected organs: parts of an autobiography (Black Moss Press, 1988), Art Facts (Chax Press, 1990). Nichol appears in Michael Ondaatje’s film, Sons of Captain Poetry (1970), bp: pushing the boundaries directed by Brian Nash (1997), Ron Mann’s Poetry in Motion (1982). bpNichol died in Toronto on September 25, 1988. A street in the Annex district behind Coach House Press was named in his honour, with an eight-line poem by Nichol written into the pavement: “A / LAKE / A / LANE / A / LINE / A / LONE”.\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Author\",\"Performer\"]},{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/30784380\",\"name\":\"Kearns, Lionel\",\"dates\":\"1937-\",\"notes\":\"Canadian poet Lionel Kearns was born in Nelson, British Columbia in 1937. His father, C.F. Kearns, a Great War flyer, outdoorsman and short-story author encouraged Kearns to pursue a literary career. In the mid 1950’s, Kearns embarked on trip, traveling the world and even playing professional hockey in Mexico. Kearns then returned to B.C. and studied poetic theory and structural linguistics at the University of British Columbia, where he met and worked with George Bowering, Frank Davey and Fred Wah in the Tish collective. His M.A. thesis was published by Tishbooks as Songs of circumstance in 1962. His second publication, Listen, George (Imago Press, 1965) was a verse-letter to George Bowering about his youth, written while he was studying at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Kearns was influenced by the European  concrete and sound poetry movements, and spent a year in Trinidad analyzing the West Indian English dialect. In 1966, upon returning to Canada, Kearns held a position at the English department at Simon Fraser University, which he held until 1986. His next publications include By the light of the silvery McLune: media parables, poems, signs, gestures and other assaults on the interface (The Daylight Press, 1969), Practicing up to be human (1978), Ignoring the bomb (1982), and his highly acclaimed book, Convergences (1984). Kearns was the writer-in-residence at Concordia University from 1982-3. Since 1986, Kearns created a continent-wide on-line graduate course, ‘The Cybernetics of Poetry’ for ConnecEd, the distance learning facility of the New York School for Social Research in New York, which he teaches from home. Interested in the electronic and online poetry potential, Kearns became the first writer-in-electronic-residence, assisting Trevor Owen establish the ‘Wier’ project, an on-line writing project.\",\"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":[1968],"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\":\"Poor\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"Unfortunately, the recording appears to contain many cuts and occasionally jumps back and forth in time. At many points, it also sounds as though the sound of one tape has been layered over the other creating a doubling effect, which most likely occurred sometime after the original recording and digitization process.\",\"track_configuration\":\"\",\"material_designation\":\"Reel to Reel\",\"physical_composition\":\"Magnetic Tape\",\"accompanying_material\":\"\",\"other_physical_description\":\"\"},{\"side\":\"\",\"image\":\"\",\"other\":\"\",\"extent\":\"1/4 inch\",\"AV_types\":\"Audio\",\"tape_brand\":\"Scotch\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"\",\"sound_quality\":\"Poor\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"Unfortunately, the recording appears to contain many cuts and occasionally jumps back and forth in time. At many points, it also sounds as though the sound of one tape has been layered over the other creating a doubling effect, which most likely occurred sometime after the original recording and digitization process.\",\"track_configuration\":\"\",\"material_designation\":\"Reel to Reel\",\"physical_composition\":\"Magnetic Tape\",\"accompanying_material\":\"\",\"other_physical_description\":\"\"}]"],"material_designations":["Reel to Reel","Reel to Reel"],"physical_compositions":["Magnetic Tape","Magnetic Tape"],"recording_type":["Analogue","Analogue"],"AV_type":["Audio","Audio"],"playback_mode":["Mono","Mono"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"1968 11 22\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Date written twice on the reel and tape's box\",\"source\":\"Accompanying Material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"venue\":\"Unknown\",\"notes\":\" \",\"address\":\"Unknown\",\"latitude\":\"\",\"longitude\":\"\"}]"],"Address":["Unknown"],"Venue":["Unknown"],"content_notes":["Lionel Kearns reads from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967) and poems published later in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures, and other Assaults on the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969). bpNichol reads from a wide variety of his works, some published, some unpublished, including Dada Lama (England: Tlaloc, 1968), The True Eventual Story of Billy the Kid (Weed/Flower, 1970), Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer (Weed/Flower Press, 1973), and Selected Writing: As Elected (Talonbooks, 1980). Many unnamed poems may belong to two of Nichol’s series, the Captain Poetry Poems The Martyrology.\n"],"contents":["bpNichol_lionel_kearns_i086-11-026-1.mp3 [File 1 of 2]\n \nGeorge Bowering\n00:00:00\nThe second reading in our third series, I don't feel very happy tonight that the crowd is nice and big, and also that because I don't quite know what's going to happen, although I've heard rumours. We have Lionel Kearns [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6555690] and bpNichol [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4953105], as you know, and they have elected instead of doing a reading by each poet, with an intermission in the middle or anything like that, a manner of joint reading. And I think, in a sense, that makes a lot of sense, because Lionel Kearns is by one of his professions, a linguist, and also one of his main, one of his main themes is the social care of human beings. bpNichol is a radical therapist, and is known especially for his border-blur poems, and it makes a lot of sense, I think, for that reason that they do read together. They read together last night at Carleton [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1041737], apparently worked out very well. Lionel is as you probably know is one of the centres of the so-called Vancouver [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24639]Renaissance that took over Canadian poetry in the 1960's, threatened to do that too [laughter]. bp was one of those blessed children from the east, although he had lived in Vancouver before, who kept his ears open. Well, he says he was born there. bp managed to grace the city of Vancouver for a few years and I guess that's where he got the ears open in the first place, but since that time he's been opening all our ears. So seeing as how this reading threatens to last four hours, according to rumours, I think I'll stop now and give the floor to either, and, or bpNichol and Lionel Kearns.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:02:26\nWell, I'll begin by reading a poem called \"Telephone\". It's what I call a media parable, I have a whole set of poems that are media parables and things, which are coming out in a collection very soon. This one is called \"Telephone\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:02:49\nReads \"Telephone\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface; audience laughter throughout].\n \nbpNichol\n00:07:04\nWhat you're going to get out of me this evening is a strange pastiche, since I managed to do that clever thing of losing everything I wrote over the last year. So this is selected weirdness.\n \nbpNichol\n00:07:23\nReads [“Monotones”, part I from Gifts: The Martyrology Book(s) 7 &”]. \n \nbpNichol\n00:08:45\nReads \"Uneven Song\". \n\nbpNichol\n00:09:28\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nLionel Kearns\n00:10:26\nReads \"Word\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:11:27\nI'll read a series of quiet poems. Because we've got some really loud ones to read too. \"Poem found among the ruins\".\n\nLionel Kearns\n00:11:43\nReads \"Poem found among the ruins\" [published as “Medium” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:12:19\nThis one's called \"The Business\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:12:24\nReads \"The Business\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:12:43\nThis one is called \"Genres”.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:12:45\nReads \"Genres” [published as “Content” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:13:51\nReads \"The Answer\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:15:05\nAnd this one, derives from my seeing a piece of sculpture, an exhibition of Haida art I think, or some West Coast Indian art. A little figure of a woman carved, a carved figure of a woman, but she is in a very strange position, she's doing a kind of funny thing. It seemed worth writing a poem about. It's called \"Labio Digital\". [Audience laughter].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:15:55\nReads \"Labio Digital\" [published as “Sculpture” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n \nbpNichol\n00:16:41\nReads \"The True Eventual Story of Billy the Kid\" [published  later in The True Eventual Story of Billy the Kid and collected in Craft Dinner: Stories & Texts 1966-1976; audience laughter throughout]]. \n \nLionel Kearns\n00:20:46\nThis one is called--I'll try reading with both the mic and without the mic and if you can't hear me, then shout and tell me that you can't hear me. I'll try this one without the mic. It's called \"Gestured” My titles are always very abstract. That's not very abstract [audience laughter]. Most of my titles are very abstract. This is written for a friend, I had to [inaudible] with a sketch.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:21:32\nReads “Gestured” [published as \"Expression\" in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n\nAudience\n00:22:36\nApplause [cut off].\n\nLionel Kearns\n00:22:39\nActually, actually, I don't think it's a good idea to clap in between the poems, because bp and I have got so many good poems that you're going to wear your hands out. [Audience laughter]. This one is called \"Transport\", it's also a media parable.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:22:56\nReads \"Transport\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n\nUnknown\n00:26:32\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nbpNichol\n00:26:33\nThere's things that I try to be absolutely very, very personal [inaudible] thing I ever wrote. I wrote it at Port Dover [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7230589], in, on Lake Erie [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5492]. It's one of those days when I was flaked out on the beach, covered up because I get vicious sunburns and just peel the whole summer, and in the background was playing \"(There’ll Be Bluebirds) Over the white cliffs of Dover\" and “What’s New Pussycat” sort of juxtaposed, there was sprawled over the beach was this weird phrase \"Podunk\" and these two cats were playing football overtop of my head. So anyways I felt very sort of, weird, and wrote the following poem.\n \nbpNichol\n00:27:25\nPerforms unnamed poem.\n \nbpNichol\n00:29:06\nHugo Ball [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q70989] was kind of the daddy of us all, and he was kind of a very fine dadaist who lived in Switzerland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39] during the first World War [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q361] and sort of did the first sound poems. It was very strange, if you read Hugo Ball's diaries, it's rather fascinating because it was more or less, when he gave these sort of his final public reading he got really carried away in the midst of a sound poem an kind of got thrown back into sort of a--how to put this--an earlier space in his mind, anyways he went back and started remembering all sorts of things right back through his life doing this sound poem. As you read the diaries, there's a real feeling he became totally terrified of what was happening to him. Because at that point he then just split and left the whole thing behind. So this is kind of for Hugo Ball. It's called \"Dada Lama\". This poem's gone through so many changes I can't even keep track of it anymore.\n \nbpNichol\n00:30:28\nReads [sections of Dada Lama: a sound sequence in six parts, collected later in Selected Writing: As Elected]. \n \nLionel Kearns\n00:33:38\nI'm going to read some poems now from my collection, Pointing, which I see is for sale out on the other room. These poems are, for the most part, quiet poems, poems of my own measured voice. They're poems that originated a few years ago and they came out of the general West Coast poetry scene that was going on very intensely--hello?\n\nGeorge Bowering\n00:34:09\nIt’s hard to hear... \n\nLionel Kearns\n00:34:10\nIs it hard to hear back there with this? \n\nUnknown\n00:34:12\nAmbient Sound [voices and laughter].\n\nLionel Kearns\n00:34:20\nI'll try--If I talk louder into the mic can you hear that? Keep letting me know, if you can't hear, shout. I'd like to read this one into the mic because they aren't poems that can be shouted. This one is called \"Situation\" and it derives from an experience I had in Mexico [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q96] many years ago. \n \nLionel Kearns\n00:35:06\nReads poem \"Situation” [from Pointing].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:36:24\nHow's that for sound, can you hear that? \"Insights\".\n\nLionel Kearns\n00:36:36\nReads \"Insights\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface]/\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:36:55\nI'm very sentimental [audience laughter.] This is an early poem I wrote, it's called \"Homage to Machado\". It's really a translation of a poem by Antonio Machado [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q243771], the Spanish poet. I've not only translated it, I've switched the central image, but used his statement. His image was that of a boat going across a lake and he looked out and saw the ripple of the water behind it and  then commented on that. But I changed the metaphor.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:37:45\nReads \"Hommage to Machado\" [from Pointing].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:38:17\nReads \"Remains\" [from Pointing].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:39:08\nReads \"Total Presence\" [from Pointing].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:40:05\nA very small poem called \"Witness\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:40:07\nReads \"Witness\" [from Pointing].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:40:38\nAnd this one, called \"Profile\". I'll read it without the mic.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:40:45\nReads \"Profile\" [from Pointing].\n \nUnknown Audience Member 1\n00:41:32\nHave you ever thought of pausing it and--\n\nUnknown\n00:41:34\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:41:37\nWe thought of reading all of our quiet poems at the beginning, and then getting louder and louder and louder, but we thought this would get you too excited and you'd go out onto the street and...[audience laughter.] So we decided to mix them all up and you'll get everything quiet and loud and funny and very serious and that's part of it,you know,getting them all at once all in juxtaposed relationships.\n \nbpNichol\n00:42:12\nThis way you can sort of do what you want with which ones you wanna do. It's very hard to listen to a poetry reading all the way through. I can never hack poetry readings myself [audience laughter]. What Lionel and I are trying to do is maybe do you a favour so you can listen for a longer time maybe [audience laughter].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:42:32\nWho locked the door? [Audience laughter].\n \nbpNichol\n00:42:37\nAmong my poems from the last year which I lost, was a very long thing called The Martyrology which included all these things about a whole series of saints I'd evolved. Which had included St. Reet and St. Ranglehold and St. And and it's kind of too complicated to go into what they all sort of were doing, but St. Ranglehold came from the word 'stranglehold' and the rest you can kind of figure out maybe.\n \nbpNichol\n00:43:05\nReads unnamed poem from The Martyrology series.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:43:56\nWas that loud enough by the way?\n \nbpNichol\n00:43:58\nCould you hear that? It's hard to tell from behind here. This is a poem called \"Ruth\" and it was for a good friend of mine, David W. Harris, who now calls himself David W. And it begins with a quote from Ruth.\n \nbpNichol\n00:44:20\nReads \"Ruth\" [from Ruth].\n \nbpNichol\n00:46:20\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nbpNichol\n00:46:57\nAnd this uh, this is a poem that begins with a line from a poem by bill bissett [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4911496]. Actually--\n\nUnknown\n00:47:01\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nbpNichol\n00:47:18\nReads unnamed poem. \n\nLionel Kearns\n00:49:43\nWe'll try it up there. It's called \"Color Problem\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:49:49\nReads \"Color Problem\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:50:06\nThis, I'm going to read a concrete poem now. bp inspires me so much with his concrete poetry that I have begun to write concrete poetry too. Some concrete poetry is purely visual and you can't read it, it's to go on walls and things like that. Other concrete poetry is so sonic that it's nothing really to look at, but occasionally you can get the two combined so that you have something on the page which also is something else when read, but the two correspond. This one that I've got is to some extent like that, on the page it's called \"Studies in Interior Decoration Border Design\" because of the way it looks on the page, which of course being an audience at a poetry reading, you aren't concerned with. But I'll read it  and it does work, I think, sonically too. It's called \"The Woman Who Reminded Him of the Woman Who\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:51:20\nReads \"The Woman Who Reminded Him of the Woman Who\" [published as “The Woman Who” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n \nUnknown\n00:53:14\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Recording cuts to bpNichol_lionel_kearns_i086-11-0262.mp3 00:37:59].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:53:25\nThis one is called \"It\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:53:28\nReads \"It\" [from Pointing].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:54:02\nA lot of the poems in this book--\n \nUnknown\n00:54:05\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Recording cuts back to approximately 00:53:13].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:54:15\nThis is called the \"Kinetic Poem\", my poem is called the \"Kinetic Poem\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:54:26\nReads \"Kinetic Poem\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface] with bpNichol.\n \nUnknown\n00:55:57\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nbpNichol\n00:56:00\nKon Ichikawa is the name of a Japanese film maker that made a film about the Olympics [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5389]. Okay? How should we start this out--'all together now?' [audience laughter].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:56:15\nThink--think, pretend you're at the Olympics. [Audience laughter].\n \nbpNichol\n00:56:23\n“Karnijakawa--Karnijakawa”, follow me. \n\nbpNichol\n00:56:30\nChants \"Kon Ichikawa” pronounced as “Karnijakawa\" repeatedly with Lionel Kearns and the audience.\n \nbpNichol\n00:57:11\nThank you.\n\nAudience\n00:57:13\nApplause [cut off].\n \nUnknown Audience Member 2\n00:57:16\nKarni-jakawa!\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:57:22\nCarne means meat in Spanish. I was at Louis Dudek's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3261787], at one of his courses today and we were talking and the students were talking and so on and I was reading a few poems, and they said, \"Why are you so pessimistic about things?\" and I'm not so pessimistic, and I'll read a poem now that's got an up-beat ending [audience laughter].\n \nUnknown Audience Member 3\n00:57:59\nWhat led them to deduce your pessimism?\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:58:00\nI read a poem without an upbeat ending [audience laughter]. This is another media parable. And it's called \"The Parable of the Seventh Seal\" and naturally, it derives from a movie. Um, the movie called The Seven Samurai [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q189540]. [Audience laughter.] Or you've probably seen that, there's a,Hollywood [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34006] derived a few movies from that, one of them called The Magnificent Seven [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19069] or something like that. The original one was a Western made in Japan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17], and Hollywood stole the idea and made a Western in the West. Now I've taken the same situation, the same story and given it a Northern locale. And that's why it's called \"The Seventh Seal\" [Audience laughter]. It was published in this New Romans thing, and that makes it an anti-American poem, but it really, when I wrote it, I didn't have this book in mind. But they paid me $30 so [audience laughter] I put it in here.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:59:38\nReads \"The Parable of the Seventh Seal\" [published as “The Seventh Seal” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface; reading cut off].\n \nEND\n01:01:57\n\n\nbpNichol_lionel_kearns_i086-11-026-2.mp3 [File 2 of 2]\n\nLionel Kearns\n00:00:00\nReads \"The Parable of the Seventh Seal\" [published as “The Seventh Seal” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface; reading resumes from previous recording; audience laughter throughout].\n \nbpNichol\n00:06:17\nReads \"Historical Implications of Turnips\" [from Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer].\n \nbpNichol\n00:07:01\nThis is called, for a reason I cannot remember at all, \"Cycle Number 22\".\n \nbpNichol\n00:07:13\nReads \"Cycle Number 22\" [from Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer and published later in Selected Writing: As Elected].\n \nbpNichol\n00:07:49\nThis next poem's called \"The Child in Me\". It's kind of what all sound poetry's about anyways. Enough said.\n \nbpNichol\n00:08:09\nReads \"The Child in Me\" [from Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer].\n \nbpNichol\n00:09:10\nThis is a poem called \"The New New Captain Poetry Blues\" and it's for David McFadden [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5237344]. Captain Poetry is kind of this person that happened a long time ago in a magazine I used to edit called Ganglia, and David McFadden is still happening in Hamilton [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q133116], and is probably Canada's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16] best poet and what else is there to say? Oh yes, a little footnote, there's a place in here called Plunkett [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2202272] which really exists and my mother was born there strangely enough. This is all about that.\n \nbpNichol\n00:09:48\nReads [sections of \"The New New Captain Poetry Blues: An Undecided Novel\" from The Captain Poetry Poems].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:12:53\nThis poem is called \"Split\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:12:59\nReads \"Split\" [published as “Personality” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n\nAudience\n00:14:05\nLaughter.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:14:07\nPeople occasionally, when they're put on the spot to ask me questions, say \"What's it like to be a poet\", or \"Is it true that so and so and so and so...\" and things like that, questions that are impossible to answer. But there is something about being a poet, and this is one of the things, this is one of the differences, and this poem is called \"The Difference\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:14:40\nReads \"The Difference\" [published as “Roles” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface; audience laughter throughout].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:15:40\nThis is an older poem, it's a Christmas poem, it was written at the time when [Khrushchev (?)] got his call down, also about the time of the American intervention in the Dominican Republic [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q786], where the Americans came in because they knew that there were Cuban influences, or the Cubans were behind the so-called rebels in the Dominican Republic and one of the proofs was that some of the rebels had been seen wearing green uniforms [audience laughter]. Of course, most military uniforms are kind of green, but they pointed out that some of Fidel Castro's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11256] soldiers had green uniforms too. But this is a Christmas poem.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:16:51\nReads \"Christmas Poem” [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:17:57\nI make most of my living teaching at Simon Fraser University [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q201603] and we have some troubles out there sometimes. One of the things that troubled us was the fact that when we were giving lectures to large crowds, we sometimes used the public address system and we found out that back--that the public address system was hooked up with-- operated with an FM band, and the, all your lectures could be picked up on an FM set, for example, an FM set in the President's office. We've since lost that President. And this is called \"University\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:18:55\nReads \"University\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:19:24\nThis one is called \"Economic Chronology\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:19:29\nReads \"Economic Chronology\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n \nbpNichol\n00:19:42\nThis one's called \"Alimony, Old Baloney\".\n \nbpNichol\n00:19:51\nReads \"Alimony, Old Baloney\" [most likely from the Captain Poetry series]. \n \nUnknown\n00:24:14\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n\nbpNichol\n00:24:15\nReads unnamed “Captain Poetry” poem.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:26:25\nWell if bp is going to keep reading his Captain Poetry poems, I'm going to read my “Ventilation Parable”. This is an epic.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:26:43\nReads \"Ventilation Parable\" [published as “Ventilation” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:31:19\nThis poem is called \"Creation\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:31:24\nReads \"Creation\" [from Pointing].\n \nbpNichol\n00:31:52\nI'm going to do that dangerous thing and read a poem I wrote last night. That's [inaudible]. \n \nUnknown\n00:31:59\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Recording cuts back to 00:31:40].\n\nLionel Kearns\n00:32:00\nReads section of “Creation” [from Pointing].\n \nUnknown\n00:32:18\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Recording cuts back to 00:31:52]. \n\nAudience\n00:32:19\nLaughter.\n\nbpNichol\n00:32:21\nI'm going to do that dangerous thing and read a poem I wrote last night [laughter]. That's waking Lionel up at 7:30 this morning which he didn't quite forgive me for. It starts off with a quote from a poem by Bobby Hoat [?.] Well, yesterday we were up at Carlton doing a reading there. It's a poem called \"Zero Phase\". There's a town referred to in here called Vars [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3554856] which happens to be where he lives. It's a very groovy little place, just outside of...\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:32:51\nCan you hear?\n \nbpNichol\n00:32:52\nIs that okay? If I talk kind of into it like this?\n \nbpNichol\n00:33:04\nReads \"Zero Phase\".\n \nbpNichol\n00:34:36\nThis is a poem called \"Returning\". It sort of was written after I wrote a book of poetry called Journeying and the Returns.\n \nbpNichol\n00:34:58\nReads \"Returning\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:37:49\nI'm going--I'm going to read a series of poems again, from my collection Pointing. This one is called \"It\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:38:13\nReads \"It\" [from Pointing].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:38:45\nA lot of the poems in this book derive their images from dreams, and this is a poem which is about a dream I had. And it's--I've interpreted the dream. Some extent of the poem--I interpreted as a kind of message about where I get my images for my poems, or where I got them at this particular period. And I called \"Ambergris, a Statement on Source\". Ambergris, being that stuff that sick whales cough up and which floats around on the ocean and it's very smelly stuff but it's very valuable stuff if you find it floating around because you can sell it for a great deal of money to perfume factories. And that's the interpretation of the series of images that follow.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:39:55\nReads \"Ambergris, a Statement on Source\" [from Pointing].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:40:42\nAnd this one, called \"Contra Diction\", it's a poem that is often anthologized. It's a poem that I like because I think it does what usually I'm trying to do in poems. It's not a very big poem, but it's neat, I think.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:41:12\nReads \"Contra Diction\" [from Pointing].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:41:40\nThis one is called \"Both\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:41:45\nReads \"Both\" [from Pointing].\n\nUnknown\n00:42:06\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:42:07\nThis is an early poem that I wrote, it fits into a series of poems that I was writing at the time in which I was dealing with my own background, trying to come to terms with things like my own Catholic background, and as you will see the central image is a Christian one. The situation is the fairgrounds actual--the actual situation is the PNE- the Pacific National Exhibition [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4179402]. It's an easter poem called \"Friday at the Ex\"\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:43:07\nReads \"Friday at the Ex\" [from Pointing].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:44:34\nAnd this one, called \"Prototypes\".\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:44:41\nReads \"Prototypes\" [from Pointing].\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:45:33\nAnd I think this is the last one I'll read, it's called \"End Poem\". An appropriate title.\n \nLionel Kearns\n00:45:42\nReads \"End Poem\" [from Pointing].\n\nUnknown\n00:46:04\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \n\nbpNichol\n00:46:05\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nEND\n00:46:47"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:\\n\\nIn 1968, Lionel Kearns was working on By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures, and other Assaults on the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969) and published The Birth of God (Trigram Press, 1968) and Trips Out (Western Press, 1968).\\n\\nIn 1968, bpNichol was editing Gronk, published Dada Lama (Tlaloc, 1968), Captain Poetry Poems (blewointment press, 1968), DA DEAD (Ganglia Press), a collaboration with David Aylward called Strange Grey Town (Gronk Press, 1968) and was working on The Complete Works (Ganglia Press, 1969), The Martyrology (Coach House Press, 1972). Nichol and Kearns read at Carleton University the night before this reading.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nKearns met George Bowering in Vancouver at University of British Columbia and was part of the Tish movement in the early 60’s.\\n\\nNo direct connections to Sir George Williams University have been found, however\\nbpNichol’s fame exploded in the mid-60’s in Canada and was well known to the Reading Series Committee and many of the other poets who read in the series.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"2 reel-to-reel tapes>2 CDs>2 digital files\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript, print catalogue, introduction, research and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"http://www.bpnichol.ca/about\",\"citation\":\"“About bp: a short biography & select bibliography”. An Online Archive for bpNichol. Artmop Project and Ellie Nichol.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/from-there-to-here-a-guide-to-english-canadian-literature-since-1960/oclc/441669839&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Davey, Frank. “bp Nichol”. From There to Here: a Guide to English-Canadian Literature Since 1960. Erin, Ontario: Press Porcepic, 1974. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-canadian-literature/oclc/605246871&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Davey, Frank. \\\"Kearns, Lionel\\\". The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Eugene Benson and William Toye (eds). Oxford University Press 2001. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/from-there-to-here-a-guide-to-english-canadian-literature-since-1960/oclc/441669839&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Davey, Frank. “Lionel Kearns”. From There to Here: A Guide to English-Canadian Literature Since 1960. Erin, Ontario: Press Porcepic, 1974. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-canadian-literature/oclc/605246871&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Davey, Frank. \\\"Nichol, bp\\\". The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Eugene Benson and William Toye (eds). Oxford University Press 2001.  \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/pointing-ryerson/oclc/695590531&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Kearns, Lionel. Pointing. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/by-the-light-of-the-silvery-mclune-media-parables-poems-signs-gestures-and-other-assaults-on-the-interface/oclc/639996585&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Kearns, Lionel. By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures, and other Assaults on the Interface. Vancouver: The Daylight Press & Talon Books, 1969. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/encyclopedia-of-post-colonial-literatures-in-english-vol-1/oclc/32566813&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Miki, Roy. “Nichol, Bp (1944-1988)”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. Eugene Benson and L.W. Conolly (eds). London: Routledge, 1994. 2 Vols. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/abc-the-aleph-beth-book/oclc/906049140&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP.  ABC Aleph Beth Book. Toronto: Oberon Press, 1971. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/ballads-of-the-restless-are-two-versionscommon-source/oclc/910220806&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. Ballads of the Restless Are. Sacramento: Runcible Spoon, 1967-8. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/beach-head/oclc/1147729759&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. Beach Head. Sacramento: Runcible Spoon, 1970.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/briefly-the-birthdeath-cycle-from-the-book-of-hours/oclc/10260162&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. Briefly: the birthdeath cycle from The Book of Hours. Lantzville, British Columbia: Island Writing Series: 1981. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/craft-dinner-stories-texts-1966-1976/oclc/562773039&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. Craft Dinner: Stories & Texts 1966-1976. Toronto: Aya Press, 1978. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/dada-lama-a-sound-sequence-in-six-parts/oclc/877591459&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. Dada Lama. Leeds, England: Tlaloc, 1968. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/extreme-positions/oclc/729776791&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. Extreme Positions. Edmonton: Longspoon Press, 1981. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/journal/oclc/797400077&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. Journal. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1978. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/journeying-the-returns/oclc/458215&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. Journeying & the Returns. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1967. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/konfessions-of-an-elizabethan-fan-dancer/oclc/784883412&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer. Toronto: Weed/Flower Press, 1973. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/ruth/oclc/1056461719&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. Ruth. Toronto: Fleye Press, 1967. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/selected-writing-as-elected/oclc/907413274&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. Selected Writing: As Elected. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1980.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/captain-poetry-poems/oclc/839698718&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. The Captain Poetry Poems. Vancouver: blew ointment press, 1968.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/martyrology/oclc/44068798&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. The Martyrology. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1972. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/true-eventual-story-of-billy-the-kid/oclc/915720355&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Nichol, BP. The True Eventual Story of Billy the Kid. Toronto: Weed/Flower, 1970.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/encyclopedia-of-post-colonial-literatures-in-english-vol-1/oclc/32566813&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Schermbrucker, Bill. “Kearns, Lionel John (1937-)”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. Eugene Benson and L.W. Conolly (eds). London: Routledge, 1994. 2 Vols.\"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Lionel Kearns: Biography”. Canadian Poetry Online. University of Toronto Libraries, 2000. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670548862664704,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0086_11_0026.1-back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0086_11_0026.1 back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Kearns and Nichol Tape Box 1 - Back\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0086_11_0026.1-front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0086_11_0026.1 front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Kearns and Nichol Tape Box 1 - 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We have Lionel Kearns [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6555690] and bpNichol [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4953105], as you know, and they have elected instead of doing a reading by each poet, with an intermission in the middle or anything like that, a manner of joint reading. And I think, in a sense, that makes a lot of sense, because Lionel Kearns is by one of his professions, a linguist, and also one of his main, one of his main themes is the social care of human beings. bpNichol is a radical therapist, and is known especially for his border-blur poems, and it makes a lot of sense, I think, for that reason that they do read together. They read together last night at Carleton [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1041737], apparently worked out very well. Lionel is as you probably know is one of the centres of the so-called Vancouver [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24639]Renaissance that took over Canadian poetry in the 1960's, threatened to do that too [laughter]. bp was one of those blessed children from the east, although he had lived in Vancouver before, who kept his ears open. Well, he says he was born there. bp managed to grace the city of Vancouver for a few years and I guess that's where he got the ears open in the first place, but since that time he's been opening all our ears. So seeing as how this reading threatens to last four hours, according to rumours, I think I'll stop now and give the floor to either, and, or bpNichol and Lionel Kearns.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:02:26\\nWell, I'll begin by reading a poem called \\\"Telephone\\\". It's what I call a media parable, I have a whole set of poems that are media parables and things, which are coming out in a collection very soon. This one is called \\\"Telephone\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:02:49\\nReads \\\"Telephone\\\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface; audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:07:04\\nWhat you're going to get out of me this evening is a strange pastiche, since I managed to do that clever thing of losing everything I wrote over the last year. So this is selected weirdness.\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:07:23\\nReads [“Monotones”, part I from Gifts: The Martyrology Book(s) 7 &”]. \\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:08:45\\nReads \\\"Uneven Song\\\". \\n\\nbpNichol\\n00:09:28\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:10:26\\nReads \\\"Word\\\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:11:27\\nI'll read a series of quiet poems. Because we've got some really loud ones to read too. \\\"Poem found among the ruins\\\".\\n\\nLionel Kearns\\n00:11:43\\nReads \\\"Poem found among the ruins\\\" [published as “Medium” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:12:19\\nThis one's called \\\"The Business\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:12:24\\nReads \\\"The Business\\\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:12:43\\nThis one is called \\\"Genres”.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:12:45\\nReads \\\"Genres” [published as “Content” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:13:51\\nReads \\\"The Answer\\\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:15:05\\nAnd this one, derives from my seeing a piece of sculpture, an exhibition of Haida art I think, or some West Coast Indian art. A little figure of a woman carved, a carved figure of a woman, but she is in a very strange position, she's doing a kind of funny thing. It seemed worth writing a poem about. It's called \\\"Labio Digital\\\". [Audience laughter].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:15:55\\nReads \\\"Labio Digital\\\" [published as “Sculpture” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:16:41\\nReads \\\"The True Eventual Story of Billy the Kid\\\" [published  later in The True Eventual Story of Billy the Kid and collected in Craft Dinner: Stories & Texts 1966-1976; audience laughter throughout]]. \\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:20:46\\nThis one is called--I'll try reading with both the mic and without the mic and if you can't hear me, then shout and tell me that you can't hear me. I'll try this one without the mic. It's called \\\"Gestured” My titles are always very abstract. That's not very abstract [audience laughter]. Most of my titles are very abstract. This is written for a friend, I had to [inaudible] with a sketch.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:21:32\\nReads “Gestured” [published as \\\"Expression\\\" in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n\\nAudience\\n00:22:36\\nApplause [cut off].\\n\\nLionel Kearns\\n00:22:39\\nActually, actually, I don't think it's a good idea to clap in between the poems, because bp and I have got so many good poems that you're going to wear your hands out. [Audience laughter]. This one is called \\\"Transport\\\", it's also a media parable.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:22:56\\nReads \\\"Transport\\\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:26:32\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:26:33\\nThere's things that I try to be absolutely very, very personal [inaudible] thing I ever wrote. I wrote it at Port Dover [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7230589], in, on Lake Erie [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5492]. It's one of those days when I was flaked out on the beach, covered up because I get vicious sunburns and just peel the whole summer, and in the background was playing \\\"(There’ll Be Bluebirds) Over the white cliffs of Dover\\\" and “What’s New Pussycat” sort of juxtaposed, there was sprawled over the beach was this weird phrase \\\"Podunk\\\" and these two cats were playing football overtop of my head. So anyways I felt very sort of, weird, and wrote the following poem.\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:27:25\\nPerforms unnamed poem.\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:29:06\\nHugo Ball [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q70989] was kind of the daddy of us all, and he was kind of a very fine dadaist who lived in Switzerland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39] during the first World War [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q361] and sort of did the first sound poems. It was very strange, if you read Hugo Ball's diaries, it's rather fascinating because it was more or less, when he gave these sort of his final public reading he got really carried away in the midst of a sound poem an kind of got thrown back into sort of a--how to put this--an earlier space in his mind, anyways he went back and started remembering all sorts of things right back through his life doing this sound poem. As you read the diaries, there's a real feeling he became totally terrified of what was happening to him. Because at that point he then just split and left the whole thing behind. So this is kind of for Hugo Ball. It's called \\\"Dada Lama\\\". This poem's gone through so many changes I can't even keep track of it anymore.\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:30:28\\nReads [sections of Dada Lama: a sound sequence in six parts, collected later in Selected Writing: As Elected]. \\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:33:38\\nI'm going to read some poems now from my collection, Pointing, which I see is for sale out on the other room. These poems are, for the most part, quiet poems, poems of my own measured voice. They're poems that originated a few years ago and they came out of the general West Coast poetry scene that was going on very intensely--hello?\\n\\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:34:09\\nIt’s hard to hear... \\n\\nLionel Kearns\\n00:34:10\\nIs it hard to hear back there with this? \\n\\nUnknown\\n00:34:12\\nAmbient Sound [voices and laughter].\\n\\nLionel Kearns\\n00:34:20\\nI'll try--If I talk louder into the mic can you hear that? Keep letting me know, if you can't hear, shout. I'd like to read this one into the mic because they aren't poems that can be shouted. This one is called \\\"Situation\\\" and it derives from an experience I had in Mexico [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q96] many years ago. \\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:35:06\\nReads poem \\\"Situation” [from Pointing].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:36:24\\nHow's that for sound, can you hear that? \\\"Insights\\\".\\n\\nLionel Kearns\\n00:36:36\\nReads \\\"Insights\\\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface]/\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:36:55\\nI'm very sentimental [audience laughter.] This is an early poem I wrote, it's called \\\"Homage to Machado\\\". It's really a translation of a poem by Antonio Machado [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q243771], the Spanish poet. I've not only translated it, I've switched the central image, but used his statement. His image was that of a boat going across a lake and he looked out and saw the ripple of the water behind it and  then commented on that. But I changed the metaphor.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:37:45\\nReads \\\"Hommage to Machado\\\" [from Pointing].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:38:17\\nReads \\\"Remains\\\" [from Pointing].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:39:08\\nReads \\\"Total Presence\\\" [from Pointing].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:40:05\\nA very small poem called \\\"Witness\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:40:07\\nReads \\\"Witness\\\" [from Pointing].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:40:38\\nAnd this one, called \\\"Profile\\\". I'll read it without the mic.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:40:45\\nReads \\\"Profile\\\" [from Pointing].\\n \\nUnknown Audience Member 1\\n00:41:32\\nHave you ever thought of pausing it and--\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:41:34\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:41:37\\nWe thought of reading all of our quiet poems at the beginning, and then getting louder and louder and louder, but we thought this would get you too excited and you'd go out onto the street and...[audience laughter.] So we decided to mix them all up and you'll get everything quiet and loud and funny and very serious and that's part of it,you know,getting them all at once all in juxtaposed relationships.\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:42:12\\nThis way you can sort of do what you want with which ones you wanna do. It's very hard to listen to a poetry reading all the way through. I can never hack poetry readings myself [audience laughter]. What Lionel and I are trying to do is maybe do you a favour so you can listen for a longer time maybe [audience laughter].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:42:32\\nWho locked the door? [Audience laughter].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:42:37\\nAmong my poems from the last year which I lost, was a very long thing called The Martyrology which included all these things about a whole series of saints I'd evolved. Which had included St. Reet and St. Ranglehold and St. And and it's kind of too complicated to go into what they all sort of were doing, but St. Ranglehold came from the word 'stranglehold' and the rest you can kind of figure out maybe.\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:43:05\\nReads unnamed poem from The Martyrology series.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:43:56\\nWas that loud enough by the way?\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:43:58\\nCould you hear that? It's hard to tell from behind here. This is a poem called \\\"Ruth\\\" and it was for a good friend of mine, David W. Harris, who now calls himself David W. And it begins with a quote from Ruth.\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:44:20\\nReads \\\"Ruth\\\" [from Ruth].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:46:20\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:46:57\\nAnd this uh, this is a poem that begins with a line from a poem by bill bissett [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4911496]. Actually--\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:47:01\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:47:18\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n\\nLionel Kearns\\n00:49:43\\nWe'll try it up there. It's called \\\"Color Problem\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:49:49\\nReads \\\"Color Problem\\\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:50:06\\nThis, I'm going to read a concrete poem now. bp inspires me so much with his concrete poetry that I have begun to write concrete poetry too. Some concrete poetry is purely visual and you can't read it, it's to go on walls and things like that. Other concrete poetry is so sonic that it's nothing really to look at, but occasionally you can get the two combined so that you have something on the page which also is something else when read, but the two correspond. This one that I've got is to some extent like that, on the page it's called \\\"Studies in Interior Decoration Border Design\\\" because of the way it looks on the page, which of course being an audience at a poetry reading, you aren't concerned with. But I'll read it  and it does work, I think, sonically too. It's called \\\"The Woman Who Reminded Him of the Woman Who\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:51:20\\nReads \\\"The Woman Who Reminded Him of the Woman Who\\\" [published as “The Woman Who” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:53:14\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Recording cuts to bpNichol_lionel_kearns_i086-11-0262.mp3 00:37:59].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:53:25\\nThis one is called \\\"It\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:53:28\\nReads \\\"It\\\" [from Pointing].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:54:02\\nA lot of the poems in this book--\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:54:05\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Recording cuts back to approximately 00:53:13].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:54:15\\nThis is called the \\\"Kinetic Poem\\\", my poem is called the \\\"Kinetic Poem\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:54:26\\nReads \\\"Kinetic Poem\\\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface] with bpNichol.\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:55:57\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:56:00\\nKon Ichikawa is the name of a Japanese film maker that made a film about the Olympics [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5389]. Okay? How should we start this out--'all together now?' [audience laughter].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:56:15\\nThink--think, pretend you're at the Olympics. [Audience laughter].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:56:23\\n“Karnijakawa--Karnijakawa”, follow me. \\n\\nbpNichol\\n00:56:30\\nChants \\\"Kon Ichikawa” pronounced as “Karnijakawa\\\" repeatedly with Lionel Kearns and the audience.\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:57:11\\nThank you.\\n\\nAudience\\n00:57:13\\nApplause [cut off].\\n \\nUnknown Audience Member 2\\n00:57:16\\nKarni-jakawa!\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:57:22\\nCarne means meat in Spanish. I was at Louis Dudek's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3261787], at one of his courses today and we were talking and the students were talking and so on and I was reading a few poems, and they said, \\\"Why are you so pessimistic about things?\\\" and I'm not so pessimistic, and I'll read a poem now that's got an up-beat ending [audience laughter].\\n \\nUnknown Audience Member 3\\n00:57:59\\nWhat led them to deduce your pessimism?\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:58:00\\nI read a poem without an upbeat ending [audience laughter]. This is another media parable. And it's called \\\"The Parable of the Seventh Seal\\\" and naturally, it derives from a movie. Um, the movie called The Seven Samurai [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q189540]. [Audience laughter.] Or you've probably seen that, there's a,Hollywood [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34006] derived a few movies from that, one of them called The Magnificent Seven [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19069] or something like that. The original one was a Western made in Japan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17], and Hollywood stole the idea and made a Western in the West. Now I've taken the same situation, the same story and given it a Northern locale. And that's why it's called \\\"The Seventh Seal\\\" [Audience laughter]. It was published in this New Romans thing, and that makes it an anti-American poem, but it really, when I wrote it, I didn't have this book in mind. But they paid me $30 so [audience laughter] I put it in here.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:59:38\\nReads \\\"The Parable of the Seventh Seal\\\" [published as “The Seventh Seal” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface; reading cut off].\\n \\nEND\\n01:01:57\\n\",\"notes\":\"Lionel Kearns reads from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967) and poems published later in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures, and other Assaults on the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969). bpNichol reads from a wide variety of his works, some published, some unpublished, including Dada Lama (England: Tlaloc, 1968), The True Eventual Story of Billy the Kid (Weed/Flower, 1970), Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer (Weed/Flower Press, 1973), and Selected Writing: As Elected (Talonbooks, 1980). Many unnamed poems may belong to two of Nichol’s series, the Captain Poetry Poems The Martyrology.\\n\\n00:00- George Bowering introduces BP Nichol and Lionel Kearns. [INDEX: second reading in third series, rumours, BP Nichol, Lionel Kearns, intermission, reading, poet, joint reading, sense, Kearns: linguist, social care of human beings, Nichol: radical therapist, border-blur poems, reading together night before at Carleton University, Kearns: Vancouver Renaissance, Canadian poetry in 1960’s, Nichol: east, Vancouver, born, opening ears, reading four hours.]\\n02:25- Annotation: Recording drops in volume, “looped” recording begins where another part of the reading can be heard in the background of the recording.\\n02:26- Lionel Kearns introduces “Telephone”. [INDEX: media parable, set of poems, new collection to be released soon [perhaps The birth of God (Trigram Press, 1968) or Trips out (Western Press, 1968); from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969).]\\n02:49- Lionel Kearns reads “Telephone”.\\n07:04- BP Nichol introduces unknown poem, first line “Out of the dark wood workings of the mind’s memories, we are alone...”. [INDEX: strange pastiche, loosing work written    \\tover past year, selected weirdness; from unknown source.]\\n07:23- BP Nichol reads unknown poem, first line “Out of the dark wood workings of the    mind’s memories, we are alone...”.\\n08:54- BP Nichol reads “Uneven Song”. *Note recording is looping over itself, so both BP and Lionel can be heard reading other poems in the background. [INDEX: from unknown source.]\\n09:28- BP Nichol reads unknown poem, first line “Out of the middle the ends are taken...”.\\n10:26- Lionel Kearns reads “Word”. [INDEX: from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969).]\\n11:27- BP Nichol introduces “Poem found among the ruins”. [INDEX: series of quiet poems, loud poems; from unknown source.]\\n11:43- BP Nichol reads “Poem found among the ruins”. [INDEX: from unknown source]\\n12:19- BP Nichol reads “The Business”. [INDEX: from unknown source]\\n12:43- BP Nichol reads “Geners” [sp?] first line “Each human body a temple of the holy   ghost...” [INDEX: from unknown source]\\n13:51- BP Nichol reads “Computer Riddle Poem”. [INDEX: from Konfessions of an \\tElizabethan Fan Dancer (Weed Flower Press, 1973).]\\n15:05- BP Nichol introduces “Labia Digital” [sp?.] [INDEX: piece of sculpture, Haida art        exhibition, West Coast Indian art, carved figure of a woman, poem; from unknown       \\tsource.]\\n15:55- BP Nichol reads “Labia Digital” [sp?.]\\n16:41- BP Nichol reads “The True Eventual Story of Billy the Kid”. [INDEX: published in a booklet The True Eventual Story of Billy the Kid (Weed/Flower, 1970), and later    published in Craft Dinner: Stories & Texts 1966-1976 (Aya Press, 1978).]\\n20:46- Lionel Kearns introduces “Expression”. [INDEX: from By the Light of the Silvery\\nMcLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969).]\\n21:32- Lionel Kearns reads “Expression”\\n22:39- Lionel Kearns introduces “Transport”. [INDEX: clap in between poems, good poems, media parable; from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969).]   \\n22:56- Lionel Kearns reads “Transport”.\\n26:33- BP Nichol introduces chant poem “umpa-pa beach park...”. [INDEX: personal poems, written at Port Dover, on Lake Eerie, beach, sunburns, summer, song “Over the white  cliffs of Dover” (perhaps Vera Lynn’s “There’ll Be Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs of Dover”), Pussycats (unknown reference), phrase “podunk”, playing football, weird; from unknown source.]\\n27:25- BP Nichol sings sound poem “umpa-pa beach park...”.\\n29:06- BP Nichol introduces “Dadalama”. [INDEX: Hugo Ball, dadaist, Switzerland, World War I, first sound poems, strange, Hugo Ball’s diaries, final public reading, sound poem, earlier space in his mind, remembering, terrified, left poetry, poem’s changes; originally published in Dada Lama (England: Tlaloc, 1968), collected in Selected Writing: As Elected (Talonbooks, 1980).]\\n30:28- BP Nichol reads “Dadalama”.\\n30:52- CUT in tape, silence.\\n30:53- Recording starts again, silence.\\n33:38- Lionel Kearns introduces “Situation”. [INDEX: new collection Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967), for sale at reading, quiet poems, measured voice, West Coast poetry scene, shouting, experience in Mexico; from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n35:06- Lionel Kearns reads “Situation”.\\n36:36- Lionel Kearns reads “Insights”. [INDEX: from By the Light of the Silvery McLune:\\nMedia Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface (The\\nDaylight Press, 1969).]   \\n36:55- Lionel Kearns introduces “Homage to Machado” [INDEX: early poem, translation of a poem by Antonio Machado, Spanish poet, switched central image, boat, lake, ripple of water, changed metaphor; from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n37:45- Lionel Kearns reads “Homage to Machado”.\\n38:17- Lionel Kearns reads “Remains”. [INDEX:  from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n39:08- Lionel Kearns reads “Total Presence”. [INDEX:  from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n40:05- Lionel Kearns reads “Witness”. [INDEX:  from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n40:38- Lionel Kearns reads “Profile”. [INDEX:  from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n41:32- Unknown audience member asks question, but is CUT by the recording.\\n41:37- Lionel Kearns answers question [INDEX: reading order, quiet poems, louder, street, excited, loud, funny, serious poems, juxtaposed relationships.]\\n42:12- BP Nichol answers question [INDEX: difficulty listening to long poetry readings, listening.]\\n42:32- Lionel Kearns makes a joke [INDEX: locked doors.]\\n42:37- BP Nichol introduces “Martyrology”. [INDEX: lost poems, long poem, series of saints, St. Reet, St. Ranglehold, St. And, complicated, Stranglehold; from an early version of The Martyrology (Coach House Press, 1972).]\\n43:05- BP Nichol reads part of “Martyrology”, line “Days numbered as the years are even, time cannot withstand such order. St. Reat...”.\\n43:58- BP Nichol introduces “Ruth”. [INDEX: loudness of reading, good friend David W.     Harris, quote from Ruth; most likely from Ruth (Toronto: Fleye Press, 1967) (book       \\tunavailable to researcher).]\\n44:20- BP Nichol reads “Ruth”.\\n46:20- BP Nichol reads first line “Measure the clock, talk back time...” [INDEX: from unknown source.]\\n46:57- BP Nichol introduces first line “Living now in terrible times, the TV talks from the  \\tnext room...” [INDEX: line from a poem by bill bissett, CUT in recording and the rest of    the explanation is cut out; from unknown source.]\\n47:18- BP Nichol reads poem with first line “Living now in terrible times, the TV talks from the next room...”\\n49:43- Lionel Kearns introduces “Color Problem”. [INDEX:  from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n40:49- Lionel Kearns reads “Color Problem”.\\n50:06- Lionel Kearns introduces “The Woman Who” [INDEX: concrete poem, BP Nichol\\ninspires, purely visual, to hang on the wall, sonic, or both visual and sonic, page title\\n“Studies in Interior Decoration Border Design”; from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969).]\\n51:20- Lionel Kearns reads “The Woman Who”.\\n53:14- CUT in tape, silence, from this point to 54:05.82 is actually from a part in the second half of the recording from 38:10.41 onwards.\\n53:25- Lionel Kearns reads “It”. [INDEX: from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n54:02- Lionel Kearns begins to explain next poem, but there is a cut in the tape and the original recording continues.\\n54:15- Lionel Kearns introduces “Kinetic Poem”. [INDEX: from Pointing (Ryerson Press,\\n1967).]\\n54:26- Lionel Kearns and BP Nichol read “Kinetic Poem”.\\n55:57- Distortion in recording.\\n56:00- BP Nichol introduces unknown poem “Karnijikawa” [sp?.]  [INDEX: Japanese filmmaker, Olympics 1964, audience participation; from unknown source.]\\n56:23- BP Nichol, Lionel Kearns and audience chant “Karnijikawa”.\\n57:22- Lionel Kearns introduces “The Parable of the Seventh Seal”. [INDEX: ‘karne’ means meat in Spanish, Louis Dudek’s courses (at McGill University), students, pessimism, student question, reading poems, up-beat ending; published as “The Seventh Seal” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969).]\\n57:59- Unknown audience member asks question. [INDEX: pessimism]\\n58:00- Lionel Kearns answers question, continues to introduce “The Parable of the Seventh Seal”. [INDEX: upbeat ending, media parable, movie, “The Seven Samurai”, Hollywood, movie “The Magnificent Seven”, Western movie made in Japan, stolen by Hollywood, West, Northern locale, New Romans publishing, anti-American poem, $30 payment for story.]\\n59:38- Lionel Kearns reads “The Parable of the Seventh Seal”.\\n01:01:57.91- END OF RECORDING (story is cut short, continues in second part of reading).\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/bpnichol-and-lionel-kearns-at-sgwu-1968/#1\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/bpNichol_lionel_kearns_i086-11-026-2.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"bpNichol_lionel_kearns_i086-11-026-2.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:46:47\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"112.3 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"bpNichol_lionel_kearns_i086-11-026-2.mp3 [File 2 of 2]\\n\\nLionel Kearns\\n00:00:00\\nReads \\\"The Parable of the Seventh Seal\\\" [published as “The Seventh Seal” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface; reading resumes from previous recording; audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:06:17\\nReads \\\"Historical Implications of Turnips\\\" [from Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:07:01\\nThis is called, for a reason I cannot remember at all, \\\"Cycle Number 22\\\".\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:07:13\\nReads \\\"Cycle Number 22\\\" [from Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer and published later in Selected Writing: As Elected].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:07:49\\nThis next poem's called \\\"The Child in Me\\\". It's kind of what all sound poetry's about anyways. Enough said.\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:08:09\\nReads \\\"The Child in Me\\\" [from Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:09:10\\nThis is a poem called \\\"The New New Captain Poetry Blues\\\" and it's for David McFadden [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5237344]. Captain Poetry is kind of this person that happened a long time ago in a magazine I used to edit called Ganglia, and David McFadden is still happening in Hamilton [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q133116], and is probably Canada's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16] best poet and what else is there to say? Oh yes, a little footnote, there's a place in here called Plunkett [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2202272] which really exists and my mother was born there strangely enough. This is all about that.\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:09:48\\nReads [sections of \\\"The New New Captain Poetry Blues: An Undecided Novel\\\" from The Captain Poetry Poems].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:12:53\\nThis poem is called \\\"Split\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:12:59\\nReads \\\"Split\\\" [published as “Personality” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n\\nAudience\\n00:14:05\\nLaughter.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:14:07\\nPeople occasionally, when they're put on the spot to ask me questions, say \\\"What's it like to be a poet\\\", or \\\"Is it true that so and so and so and so...\\\" and things like that, questions that are impossible to answer. But there is something about being a poet, and this is one of the things, this is one of the differences, and this poem is called \\\"The Difference\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:14:40\\nReads \\\"The Difference\\\" [published as “Roles” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface; audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:15:40\\nThis is an older poem, it's a Christmas poem, it was written at the time when [Khrushchev (?)] got his call down, also about the time of the American intervention in the Dominican Republic [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q786], where the Americans came in because they knew that there were Cuban influences, or the Cubans were behind the so-called rebels in the Dominican Republic and one of the proofs was that some of the rebels had been seen wearing green uniforms [audience laughter]. Of course, most military uniforms are kind of green, but they pointed out that some of Fidel Castro's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11256] soldiers had green uniforms too. But this is a Christmas poem.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:16:51\\nReads \\\"Christmas Poem” [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:17:57\\nI make most of my living teaching at Simon Fraser University [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q201603] and we have some troubles out there sometimes. One of the things that troubled us was the fact that when we were giving lectures to large crowds, we sometimes used the public address system and we found out that back--that the public address system was hooked up with-- operated with an FM band, and the, all your lectures could be picked up on an FM set, for example, an FM set in the President's office. We've since lost that President. And this is called \\\"University\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:18:55\\nReads \\\"University\\\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:19:24\\nThis one is called \\\"Economic Chronology\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:19:29\\nReads \\\"Economic Chronology\\\" [from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:19:42\\nThis one's called \\\"Alimony, Old Baloney\\\".\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:19:51\\nReads \\\"Alimony, Old Baloney\\\" [most likely from the Captain Poetry series]. \\n \\nUnknown\\n00:24:14\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n\\nbpNichol\\n00:24:15\\nReads unnamed “Captain Poetry” poem.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:26:25\\nWell if bp is going to keep reading his Captain Poetry poems, I'm going to read my “Ventilation Parable”. This is an epic.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:26:43\\nReads \\\"Ventilation Parable\\\" [published as “Ventilation” in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:31:19\\nThis poem is called \\\"Creation\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:31:24\\nReads \\\"Creation\\\" [from Pointing].\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:31:52\\nI'm going to do that dangerous thing and read a poem I wrote last night. That's [inaudible]. \\n \\nUnknown\\n00:31:59\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Recording cuts back to 00:31:40].\\n\\nLionel Kearns\\n00:32:00\\nReads section of “Creation” [from Pointing].\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:32:18\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Recording cuts back to 00:31:52]. \\n\\nAudience\\n00:32:19\\nLaughter.\\n\\nbpNichol\\n00:32:21\\nI'm going to do that dangerous thing and read a poem I wrote last night [laughter]. That's waking Lionel up at 7:30 this morning which he didn't quite forgive me for. It starts off with a quote from a poem by Bobby Hoat [?.] Well, yesterday we were up at Carlton doing a reading there. It's a poem called \\\"Zero Phase\\\". There's a town referred to in here called Vars [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3554856] which happens to be where he lives. It's a very groovy little place, just outside of...\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:32:51\\nCan you hear?\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:32:52\\nIs that okay? If I talk kind of into it like this?\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:33:04\\nReads \\\"Zero Phase\\\".\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:34:36\\nThis is a poem called \\\"Returning\\\". It sort of was written after I wrote a book of poetry called Journeying and the Returns.\\n \\nbpNichol\\n00:34:58\\nReads \\\"Returning\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:37:49\\nI'm going--I'm going to read a series of poems again, from my collection Pointing. This one is called \\\"It\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:38:13\\nReads \\\"It\\\" [from Pointing].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:38:45\\nA lot of the poems in this book derive their images from dreams, and this is a poem which is about a dream I had. And it's--I've interpreted the dream. Some extent of the poem--I interpreted as a kind of message about where I get my images for my poems, or where I got them at this particular period. And I called \\\"Ambergris, a Statement on Source\\\". Ambergris, being that stuff that sick whales cough up and which floats around on the ocean and it's very smelly stuff but it's very valuable stuff if you find it floating around because you can sell it for a great deal of money to perfume factories. And that's the interpretation of the series of images that follow.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:39:55\\nReads \\\"Ambergris, a Statement on Source\\\" [from Pointing].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:40:42\\nAnd this one, called \\\"Contra Diction\\\", it's a poem that is often anthologized. It's a poem that I like because I think it does what usually I'm trying to do in poems. It's not a very big poem, but it's neat, I think.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:41:12\\nReads \\\"Contra Diction\\\" [from Pointing].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:41:40\\nThis one is called \\\"Both\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:41:45\\nReads \\\"Both\\\" [from Pointing].\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:42:06\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:42:07\\nThis is an early poem that I wrote, it fits into a series of poems that I was writing at the time in which I was dealing with my own background, trying to come to terms with things like my own Catholic background, and as you will see the central image is a Christian one. The situation is the fairgrounds actual--the actual situation is the PNE- the Pacific National Exhibition [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4179402]. It's an easter poem called \\\"Friday at the Ex\\\"\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:43:07\\nReads \\\"Friday at the Ex\\\" [from Pointing].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:44:34\\nAnd this one, called \\\"Prototypes\\\".\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:44:41\\nReads \\\"Prototypes\\\" [from Pointing].\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:45:33\\nAnd I think this is the last one I'll read, it's called \\\"End Poem\\\". An appropriate title.\\n \\nLionel Kearns\\n00:45:42\\nReads \\\"End Poem\\\" [from Pointing].\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:46:04\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \\n\\nbpNichol\\n00:46:05\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nEND\\n00:46:47\",\"notes\":\"Lionel Kearns reads from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967) and poems published later in By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures, and other Assaults on the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969). bpNichol reads from a wide variety of his works, some published, some unpublished, including Dada Lama (England: Tlaloc, 1968), The True Eventual Story of Billy the Kid (Weed/Flower, 1970), Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer (Weed/Flower Press, 1973), and Selected Writing: As Elected (Talonbooks, 1980). Many unnamed poems may belong to two of Nichol’s series, the Captain Poetry Poems The Martyrology.\\n\\n00:00- Recording begins mid-sentence, Lionel Kearns continues reading “The Parable of the Seventh Seal”. [INDEX: from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables,\\nPoems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969).]\\n06:17- BP Nichol reads “Historical Implications of Turnips”. [INDEX: from unknown source.]\\n07:02- BP Nichol introduces “Cycle Number 22”. [INDEX: title unknown; published later in Selected Writing: As Elected (Talon, 1980).]\\n07:13- BP Nichol reads “Cycle Number 22”.\\n07:49- BP Nichol introduces “The Child in Me”. [INDEX: sound poetry; from Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer, Weed Flower Press, 1973).]\\n08:09- BP Nichol reads “The Child in Me”.\\n09:10- BP Nichol introduces “The New New Captain Poetry Blues”. [INDEX: For David        McFadden, Captain Poetry, magazine Ganglia, Hamilton, Canada’s best poet, footnote,    Plunkett: place where Nichol’s mother was born; from The Captain Poetry Poem series, blewointmentpress, 1968).]\\n09:48- BP Nichol reads “The New New Canadian Captain Poetry Blues”.\\n12:53- Lionel Kearns reads “Split”.\\n14:07- Lionel Kearns introduces “The Difference” (published as “Roles”). [INDEX: questions, what it’s like to be a poet, impossible to answer, difference of being a poet; from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969).]\\n14:40- Lionel Kearns reads “The Difference” [Recording is often CUT to remove laughter and applause from the recording.]\\n15:40- Lionel Kearns introduce “Christmas Poem”. [INDEX: older poem, Christmas poem, Coustchef [unknown   reference], American intervention in the Dominican Republic, Cuban influence, rebels, green uniforms, military uniforms, Fidel Castro; from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969).]\\n16:51- Lionel Kearns reads “Christmas Poem”.\\n17:57- Lionel Kearns introduces “University”. [INDEX: teaching at Simon Frasier University, troubles, lectures using the public address system, FM band, President’s office; from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969).]\\n18:55- Lionel Kearns reads “University”.\\n19:24- Lionel Kearns reads “Economic Chronolgy”. [INDEX: from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969).]\\n19:42- BP Nichol reads “Alimony, Old Baloney”. [INDEX: from unknown source]\\n24:15- CUT in tape, BP Nichol reads first line “One day CP hitched a ride...” [INDEX:\\nCaptain Poetry, Bill Bissett, David McFadden; from unknown source, perhaps from      \\tCaptain Poetry Poem series.]\\n26:25- Lionel Kearns introduces “Ventilation”. [INDEX: BP Nichol, Captain Poetry poems, epic, parable; from By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures and other Assaults of the Interface (The Daylight Press, 1969).]\\n16:43- Lionel Kearns reads “Ventilation Parable”.\\n31:19- Lionel Kearns reads “Creation”. [INDEX: from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n31:52- BP Nichol introduces “Zero Phase”. Recording becomes inaudible as sound warps. CUT in tape. [INDEX: poem written night before; from unknown source.]\\n32:00- Lionel Kearns reads first line “Imagination explodes, they grow old quick and die...” [INDEX: from unknown source.]\\n32:21- Tape rewinds to BP Nichol introducing poem at 31:52.\\n32:21- BP Nichol introduces “Zero Phase”. [INDEX: poem written night before, Lionel Kearns, morning, quote from Bobby Hoat [unknown reference], Carleton University reading, town Vars.]\\n32:51- Lionel Kearns asks audience if they can hear.\\n33:04- BP Nichol reads “Zero Phase”.\\n34:36- BP Nichol introduces “Returning”. [INDEX: book of poetry Journeying & the Returns (Coach House Press, 1967).]\\n34:58- BP Nichol reads “Returning”.\\n37:49- Lionel Kearns introduces “It”. [INDEX: from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).] NOTE:\\nThe part of the recording is repeated from I086-11-026.1 (the first part of this reading) from 53:28.68, and Cuts out again at 54:02.90.\\n38:13- Lionel Kearns reads “It”.\\n38:45- Lionel Kearns introduces “Ambergris, a Statement on Source”. [INDEX: dream,     poems in book, interpretations, messages, images, whales, ocean, money, perfume    factory; from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n39:55- Lionel Kearns reads “Ambergris, a Statement on Source”.\\n40:42- Lionel Kearns introduces “Contra-Diction”. [INDEX: anthologized, poem; from\\nPointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n41:12- Lionel Kearns reads “Contra-Diction”.\\n41:40- Lionel Kearns reads “Both”. [INDEX: from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n42:07- Lionel Kearns introduces “Friday at the Ex”. [INDEX; early poem, series of poems, background, Catholic background, central image is Christian, fairgrounds, Pacific National Exhibition, easter poem; .] from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n43:07- Lionel Kearns reads “Friday at the Ex”.\\n43:34- Lionel Kearns reads “Prototypes” [INDEX: from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n45:33- Lionel Kearns introduces “End Poem”. [INDEX: last poem in reading, appropriate title; from Pointing (Ryerson Press, 1967).]\\n45:42- Lionel Kearns reads “End Poem”.\\n46:05- BP Nichol reads line “I wanted to forget you, so I tried to erase your name...”. [INDEX: from unknown source.]\\n46:47.84- END OF RECORDING.\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"}]"],"score":2.9270062},{"id":"1276","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":["Eli Mandel and D.G. Jones at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 7 March 1969"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"JONES & MANDEL I006/SR43\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. JONES & MANDEL refers to D.G. Jones and Eli Mandel. \"I006-11-043\" written on sticker on the reel\n\n\"Poetry - 7th Mar/69 Eli Mandel & Jones -1 I086-11-034\" written on the spine of the tape's box. Jones refers to D.G. Jones. \"1 Mandel I086-11-034\" written on sticker on the reel. \"RT 510\" written on sticker on the front of the tape's box and written on the back of the tape's box."],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 3"],"item_identifiers":["[I006-11-043, I086-11-034]"],"creator_names":["Jones, Douglas Gordon","Mandel, Eli"],"creator_names_search":["Jones, Douglas Gordon","Mandel, Eli"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/41883605\",\"name\":\"Jones, Douglas Gordon\",\"dates\":\"1929-2016\",\"notes\":\"Poet and critic Douglas Gordon (D.G.) Jones was born in Bancroft Ontario in 1929. He completed his B.A. at McGill University in 1952 and an M.A. at Queen’s University in 1954, writing a thesis on Ezra Pound. Jones’ first poems were encouraged by Louis Dudek and Raymond Souster in his publications in Contact Press and Delta. His first collection of poetry, Frost on the Sun (Contact Press, 1957) was followed by The Sun is Axeman (University of Toronto Press, 1961), Phrases from Orpheus (Oxford University Press, 1967) and a winner of a Governor General’s Award for Poetry, Under the Thunder of the Flowers Light Up the Earth (Coach House Press, 1977), A Throw of Particles (General Publishing Company, 1983), Balthazar (Coach House Press, 1988) and The floating garden (Coach House Press, 1995). Jones taught first at the Royal Military College from 1954-5, the Ontario Agricultural College from 1955-1961, he moved to Quebec and taught at Bishop’s University from 1961-1963, and finally at the Universite de Sherbooke, from 1963-1994. His book, Butterfly on rock: a study of themes and images in Canadian literature (University of Toronto Press, 1970) on Canadian criticism has proven to be important in the shaping of that field's literature. He founded Ellipse in 1969, the only Canadian magazine in which both English and French poetry was reciprocally translated. Jones’ own translations include Paul-Marie Lapointe’s The terror of the snows (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976), The march to love: Selected poems of Gaston Miron (International Poetry Forum, 1986), Normand de Bellefeuille’s Categorics, one, two & three (Coach House Press, 1992) which won the Governor General’s Award for translation and Emile Martel’s For orchestra and solo poet (Muses’ Co, 1996). D.G. Jones was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2007. Jones died in 2016. \",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Author\",\"Performer\"]},{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/59095399\",\"name\":\"Mandel, Eli\",\"dates\":\"1922-1992\",\"notes\":\"Poet, critic and editor Eli Mandel was born Elias Wolf Mandel in Estevan, Saskatchewan in 1922. He grew up in Regina, until the Second World War when he joined the Army Medical Corps. Upon his return, he studied at the University of Saskatchewan, earning his B.A. in 1949, going on to complete his M.A. in 1950. Mandel then moved east, where he received a Ph.D. in 1957 from the University of Toronto. His early poetry was published in magazines like CIV/N and Contact, and in 1954 Contact Press published his collection “Minotaur poems” in Trio with Gael Turnbull and Phyllis Webb. Mandel taught English at College Militaire Royal de Saint Jean, University of Alberta and York University in Toronto, as well as serving as visiting professor and writer-in-residence later on in his career. He also wrote many important essays on Canadian literature, art and society, promoting Canadian writers. Poetry 62 (Ryerson Press, 1961), Mandel’s first anthology, co-edited with Jean-Guy Pilon, collected the works of (then) little-known writers Al Purdy, Milton Acorn, D.G. Jones, Alden Nowlan, Leonard Cohen and John Robert Colombo. His second collection of poems was published in Fuseli Poems (Contact Press, 1960), followed by Black and Secret Man (Ryerson Press, 1964), and An Idiot Joy (Hurtig Press, 1967), which won the Governor General’s award. A collection of eight essays by Mandel that had been presented as radio talks for CBC was published in Criticism: the silent-speaking words in 1966 (CBC). His later anthologies include Five modern Canadian poets (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), English poems of the twentieth century (Macmillan, 1971), Contexts of Canadian Criticism (University of Chicago Press, 1971), Eight more Canadian poets (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972), and Poets of contemporary Canada: 1960-1970 (Macmillan, 1972) which published Joe Rosenblatt and bill bissett’s first collections of poetry. Mandel’s other works include Stony Plain (Porcepic Press, 1973), Crusoe (Anansi, 1973), Out of Place (Porcepic Press, 1977), the long poem Mary Midnight (Coach House Press, 1979), Life Sentence (Porcepic Press, 1981), Dreaming backwards: selected poems (General Publishing, 1981), the collections of essays Another Time (Porcepic, 1977), and The family romance (Turnstone, 1986) as well as a book-length study of his colleague, Irving Layton called The Poetry of Irving Layton (Coles, 1969). An important figure in Canadian literature, Eli Mandel died in Toronto on September 3, 1992.\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Author\",\"Performer\"]}]"],"contributors_names":["Unspecified","Bowering, George"],"contributors_names_search":["Unspecified","Bowering, George"],"contributors":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"name\":\"Unspecified \",\"dates\":\"\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Recordist\"]},{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/34469976\",\"name\":\"Bowering, George\",\"dates\":\"1935-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Series organizer\",\"Presenter\"]}]"],"Presenter_name":["Bowering, George"],"Recordist_name":["Unspecified "],"Series_organizer_name":["Bowering, George"],"Performance_Date":[1969],"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\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"track_configuration\":\"Half-track\",\"material_designation\":\"Reel to Reel\",\"physical_composition\":\"Magnetic Tape\",\"accompanying_material\":\"\",\"other_physical_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\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"First part of the tape is repeated from the end of I086-11-034\",\"track_configuration\":\"Half-track\",\"material_designation\":\"Reel to Reel\",\"physical_composition\":\"Magnetic Tape\",\"accompanying_material\":\"\",\"other_physical_description\":\"\"}]"],"material_designations":["Reel to Reel","Reel to Reel"],"physical_compositions":["Magnetic Tape","Magnetic Tape"],"recording_type":["Analogue","Analogue"],"AV_type":["Audio","Audio"],"playback_mode":["Mono","Mono"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"1969 3 7\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"Previous researcher\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building\",\"notes\":\"Exact venue location unknown\",\"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"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Eli Mandel reads from An Idiot Joy (Hurtig, 1967), Black and Secret Man (1964), Trio:  First Poems (Contact Press, 1954), as well as poems later published in Crusoe: Poems Selected and New (Anansi, 1973). D.G. Jones reads from Phrases from Orpheus (Oxford University Press, 1967), as well as a few that were published later in Under the Thunder the Flowers Light up the Earth (Coach House Press, 1977) and an unnamed long poem that may have been published in Poetry 62 (Ryerson Press 1961)."],"contents":["eli_mandel_i086-11-034.mp3 [File 1 of 2]\n \nGeorge Bowering\n00:00:00\n...start with the poesy, I've been asked to announce that on Friday, i.e., what's this the seventh? Two weeks from tonight, March the 21st at 9 o’clock. in Room 653, [Barnes (?)] willing, there will be a program, I guess within the auspices of the Fine Arts department, the Ira Cohen [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1097790], New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60] film maker, and poet will be showing three of his films, as far as I know for the first time in Montreal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q340]. That's two weeks tonight at 9 in 653. When I was asked to introduce Eli Mandel [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3050883], and D.G. Jones [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5203595], I said, 'that's ridiculous', Canadian poetry being the way it is, they already know each other. And after the moment of hilarity I was brought to my senses, and I began to think that it really did make a lot of sense that we do have Doug Jones and Eli Mandel reading on the same program. I can remember in 1961 when Poetry 62 came out, Canadian poetry being the way it is [audience laughter], Poetry 62 was edited by Jean-Guy Pilon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3166089] I believe and Eli Mandel, being a bilingual book, and at the time the poem that struck me as the most interesting was the long poem by D.G. Jones, the most interesting in that anthology, and I therefore, felt kind of warm, without having them, to both of them to Doug's poem and Eli's great taste for putting it in the anthology. And then I thought that there was this kind of confluence going on and I began to see all kinds of other things happening too, for instance, they both had their first books published by Contact Press, that published the first books of most of the important Canadian poets, and they now have seen their careers sort of criss-cross one another in a kind of a funny way because they each have three books, except that Eli has three and a third, which is also kind of Canadian, and I thought it was kind of interesting because not only is there a kind of parallel going on, and they both in 1967, for instance, turned out very good books of poetry, but there's a kind of uh, they'll be kind of an interesting contrast I think in tonight's program because I've always considered that Doug Jones is sort of the best of the Ontario [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1904] Wasp poets [audience laughter], and Eli Mandel is the best of the Western Jewish poets and they both deal with essential problems that seem to expose their two opposing and therefore contrary and conjugal, you might almost say, attitudes towards the business of writing poems. So we're going to start off with Eli's reading, and then have something like a ten minute break, and then we'll have Doug Jones' reading. I should mention that of those two books, Eli's is called An Idiot Joy and it shared the Governor General's Award [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q283256] given in 1968, and published by Hurtig, Edmonton [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2096] publisher, who is very pleased to get the Governor General's Award, and Doug Jones' book is Phrases from Orpheus, published by Oxford Press [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q217595], two books that would be well worth investing both your heaven, forbid, money and your imagination upon. I'm probably not going to say anything before D.G. Jones comes to read, so I'm not expecting to come up here and spout for five or ten minutes before he reads and I'm not going to spout any longer before Eli reads. So I'd first like to introduce to you Mr. Eli Mandel.\n\nAudience\n00:05:01\nApplause. \n \nEli Mandel\n00:05:29\nI think George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280] might have carried the parallel of contrasts and comparisons a little further had he wanted to, or chosen to, or had he known about certain very intimate details about Doug's life and my life. But I don't propose to go into those myself right now either [audience laughter]. Instead, I'm going to read, primarily from An Idiot Joy, but also from Black and Secret Man, which was an earlier book and also from one or two manuscript poems that I've been working on recently. I want to start with a poem called \"Signatures\" and although I can say a lot about a number of poems that I've written, I'm not sure I can say much about this except that as will be obvious to you I think, the imagery is drawn from the Vietnam [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q881] conflict, though I don't know that the poem is necessarily about that. Can you hear me with this mic? Some people at the back are saying 'no'. Can you hear me now?\n \nEli Mandel\n00:07:00\nReads \"Signatures\" [from An Idiot Joy].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:09:27\nThis poem is called \"Neither Here Nor There\".\n \nEli Mandel\n00:09:33\nReads \"Neither Here Nor There\" [published later in Crusoe: Poems Selected and New].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:10:28\nThis is a poem from Black and Secret Man and it's called \"The Direction is North Until the Pole\", and I suppose it's one of the few poems I've written that I would call a Canadian poem, that is to say it draws on a number of specific images from the Canadian landscape and therefore I have to annotate this poem. I have to tell you that the Fleming mentioned in the last line of the poem was once a Minister of Finance in the federal government, that just proves how transient political poems really are. I think all the rest of this should be clear, hockey is a game that's played in Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:11:16\nReads \"The Direction is North Until the Pole\" from Black and Secret Man.\n \nEli Mandel\n00:13:24\nThis is one of my prophetic poems. I think I've written a lot of really prophetic poems. This poem is called \"Departure\" and it tells about leaving Edmonton. Everybody who has read the poem believes that I wrote it when I decided to leave Edmonton, either for the first time or the second time, I've left there twice, as a matter of fact, I didn't write it when I decided to leave in Edmonton, I wrote it when I arrived in Edmonton.\n \nEli Mandel\n00:13:53\nReads \"Departure\" [from Black and Secret Man].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:14:37\nA little poem about one of my perversions, this is about making love to pregnant women, I think, I'm not sure if there's a technical name for that but the perversion appears in the poem. The poem's called \"Cassandra\" and it's about a prophetess, Cassandra [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q170779], you'll remember was the woman that Agamemnon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q128176]  brought home with him to his wife, Clytemnestra [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q131157], and this, so angered Clytemnestra, aside from the fact that Agamemnon had killed one of their daughters, that she killed Agamemnon, but Cassandra was a Prophetess, like Prophetesses, was given the power to tell the truth and was never believed. Some of the imagery in this poem is taken from the story of Cassandra, and the rest from my perversions.\n \nEli Mandel\n00:15:39\nReads \"Cassandra\" [from Black and Secret Man].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:17:00\nReads \"The Madness of our Polity\" [from An Idiot Joy].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:17:46\n\"Whence Cometh Our Help?\", the title is taken from the Psalms [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41064], and there are a number of images of the Psalms, in the poem. Or images from the Psalms.\n \nEli Mandel\n00:18:04\nReads \"Whence Cometh Our Help?\" [from An Idiot Joy].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:19:03\nThis poem is called \"Manner of Suicide\", and it's the closest thing I've come to writing a found poem, in that all the material in the poem, the words are taken from two sources, except for the first line. One is Karl Menninger's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3080926] Man Against Himself and the other, the Jewish Daily Prayer Book. There are twenty-six ways listed here of committing suicide, they're all ways that Menninger lists and documents, and he lists them in the order in which I give them here, and this list, which I give, is then followed by some comments he makes about those ways of committing suicide and a passage from the prayer book.\n \nEli Mandel\n00:20:11\nReads \"Manner of Suicide\" [from An Idiot Joy].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:23:24\nIn An Idiot Joy I wrote a number of poems which were, which used two primary images, the image of the moon and the image of the sea, and these are love poems. I suppose the interesting thing in them to me, aside from the personal sense that I feel about them, is that with each of the poems, whether it's with the image of the moon or the image of the sea, or both, I keep trying different technical things in the poetry, and so far as I'm concerned, I've done some more interesting technical things in this than anywhere else, but primarily, the poems talk about the moon and the sea, and seabirds and women and a woman.\n \nEli Mandel\n00:24:30\nReads \"Woman in the Moon\" from An Idiot Joy.\n \nEli Mandel\n00:26:12\nReads \"The Explanations of the Moon” [from An Idiot Joy].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:27:32\nThis is one of the sea poems, in the sequence, called \"Listen, the Sea\", and the title comes from King Lear [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q181598], though actually, I had become aware of it of course when I knew that Keats [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q82083] had written a sonnet using this, but the technique is neither Shakespearean nor Keatsean, nothing of the kind.\n \nEli Mandel\n00:28:00\nReads \"Listen, the Sea\" [from An Idiot Joy].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:29:01\nAnd \"Marina\", who is a daughter of the sea.\n \nEli Mandel\n00:29:09\nReads \"Marina\" [from An Idiot Joy].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:30:46\nWell something quite different. I think I should dedicate this to George Bowering, because I wrote the poem after I had been…\n\nUnknown\n00:30:56\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n\nEli Mandel\n00:30:57\nAnd I would have to apologize for this, but the last thing in the world that I wanted to do was apologize, I'd prefer anything but that, I mean this is pretty simple-minded simplistic psychology, of the worst order I suppose, I just--I'm writing a poem about how stupid I felt at that particular moment.\n \nEli Mandel\n00:31:17\nReads \"The Apology\" [from An Idiot Joy].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:34:34\nThis is the poem I like to think of as the one that one would put in a time capsule, it's called \"Letter to be Opened Later\" and presumably each one of us wants to immortalize oneself, and imagine, you know, two thousand years later the time capsule being opened and then they can read your letter. This is my letter, to be opened later.\n \nEli Mandel\n00:35:12\nReads \"Letter to be Opened Later\" [published later in Crusoe: Poems Selected and New ].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:36:09\nI'm going to read a lyric, it's a very short poem, but I'd like to read this one anyhow. It's called \"To My Children\" and it's based upon both an odd and rather terrifying coincidence in my life and a curious Jewish tradition. The Jewish tradition is that you name a child after the nearest dead relative, the relative who has died most recently and who is closest to one, and it so happened that my mother died, my daughter was born, my father died and my son was born. And I wrote this poem about the naming of the children. It's called \"To My Children\".\n \nEli Mandel\n00:37:08\nReads \"To My Children\" [from Black and Secret Man].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:38:00\nNow I'm going to finish this reading with two poems, one is called \"The Meaning of the I Ching\" and the other \"Cosmos: the Giant Rose\"--three poems, I'm sorry. I'm going to read \"Pictures in an Institution\" as well. \"The Meaning of the I Ching\", the I Ching [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q181937] as you probably know is a book of divination, it's the oldest book of divination known, and when I first heard about it, I looked at the book before I opened it and I wondered about the very simple notion of a book that old telling my future. How could I be contained in this ancient book? And I wrote this poem. Now it seems to me that there is something remarkable here, it's one claim I will make for the poem, at least, in the poem, is the first time I used the phrase \"earth upon earth\" and the very first hexagram that I cast when I opened the book. The book tells fortunes with what are called hexagrams and hexagrams are given various names, the very first one that I cast was the hexagram \"earth upon earth\" and that's simply something that happened whether it means that the poem is prophetic or magical, I don't know.\n \nEli Mandel\n00:39:36\nReads \"The Meaning of the I Ching\" [from An Idiot Joy].\n \nEli Mandel\n00:43:18\nI'm going to finish now reading \"Pictures in an Institution\". This is the most personal poem I've ever written, and I don't want to read anything after that, so I'm going to finish with this. \"Pictures in an Institution\". I think all I need to say about this is that it plays off notices against some personal experiences and I think that'll be plain enough.\n \nEli Mandel\n00:43:43\nReads \"Pictures in an Institution\" [from Trio: First Poems by Gael Turnbull, Phyllis Webb, and Eli Mandel].\n\nEli Mandel\n00:47:40\nThank you.\n\nAudience\n00:47:41\nApplause.\n\nUnknown\n00:47:51\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n\nUnknown\n00:47:53\nAmbient Sound [voices].\n\nGeorge Bowering\n00:48:22\nI'd like to help you welcome now, D.G. Jones.\n \nAudience\n00:48:27\nApplause.\n\nD.G. Jones\n00:48:60\nI'm going to do this because I'm thirsty. It's a little disturbing but I've had a suspicion that this was becoming true for some time, in the last few years, that pretty soon you won't be able to tell the Jew from the Wasp, anyway [audience laughter]. It's getting more disconcerting all the time how similar certain things are between me and Eli Mandel [audience laughter]. I just hope he's a very good person and lives a long life and has great success in the future [audience laughter]. The main thing I want to read tonight is a little bit like Eli's last poem [audience laughter]. But it takes a lot more time to get itself said, for good or ill, and I'd like to read a few, a couple shorter poems anyway, before starting that longer poem which takes up a fair amount of the time. I'll read the first book from the, I mean...[laughter], I'll read the first poem from the book which old oriental George Bowering told you about at the beginning of the program. This poem's called \"The Perishing Bird\".\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:51:12\nReads \"The Perishing Bird\" [from Phrases from Orpheus].\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:53:16\nA poem called \"Summer is a Poem by Ovid\".\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:53:34\nReads \"Summer is a Poem by Ovid\" [from Phrases from Orpheus].\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:54:41\nWell, this reads well. It starts with a Latin title, it's a kind of letter, actually written in reply to a letter to somebody who accused me of being rather complacent when ironically enough, I felt anything but that at that time. Accused me of being one of the people who didn't have any troubles in life, or not only me but somebody else too, when we had quite a few of our own that were not too dissimilar from those that the other person was talking about. It's about marriage. It's called, to avoid looking too obvious, \"De Profundis Conjugii Vox et Responsum''. It's a serious poem though, more or less.\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:55:56\nReads \"De Profundis Conjugii Vox et Responsum\" [from Phrases from Orpheus].\n \nEND\n01:01:57\n\n\ndg-jones_i006-11-04-2.mp3 [File 2 of 2]\n \nGeorge Bowering\n00:00:00\nI'd like to help you welcome now, D.G. Jones.\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:00:13\nI'm going to do this because I'm thirsty. It's a little disturbing but I've had a suspicion that this was becoming true for some time, in the last few years, that pretty soon you won't be able to tell the Jew from the Wasp, anyway. It's getting more disconcerting all the time how similar certain things are between me and Eli Mandel. I just hope he's a very good person and lives a long life and has great success in the future. [Audience laughter]. The main thing I want to read tonight is a little bit like Eli's last poem. [laughter]. But it takes a lot more time to get itself said, for good or ill, and I'd like to read a few, a couple shorter poems anyway, before starting that longer poem which takes up a fair amount of the time. I'll read the first book, I mean...[laughter], I'll read the first poem from the book which old oriental George Bowering told you about at the beginning of the program. This poem's called \"The Perishing Bird\".\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:02:53\nReads \"The Perishing Bird\" [from Phrases from Orpheus].\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:05:05\nA poem called \"Summer is a Poem by Ovid\" .\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:05:20\nReads \"Summer is a Poem by Ovid\".\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:06:35\nWell, this reads well. It starts with a Latin title, it's a kind of letter, actually written in reply to a letter to somebody who accused me of being rather complacent when ironically enough, I felt anything but that at that time. Accused me of being one of the people who didn't have any troubles in life, or not only me but somebody else too, when we had quite a few of our own that were not too dissimilar from those that the other person was talking about. It's about marriage. It's called, to avoid looking too obvious, \"De Profundis Conjugii Vox et Responsum''. It's a serious poem though, more or less.\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:07:49\nReads “De Profundis Conjugii Vox et Responsum” [from Phrases from Orpheus].\n \nUnknown\n00:13:55\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n\nD.G. Jones\n00:13:56\n...features of it, particularly carved doors or doors with glass panels carved, and a fountain, whoops. Wrong poem [audience laughter], same person [audience laughter]. The other one was written without any picture, this was written with a picture, \"On a Picture of Your House\".\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:14:49\nReads \"On a Picture of Your House\" [from Phrases from Orpheus].\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:16:44\nThis poem is the long poem I referred to, it's a kind of confessional poem, it's only about, I suppose, ten years behind Robert Lowell [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q981448] and the other American poets who have been writing what the critics now call confessional poetry, which is about par, I suppose. This poem was more or less actually complete several years ago, but I got so many things into the poem I wasn't sure how I was going to get out. And I've dickied around with it and possibly added a few more things, and finally I kept what I had in the end anyway, which was simply a way of ducking out I suspect. Though I hope there's some kind of peculiar relationship to the end, and everything else. I haven't been able to find a title for it. \"Night Thoughts\", might do, but somebody used that. But it's something along this line: the situation, the scheme is to present a kind of series of reminiscences, mediations, memories which disintegrate and become a little more peculiar as time goes on. Then suddenly stops, breaks off with morning. And it's set more or less around my cottage that I had, in Ontario, which wasn't far from where I was born. This is written in sections but I won't bother reading all the numbers, I'll just pause and go on.\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:19:00\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:41:22\nExcuse me, I'll read the last point, I was almost there, but I think I'll skip that part.\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:41:30\nResumes reading unnamed poem.\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:42:35\nExcuse me, I didn't feel I was reading that very well. Sorry, it is perhaps a little long. I'll finish quickly. I'd like to just read something a little different. I'll read two poems, one called \"Spring Flowers\", which will be the first.\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:43:22\nReads \"Spring Flowers\" [published later in Under the Thunder the Flowers Light up the Earth]\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:43:56\nI seem to be running out of steam. There's one here that's short enough I should be able to get all the way through it. It's called \"Under the Thunder\", and that's the first line.\n\nD.G. Jones\n00:44:15\nReads \"Under the Thunder\" [poem read is the title of a later publication, Under the Thunder the Flowers Light up the Earth].\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:44:21\nI'll try one more [audience laughter]. This was written for a number of people who got together--to form a society of a somewhat antiquated name, The League of Canadian Poets [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6509004], who met in Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172] in October 1968. It's called \"To Certain Poets Who Met in Toronto, October 1968\" [audience laughter].\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:45:03\nReads \"To Certain Poets Who Met in Toronto, October 1968\".\n \nD.G. Jones\n00:46:40\nI think I'm sorry, I've run out of steam but...\n \nEND\n00:46:49\n[Cut off abruptly].\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:\\n\\nIn 1969, Mandel was a professor at York University in Toronto, and he had published The Poetry of Irving Layton. He was also working on an anthology Five Modern Canadian Poets, published in 1970.\\n\\nIn 1969, D.G. Jones had founded Ellipse, and was teaching at the Universite de Sherbrooke.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections: \\n\\nThough no direct connections to Sir George Williams University are known, Eli Mandel’s work has been essential and influential in promoting the work of Canadian authors and poets, through his anthologizing and editing, his essay writing as well as his poetry.\\n\\nD.G. Jones has had a very influential role in Canadian and in specific Quebec poetry, as a leader in the translations of both English and French poetry. His criticism of Canadian literature places him with Margaret Atwood and Northrop Frye in shaping Canada’s literary canon and its literature. Jones was associated with poets such as Bowering, Dudek and Layton and F.R. Scott.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"2 reel-to-reel tapes>2 CDs>2 digital files\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/douglas-gordon-jones\",\"citation\":\"Blodgett, E.D. “Jones, Douglas Gordon”. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica-Dominion, 2008. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/contemporary-canadian-poem-anthology/oclc/476332314&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Bowering, George, ed. The Contemporary Canadian Poem Anthology. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1984. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/eli-mandel\",\"citation\":\"Boyd, Colin. “Mandel, Eli”. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica-Dominion, 2008.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-canadian-literature/oclc/605246871&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Davey, Frank. \\\"Mandel, Eli\\\". The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Eugene Benson and William Toye (eds). Oxford University Press 2001.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/fr-scott-une-vie-biographie/oclc/1132465721&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Djwa, Sandra. F.R. Scott: Une Vie, biographie. Montreal: Boreal, 2001. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/15-canadian-poets-x2/oclc/40224711&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Geddes, Gary. Fifteen Canadian Poets Times Two. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/encyclopedia-of-post-colonial-literatures-in-english-vol2/oclc/1156824609&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Harrison, James. “Jones, Douglas Gordon (1929-)”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial  Literatures in English. Benson, Eugene; Conolly, L.W. (eds). London: Routledge, 1994. 2 vols. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/phrases-from-orpheus-by-jones/oclc/503359867&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Jones, D.G.. Phrases From Orpheus. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1967.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/under-the-thunder-the-flowers-light-up-the-earth/oclc/3901520&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Jones, D.G.. Under the Thunder the Flowers Light up the Earth. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1977. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/idiot-joy/oclc/468767134?referer=di&ht=edition\",\"citation\":\"Mandel, Eli. An Idiot Joy. Edmonton: Hurtig, 1967.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/black-and-secret-man/oclc/247643578?referer=di&ht=edition\",\"citation\":\"Mandel, Eli. Black and Secret Man. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1964.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/crusoe-poems-selected-and-new/oclc/1419679&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Mandel, Eli. Crusoe: Poems Selected and New. Toronto: Anansi, 1973. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/trio/oclc/224515443&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Mandel, Eli., Turnbull, Gael., and Phyllis Webb. Trio: First Poems. Toronto: Contact Press, 1954\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/poetry-62/oclc/5110944&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Mandel, Eli and Jean-Guy Pilon. Poetry 62. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1961.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/encyclopedia-of-post-colonial-literatures-in-english-vol2/oclc/1156824609&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Stubbs, Andrew. “Mandel, Eli (1922-1992)”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial    Literatures in English. Benson, Eugene; Connolly, L.W. (eds). London: Routledge, 1994.      2 vols.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-canadian-literature/oclc/605246871&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Woodcock, George. \\\"Jones, D.G.\\\"  The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Eugene Benson and William Toye. Oxford University Press 2001. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670548880490496,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0086_11_0034_back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0086_11_0025_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Mandel and Jones Tape Box 2 - Back\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0086_11_0034_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0086_11_0025_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Mandel and Jones Tape Box 2 - 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Reel\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/dg-jones_i006-11-043-2.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"dg-jones_i006-11-04-2.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:46:49\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"112.4 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"dg-jones_i006-11-04-2.mp3 [File 2 of 2]\\n \\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:00:00\\nI'd like to help you welcome now, D.G. Jones.\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:00:13\\nI'm going to do this because I'm thirsty. It's a little disturbing but I've had a suspicion that this was becoming true for some time, in the last few years, that pretty soon you won't be able to tell the Jew from the Wasp, anyway. It's getting more disconcerting all the time how similar certain things are between me and Eli Mandel. I just hope he's a very good person and lives a long life and has great success in the future. [Audience laughter]. The main thing I want to read tonight is a little bit like Eli's last poem. [laughter]. But it takes a lot more time to get itself said, for good or ill, and I'd like to read a few, a couple shorter poems anyway, before starting that longer poem which takes up a fair amount of the time. I'll read the first book, I mean...[laughter], I'll read the first poem from the book which old oriental George Bowering told you about at the beginning of the program. This poem's called \\\"The Perishing Bird\\\".\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:02:53\\nReads \\\"The Perishing Bird\\\" [from Phrases from Orpheus].\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:05:05\\nA poem called \\\"Summer is a Poem by Ovid\\\" .\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:05:20\\nReads \\\"Summer is a Poem by Ovid\\\".\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:06:35\\nWell, this reads well. It starts with a Latin title, it's a kind of letter, actually written in reply to a letter to somebody who accused me of being rather complacent when ironically enough, I felt anything but that at that time. Accused me of being one of the people who didn't have any troubles in life, or not only me but somebody else too, when we had quite a few of our own that were not too dissimilar from those that the other person was talking about. It's about marriage. It's called, to avoid looking too obvious, \\\"De Profundis Conjugii Vox et Responsum''. It's a serious poem though, more or less.\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:07:49\\nReads “De Profundis Conjugii Vox et Responsum” [from Phrases from Orpheus].\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:13:55\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n\\nD.G. Jones\\n00:13:56\\n...features of it, particularly carved doors or doors with glass panels carved, and a fountain, whoops. Wrong poem [audience laughter], same person [audience laughter]. The other one was written without any picture, this was written with a picture, \\\"On a Picture of Your House\\\".\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:14:49\\nReads \\\"On a Picture of Your House\\\" [from Phrases from Orpheus].\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:16:44\\nThis poem is the long poem I referred to, it's a kind of confessional poem, it's only about, I suppose, ten years behind Robert Lowell [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q981448] and the other American poets who have been writing what the critics now call confessional poetry, which is about par, I suppose. This poem was more or less actually complete several years ago, but I got so many things into the poem I wasn't sure how I was going to get out. And I've dickied around with it and possibly added a few more things, and finally I kept what I had in the end anyway, which was simply a way of ducking out I suspect. Though I hope there's some kind of peculiar relationship to the end, and everything else. I haven't been able to find a title for it. \\\"Night Thoughts\\\", might do, but somebody used that. But it's something along this line: the situation, the scheme is to present a kind of series of reminiscences, mediations, memories which disintegrate and become a little more peculiar as time goes on. Then suddenly stops, breaks off with morning. And it's set more or less around my cottage that I had, in Ontario, which wasn't far from where I was born. This is written in sections but I won't bother reading all the numbers, I'll just pause and go on.\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:19:00\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:41:22\\nExcuse me, I'll read the last point, I was almost there, but I think I'll skip that part.\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:41:30\\nResumes reading unnamed poem.\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:42:35\\nExcuse me, I didn't feel I was reading that very well. Sorry, it is perhaps a little long. I'll finish quickly. I'd like to just read something a little different. I'll read two poems, one called \\\"Spring Flowers\\\", which will be the first.\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:43:22\\nReads \\\"Spring Flowers\\\" [published later in Under the Thunder the Flowers Light up the Earth]\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:43:56\\nI seem to be running out of steam. There's one here that's short enough I should be able to get all the way through it. It's called \\\"Under the Thunder\\\", and that's the first line.\\n\\nD.G. Jones\\n00:44:15\\nReads \\\"Under the Thunder\\\" [poem read is the title of a later publication, Under the Thunder the Flowers Light up the Earth].\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:44:21\\nI'll try one more [audience laughter]. This was written for a number of people who got together--to form a society of a somewhat antiquated name, The League of Canadian Poets [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6509004], who met in Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172] in October 1968. It's called \\\"To Certain Poets Who Met in Toronto, October 1968\\\" [audience laughter].\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:45:03\\nReads \\\"To Certain Poets Who Met in Toronto, October 1968\\\".\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:46:40\\nI think I'm sorry, I've run out of steam but...\\n \\nEND\\n00:46:49\\n[Cut off abruptly].\",\"notes\":\" D.G. Jones reads from Phrases from Orpheus (Oxford University Press, 1967), as well as a few that were published later in Under the Thunder the Flowers Light up the Earth (Coach House Press, 1977) and an unnamed long poem that may have been published in Poetry 62 (Ryerson Press 1961).\\n\\n00:00- George Bowering introduces D.G Jones [for full introduction, see I006-11-043.1 or I086-11-34]\\n00:13- D.G. Jones introduces “The Perishing Bird” [INDEX: Eli Mandel, George Bowering, Phrases from Orpheus; not on Howard Fink List of Poems]\\n02:53- Reads “The Perishing Bird”\\n05:20- Reads “Summer is a Poem by Ovid” [INDEX: not on Howard Fink List of Poems]\\n06:35- Introduces “De Profundis Conjugii Vox et Responsum” [INDEX: not on Howard Fink List of Poems.]\\n13:56- [CUT] Introduces “On a Picture of Your House”\\n14:49- Reads “On a Picture of Your House”\\n16:44- Introduces untitled poem, first line “The night is mild and the young moon...” [INDEX: confessional poem, Robert Lowell, process of writing, Ontario]\\n19:00- Reads first line “The night is mild and the young moon...”\\n42:35- Interrupts poem, introduces “Spring Flowers”\\n43:22- Reads “Spring Flowers”\\n43:56- Introduces “Under the Thunder”\\n44:15- Reads “Under the Thunder”\\n44:21- Introduces “To Certain Poets Who Met in Toronto, October 1968” [INDEX: The     \\tLeague of Canadian Poets meeting in Toronto, October 1968]\\n45:49- Reads “To Certain Poets Who Met in Toronto, October 1968”\\n46:49- END OF RECORDING\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/douglas-gordon-d-g-jones-at-sgwu-1969-george-bowering/\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/eli_mandel_i086-11-034.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"eli_mandel_i086-11-034.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"01:01:57\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"148.7 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"eli_mandel_i086-11-034.mp3 [File 1 of 2]\\n \\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:00:00\\n...start with the poesy, I've been asked to announce that on Friday, i.e., what's this the seventh? Two weeks from tonight, March the 21st at 9 o’clock. in Room 653, [Barnes (?)] willing, there will be a program, I guess within the auspices of the Fine Arts department, the Ira Cohen [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1097790], New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60] film maker, and poet will be showing three of his films, as far as I know for the first time in Montreal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q340]. That's two weeks tonight at 9 in 653. When I was asked to introduce Eli Mandel [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3050883], and D.G. Jones [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5203595], I said, 'that's ridiculous', Canadian poetry being the way it is, they already know each other. And after the moment of hilarity I was brought to my senses, and I began to think that it really did make a lot of sense that we do have Doug Jones and Eli Mandel reading on the same program. I can remember in 1961 when Poetry 62 came out, Canadian poetry being the way it is [audience laughter], Poetry 62 was edited by Jean-Guy Pilon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3166089] I believe and Eli Mandel, being a bilingual book, and at the time the poem that struck me as the most interesting was the long poem by D.G. Jones, the most interesting in that anthology, and I therefore, felt kind of warm, without having them, to both of them to Doug's poem and Eli's great taste for putting it in the anthology. And then I thought that there was this kind of confluence going on and I began to see all kinds of other things happening too, for instance, they both had their first books published by Contact Press, that published the first books of most of the important Canadian poets, and they now have seen their careers sort of criss-cross one another in a kind of a funny way because they each have three books, except that Eli has three and a third, which is also kind of Canadian, and I thought it was kind of interesting because not only is there a kind of parallel going on, and they both in 1967, for instance, turned out very good books of poetry, but there's a kind of uh, they'll be kind of an interesting contrast I think in tonight's program because I've always considered that Doug Jones is sort of the best of the Ontario [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1904] Wasp poets [audience laughter], and Eli Mandel is the best of the Western Jewish poets and they both deal with essential problems that seem to expose their two opposing and therefore contrary and conjugal, you might almost say, attitudes towards the business of writing poems. So we're going to start off with Eli's reading, and then have something like a ten minute break, and then we'll have Doug Jones' reading. I should mention that of those two books, Eli's is called An Idiot Joy and it shared the Governor General's Award [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q283256] given in 1968, and published by Hurtig, Edmonton [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2096] publisher, who is very pleased to get the Governor General's Award, and Doug Jones' book is Phrases from Orpheus, published by Oxford Press [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q217595], two books that would be well worth investing both your heaven, forbid, money and your imagination upon. I'm probably not going to say anything before D.G. Jones comes to read, so I'm not expecting to come up here and spout for five or ten minutes before he reads and I'm not going to spout any longer before Eli reads. So I'd first like to introduce to you Mr. Eli Mandel.\\n\\nAudience\\n00:05:01\\nApplause. \\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:05:29\\nI think George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280] might have carried the parallel of contrasts and comparisons a little further had he wanted to, or chosen to, or had he known about certain very intimate details about Doug's life and my life. But I don't propose to go into those myself right now either [audience laughter]. Instead, I'm going to read, primarily from An Idiot Joy, but also from Black and Secret Man, which was an earlier book and also from one or two manuscript poems that I've been working on recently. I want to start with a poem called \\\"Signatures\\\" and although I can say a lot about a number of poems that I've written, I'm not sure I can say much about this except that as will be obvious to you I think, the imagery is drawn from the Vietnam [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q881] conflict, though I don't know that the poem is necessarily about that. Can you hear me with this mic? Some people at the back are saying 'no'. Can you hear me now?\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:07:00\\nReads \\\"Signatures\\\" [from An Idiot Joy].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:09:27\\nThis poem is called \\\"Neither Here Nor There\\\".\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:09:33\\nReads \\\"Neither Here Nor There\\\" [published later in Crusoe: Poems Selected and New].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:10:28\\nThis is a poem from Black and Secret Man and it's called \\\"The Direction is North Until the Pole\\\", and I suppose it's one of the few poems I've written that I would call a Canadian poem, that is to say it draws on a number of specific images from the Canadian landscape and therefore I have to annotate this poem. I have to tell you that the Fleming mentioned in the last line of the poem was once a Minister of Finance in the federal government, that just proves how transient political poems really are. I think all the rest of this should be clear, hockey is a game that's played in Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:11:16\\nReads \\\"The Direction is North Until the Pole\\\" from Black and Secret Man.\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:13:24\\nThis is one of my prophetic poems. I think I've written a lot of really prophetic poems. This poem is called \\\"Departure\\\" and it tells about leaving Edmonton. Everybody who has read the poem believes that I wrote it when I decided to leave Edmonton, either for the first time or the second time, I've left there twice, as a matter of fact, I didn't write it when I decided to leave in Edmonton, I wrote it when I arrived in Edmonton.\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:13:53\\nReads \\\"Departure\\\" [from Black and Secret Man].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:14:37\\nA little poem about one of my perversions, this is about making love to pregnant women, I think, I'm not sure if there's a technical name for that but the perversion appears in the poem. The poem's called \\\"Cassandra\\\" and it's about a prophetess, Cassandra [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q170779], you'll remember was the woman that Agamemnon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q128176]  brought home with him to his wife, Clytemnestra [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q131157], and this, so angered Clytemnestra, aside from the fact that Agamemnon had killed one of their daughters, that she killed Agamemnon, but Cassandra was a Prophetess, like Prophetesses, was given the power to tell the truth and was never believed. Some of the imagery in this poem is taken from the story of Cassandra, and the rest from my perversions.\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:15:39\\nReads \\\"Cassandra\\\" [from Black and Secret Man].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:17:00\\nReads \\\"The Madness of our Polity\\\" [from An Idiot Joy].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:17:46\\n\\\"Whence Cometh Our Help?\\\", the title is taken from the Psalms [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41064], and there are a number of images of the Psalms, in the poem. Or images from the Psalms.\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:18:04\\nReads \\\"Whence Cometh Our Help?\\\" [from An Idiot Joy].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:19:03\\nThis poem is called \\\"Manner of Suicide\\\", and it's the closest thing I've come to writing a found poem, in that all the material in the poem, the words are taken from two sources, except for the first line. One is Karl Menninger's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3080926] Man Against Himself and the other, the Jewish Daily Prayer Book. There are twenty-six ways listed here of committing suicide, they're all ways that Menninger lists and documents, and he lists them in the order in which I give them here, and this list, which I give, is then followed by some comments he makes about those ways of committing suicide and a passage from the prayer book.\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:20:11\\nReads \\\"Manner of Suicide\\\" [from An Idiot Joy].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:23:24\\nIn An Idiot Joy I wrote a number of poems which were, which used two primary images, the image of the moon and the image of the sea, and these are love poems. I suppose the interesting thing in them to me, aside from the personal sense that I feel about them, is that with each of the poems, whether it's with the image of the moon or the image of the sea, or both, I keep trying different technical things in the poetry, and so far as I'm concerned, I've done some more interesting technical things in this than anywhere else, but primarily, the poems talk about the moon and the sea, and seabirds and women and a woman.\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:24:30\\nReads \\\"Woman in the Moon\\\" from An Idiot Joy.\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:26:12\\nReads \\\"The Explanations of the Moon” [from An Idiot Joy].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:27:32\\nThis is one of the sea poems, in the sequence, called \\\"Listen, the Sea\\\", and the title comes from King Lear [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q181598], though actually, I had become aware of it of course when I knew that Keats [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q82083] had written a sonnet using this, but the technique is neither Shakespearean nor Keatsean, nothing of the kind.\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:28:00\\nReads \\\"Listen, the Sea\\\" [from An Idiot Joy].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:29:01\\nAnd \\\"Marina\\\", who is a daughter of the sea.\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:29:09\\nReads \\\"Marina\\\" [from An Idiot Joy].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:30:46\\nWell something quite different. I think I should dedicate this to George Bowering, because I wrote the poem after I had been…\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:30:56\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n\\nEli Mandel\\n00:30:57\\nAnd I would have to apologize for this, but the last thing in the world that I wanted to do was apologize, I'd prefer anything but that, I mean this is pretty simple-minded simplistic psychology, of the worst order I suppose, I just--I'm writing a poem about how stupid I felt at that particular moment.\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:31:17\\nReads \\\"The Apology\\\" [from An Idiot Joy].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:34:34\\nThis is the poem I like to think of as the one that one would put in a time capsule, it's called \\\"Letter to be Opened Later\\\" and presumably each one of us wants to immortalize oneself, and imagine, you know, two thousand years later the time capsule being opened and then they can read your letter. This is my letter, to be opened later.\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:35:12\\nReads \\\"Letter to be Opened Later\\\" [published later in Crusoe: Poems Selected and New ].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:36:09\\nI'm going to read a lyric, it's a very short poem, but I'd like to read this one anyhow. It's called \\\"To My Children\\\" and it's based upon both an odd and rather terrifying coincidence in my life and a curious Jewish tradition. The Jewish tradition is that you name a child after the nearest dead relative, the relative who has died most recently and who is closest to one, and it so happened that my mother died, my daughter was born, my father died and my son was born. And I wrote this poem about the naming of the children. It's called \\\"To My Children\\\".\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:37:08\\nReads \\\"To My Children\\\" [from Black and Secret Man].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:38:00\\nNow I'm going to finish this reading with two poems, one is called \\\"The Meaning of the I Ching\\\" and the other \\\"Cosmos: the Giant Rose\\\"--three poems, I'm sorry. I'm going to read \\\"Pictures in an Institution\\\" as well. \\\"The Meaning of the I Ching\\\", the I Ching [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q181937] as you probably know is a book of divination, it's the oldest book of divination known, and when I first heard about it, I looked at the book before I opened it and I wondered about the very simple notion of a book that old telling my future. How could I be contained in this ancient book? And I wrote this poem. Now it seems to me that there is something remarkable here, it's one claim I will make for the poem, at least, in the poem, is the first time I used the phrase \\\"earth upon earth\\\" and the very first hexagram that I cast when I opened the book. The book tells fortunes with what are called hexagrams and hexagrams are given various names, the very first one that I cast was the hexagram \\\"earth upon earth\\\" and that's simply something that happened whether it means that the poem is prophetic or magical, I don't know.\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:39:36\\nReads \\\"The Meaning of the I Ching\\\" [from An Idiot Joy].\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:43:18\\nI'm going to finish now reading \\\"Pictures in an Institution\\\". This is the most personal poem I've ever written, and I don't want to read anything after that, so I'm going to finish with this. \\\"Pictures in an Institution\\\". I think all I need to say about this is that it plays off notices against some personal experiences and I think that'll be plain enough.\\n \\nEli Mandel\\n00:43:43\\nReads \\\"Pictures in an Institution\\\" [from Trio: First Poems by Gael Turnbull, Phyllis Webb, and Eli Mandel].\\n\\nEli Mandel\\n00:47:40\\nThank you.\\n\\nAudience\\n00:47:41\\nApplause.\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:47:51\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:47:53\\nAmbient Sound [voices].\\n\\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:48:22\\nI'd like to help you welcome now, D.G. Jones.\\n \\nAudience\\n00:48:27\\nApplause.\\n\\nD.G. Jones\\n00:48:60\\nI'm going to do this because I'm thirsty. It's a little disturbing but I've had a suspicion that this was becoming true for some time, in the last few years, that pretty soon you won't be able to tell the Jew from the Wasp, anyway [audience laughter]. It's getting more disconcerting all the time how similar certain things are between me and Eli Mandel [audience laughter]. I just hope he's a very good person and lives a long life and has great success in the future [audience laughter]. The main thing I want to read tonight is a little bit like Eli's last poem [audience laughter]. But it takes a lot more time to get itself said, for good or ill, and I'd like to read a few, a couple shorter poems anyway, before starting that longer poem which takes up a fair amount of the time. I'll read the first book from the, I mean...[laughter], I'll read the first poem from the book which old oriental George Bowering told you about at the beginning of the program. This poem's called \\\"The Perishing Bird\\\".\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:51:12\\nReads \\\"The Perishing Bird\\\" [from Phrases from Orpheus].\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:53:16\\nA poem called \\\"Summer is a Poem by Ovid\\\".\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:53:34\\nReads \\\"Summer is a Poem by Ovid\\\" [from Phrases from Orpheus].\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:54:41\\nWell, this reads well. It starts with a Latin title, it's a kind of letter, actually written in reply to a letter to somebody who accused me of being rather complacent when ironically enough, I felt anything but that at that time. Accused me of being one of the people who didn't have any troubles in life, or not only me but somebody else too, when we had quite a few of our own that were not too dissimilar from those that the other person was talking about. It's about marriage. It's called, to avoid looking too obvious, \\\"De Profundis Conjugii Vox et Responsum''. It's a serious poem though, more or less.\\n \\nD.G. Jones\\n00:55:56\\nReads \\\"De Profundis Conjugii Vox et Responsum\\\" [from Phrases from Orpheus].\\n \\nEND\\n01:01:57\\n\",\"notes\":\"Eli Mandel reads from An Idiot Joy (Hurtig, 1967), Black and Secret Man (1964), Trio:  First Poems (Contact Press, 1954), as well as poems later published in Crusoe: Poems Selected and New (Anansi, 1973).\\n\\n00:00- George Bowering introduces Eli Mandel and D.G. Jones [INDEX: announces other event: Ira Cohen film showing. Poetry 62 ed. by Eli Mandel and Jean-Guy Pilon: contains long poem by D.G. Jones, Contact Press, D.G. Jones- “Ontario Wasp Poet”/ Eli Mandel-“Western Jewish Poet”, Eli Mandel: An Idiot Joy published by Hurtig press, won Governor General Award, Eli Mandel: Black and Secret Man, D.G. Jones: Phrases from Orpheus Oxford Press]\\n05:08- Eli Mandel introduces “Signatures”\\n07:00- Reads “Signatures”\\n09:27- Reads “Neither Here Nor There”\\n10:28- Introduces “The Direction is North Until the Pole” [INDEX: Canadian Landscapes, Fleming- Minister of Finance of Federal Government, Political poems]\\n11:16- Reads “The Direction is North Until the Pole”\\n13:24- Introduces “Departure” [INDEX: leaving Edmonton]\\n13:53- Reads “Departure”\\n14:37- Introduces “Cassandra” [INDEX:  Cassandra, Prophetess, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon]\\n15:39- Reads “Cassandra”\\n17:00- Reads “The Madness of our Polity”\\n17:46- Introduces “Whence Cometh Our Help” [INDEX: psalms]\\n18:04- Reads “Whence Cometh Our Help”\\n19:03- Introduces “Manner of Suicide” [INDEX:  Karl Mennenger’s Man Against Himself,   Jewish Daily Prayer Book, Found Poem]\\n20:11- Reads “Manner of Suicide”\\n23:24- Introduces “Woman in the Moon” [INDEX: image: moon and sea]\\n24:30- Reads “Woman in the Moon”\\n26:12- Reads “The Explanations of the Moon”\\n27:32- Introduces “Listen, the Sea” [INDEX: King Lear, Keats Sonnet]\\n28:00- Reads “Listen, the Sea”\\n29:01- Reads “Marina”\\n30:46- Introduces “The Apology” [INDEX: George Bowering]\\n31:17- Reads “The Apology”\\n34:34- Introduces “Letter to be Opened Later” [INDEX: time capsule]\\n35:12- Reads “Letter to be Opened Later”\\n36:09- Introduces “To My Children” [INDEX: lyric poetry, Jewish naming tradition]\\n37:08- Reads “To My Children”\\n38:00- Introduces “The Meaning of the I Ching” [INDEX: hexagram ‘earth upon earth’]\\n39:36- Reads “The Meaning of the I Ching”\\n43:18- Introduces “Pictures in an Institution”\\n43:43- Reads “Pictures in an Institution”\\n47:47- George Bowering introduces D.G. Jones\\n48:35- D.G. Jones introduces “The Perishing Bird”\\n51:12- Reads “The Perishing Bird”\\n53:16- Reads “Summer is a Poem by Auden”\\n54:41- Introduces “De Profundis Con Yugie Voxette Responsem”\\n55:56- Reads “De Profundis Con Yugie Voxette Responsem”\\n01:01:57.14- END OF RECORDING\\n\\nFrom the Howard Fink list of Poems:\\n7/2/69\\none 5” reel, 3 3/4 one track, mono, 1/2 hour\\nreadings are from Mandel’s books An Idiot Joy and Black and Secret Man\\n\\n1. “Signature”\\n2. “Neither Here Nor There”\\n3. “The Direction is North Until the Pole”\\n4. “Departure”\\n5. “Cassandra”\\n6. first line “Being savages, we learn”\\n7. “Whence Cometh Our Help”\\n8. “Manner of Suicide”\\n9. “Woman on the Moon”\\n10. “The Explanation of the Moon”\\n11. “Listen, the Sea”\\n12. “Marina”\\n*note: list of poems not complete.\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/eli-mandel-at-sgwu-1969-d-g-jones-george-bowering/\"}]"],"score":2.9270062},{"id":"1278","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":["Robert Duncan at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 19 April 1969"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"ROBERT DUNCAN -1 Recorded Spring 1970 3.75 ips, 1/2 track on 1 mil. tape ONE OF TWO TAPES\" written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. \"ROBERT DUNCAN -1 I006/SR96.1\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. I006-11-096.1 written on sticker on the reel.\n\n\"ROBERT DUNCAN -2 Recorded, Spring, 1970 3.75 ips, 1/2 track on 1 mil. tape THE SECOND OF TWO TAPES\" written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. \"ROBERT DUNCAN -2 I006/SR96.2\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box."],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 3"],"item_identifiers":["[I006-11-096.1 , I006-11-096.2]"],"creator_names":["Duncan, Robert"],"creator_names_search":["Duncan, Robert"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\" http://viaf.org/viaf/105142281\",\"name\":\"Duncan, Robert\",\"dates\":\"1919-1988\",\"notes\":\"American poet Robert Duncan was born on January 7, 1919 in Oakland, California. At birth, he was given his father’s name: Edward Howard Duncan. In 1920 and after his mother’s death shortly after childbirth, Duncan was adopted into another family and re-named. But he adopted the name Robert Duncan when he started publishing his early poems. These poems were published in magazines during his studies at University of California at Berkeley between 1936-1938. He edited the Experimental Review the year following. Duncan then moved to New York where he joined a group of writers which included Anais Nin, George Barker, Henry Miller, and Kenneth Patchen. The poems that he wrote in this period were collected in 1966 for The Years as Catches: First Poems 1939-1946 (Oyez Press) and in 1968 for The First Decade: Selected Poems 1940-1950 (Fulcrum Press). From 1946 to 1950, Duncan moved to San Francisco, where he met and was influenced by poet Jack Spicer. His first collection of published poems was Heavenly and Earthly City (Bern Porter Press, 1947), followed by Poems 1948-49 (Berkeley Miscellany Editions, 1949). In 1948 he enrolled in classes in Medieval and Renaissance Civilization, taught by Ernst Kantorowicz, after which he published Medieval Scenes (Centaur Press) in 1950. The next year he met and began a lifelong relationship with the painter Jess Collins, and by 1955 he published Caesar’s Gate Poems 1949-1950 with Collages by Jess (Divers Press), a collection of poems from the early 50’s. Fragments of a Disordered Devotion was published privately in 1952, only to be re-printed by Toronto’s Island Press in 1966. During this time he also was deeply influenced by the poems of Charles Olson, Robert Creeley and Denise Levertov. Duncan taught at the Black Mountain College in 1956, and published Derivations (1968), poems collected from 1950 to 1956. After spending a year in Mallorca, his play Medea at Kolchis: The Maiden Head was performed at Black Mountain College. Duncan then moved back to San Francisco as the assistant director of the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University.  His most popular collection of poems, The Opening of the Field (Grove Press) was published in 1960, and was re-printed in London by Jonathan Cape in 1969 and in New York by New Directions in 1973. He was associated with the Creative Writing Workshop at the University of British Columbia in 1963, and he held a Guggenheim Fellowship until 1964. Duncan became one of the most vocal poets writing against the Vietnam war, and some of his anti-war poetry was published in pamphlets, collected later in Ground Work: Before the War printed privately in 1971. His later collections include, but are not limited to Roots and Branches, (Scribners, 1964, reprinted by New Directions, 1968, and Johnathan Cape, 1970), Bending the Bow (New Directions, 1968), his last collection of poetry, Ground Work II: In the Dark (New Directions, 1987), and several books of essays including Fictive Certainties (New Directions, 1985). He was the recipient of National Endowment of the Arts grants, the National Poetry Award as well as other honours. Robert Duncan died in 1988, and several of his collections of poetry were published posthumously.\",\"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":[1969],"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\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"track_configuration\":\"Half-track\",\"material_designation\":\"Reel to Reel\",\"physical_composition\":\"Magnetic Tape\",\"accompanying_material\":\"\",\"other_physical_description\":\"\"},{\"side\":\"\",\"image\":\"\",\"other\":\"Box is Scotch brand, tape is BASF\",\"extent\":\"1/4 inch\",\"AV_types\":\"Audio\",\"tape_brand\":\"BASF\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"3 3/4 ips\",\"sound_quality\":\"Good\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"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","Reel to Reel"],"physical_compositions":["Magnetic Tape","Magnetic Tape"],"recording_type":["Analogue","Analogue"],"AV_type":["Audio","Audio"],"playback_mode":["Mono","Mono"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"1969 4 19\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Please note that the Howard Fink list states the reading took place in “Spring 1970”, while the interview states another (perhaps separate) reading took place on April 19, 1969.\",\"source\":\"Previous researcher\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building\",\"notes\":\"Exact venue location unknown\",\"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"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Robert Duncan reads from The Opening of the Field (Grove Press, 1960), Roots and Branches (New Directions, 1964), and Bending the Bow (New Directions, 1968)."],"contents":["robert_duncan_i006-11-096-1.mp3 [File 1 of 2] \n \nGeorge Bowering\n00:00:00\n...say anything about Robert Duncan's credentials, so I'll make this as brief as possible. M.L. Rosenthal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6723336] said, a little while ago in the Reporter that Duncan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q57421163] was the best of the poets in the experimental tradition and Warren Tolman says he's the best poet writing in the English Language, and I'd probably go further than that. And it's the reading we've been waiting for, most of us, all year, so I'd like to give him as much time as there possibly is. Robert Duncan.\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:00:44\nIn the early 50's, I belonged to a, not a group, because as a matter of fact we were scattered, some in Europe and some in America and didn't know each other, but we were all reacting to a, we all had response of a feeling of poetic responsibility and also a poetic mission, arising out of our response to the publication of Ezra Pound's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q163366] \"Pisan Cantos\" [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2701465] and the publication that came year after year of the parts of William Carlos Williams's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q178106] \"Paterson\" [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7017378] but in the same period in magazines, some of the poetry of the later William Carlos Williams was appearing. And it does interest me, although the command of the Modernists had been to write in a natural speech, that in response to features that were appearing in Williams more than Pound, because Pound's lines are all syntactic utterances, but in Williams there's a kind of enjambment and there was a juncture appearing at the end of lines. And we, we took that juncture over and imposed it upon the language, but even in imposing it, found that we had arrived at something that's quite common indeed in our English speech, the stutter is at one end of it, but it is one of the forms we have when we are emotionally excited and things are broken up into phrases and words become almost painful and impossible to say, and this encounter we explored for some time. Later, I'm going to be reading, in passages, which will bring into question radically something related to his. My poetry developed along lines that I began to see as allied to the collage, things that were appearing in American painting, that is whole elements and bits would be taken from anywhere, and very early, at the time, as a matter of fact that I was writing The Opening of the Field, I viewed myself as a kind of jackdaw of poetry and gave up entirely worrying about if I had any originality or had a voice of my own. I was much more attracted picking up things and building them into something, so I was a weaver, I felt in some ways, almost before I was a speaker, and I was a weaver of voices and did not care, or- I decided well, I happen to be the one who is doing this, so certainly that's one thing that I don't have to have an effort about. There's nothing else that's going to be moving out from here. In passages, you'll find a new feature about that collage, but it's already contained in the thing I was suggesting that we took over- the juncture, Creeley [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q918620] for instance built a whole personal style from that juncture and by making its articulation radical, and forcing it into a depth of an emotional statement, and of course of an intellectual statement, because the whole framework of thought changes. Very striking to us in the very beginning was that form was the content, not, it was very hard to determine it, you could say that it even determined content, there was no cause to effect relationship for us, between form and content. Structure determined the nature of what was to thought, like the structure of a body is to what we are, and we didn't think of them as divided, so we were incarnationists in that sense. I feel very strongly that you'll find that repeatedly a theme of my poetry the incarnation of Christ [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q302], the incarnation of spirit and the body, that spirit, that the divine world is manifest and incarnate, and that in its- led us back to the poem as the incarnation and place in which- the spirit doesn't enter poetry, incarnate, it exists. But it was also a collage and you will hear Greek and French entering this world of a collage, and it will be as reformed as the American language is when it enters my collage. And reformed to American contours, the contours of French, and the contours of Greek disappear, forced back into an American stress system, which I find analogous. The French poets were extremely disturbed when Stravinsky set them, she could not bear to hear [Persephone (?)] and because they all came out, French all came out to be Russian in its entire tonation and the French not very happy when the French language turns up in an intonation. I'm thinking of the Parisian, but no Frenchman's very happy about the French language turning up, turning out to be American or Russian. Now my poetry doesn't turn out to be exactly American either, it turns out to be strictly forced back to conform to my poetic patterns, and Greek is not intoned but is forced into a stress pattern. However, with Greek I'm in for free because there's no man who can say what you do with it anyway. In America, we have one system, in Germany, they have another system, and in England, they have, still, a third system of what to do with vowels and what to do with the whole thing. And there's a controversy about whether you do have pitch or whether you do have stress and that arises from the fact that the Hellenistic Greeks [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q428995] already couldn't figure out exactly what you did with those Greek choruses, and they had to put those marks in to instruct their readers what to do, and we don't know what those marks meant for sure [audience laughter]. But they certainly didn't know what it had been like 500 years before. They did poorer, I take it, than the poorest, and that would include me, informed of us do with Middle English [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q36395], and I guess we're nearer to it than they were. Okay, well, we'll just start out and I want to take a path, I'm going to take a path through beginning with a small group of poems from The Opening of the Field.\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:07:46\nReads \"The Law I Love is Major Mover” from The Opening of the Field.\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:10:44\nWhen I was about 30, a great Medieval Historian was teaching at the University of California [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q184478], where I made my living teaching, typing thesis and term papers when I was really hard out of luck and the rumour was very thick indeed that something extraordinary had happened, I think, and my impression is that Universities kill off scholars today much faster than they- they certainly don't kill off poets, they give them very handsome fees to come for a week or so, but they certainly kill off scholars, but the existence- perhaps only the World War with its refugee professors from Europe brought this kind of scholarship onto the scene at the University of California and I returned to school to take up Medieval Studies. One of the, clearly, in my work I, the one course, and I studied with that man until he left for the Princeton Institute of Advanced Learning, studied for him--with him for two and a half years, the course that most changed my poetry was a course on Medieval law, and the growth of constitutional law, because the very basis of poetry I think is a- of art, is the discovery of laws, the laws that finally we can trace through from those Medieval concepts of law and constant meditations upon law so I'm going to read a couple of more poems of our- in which this concept of law moves. This is \"Structure of Rime XIII\" and it's part of an open construct that is a construct that has nothing in its concept, does not belong to a world of cause or effect. It has a chronology, but its chronology is like our chronological time, that is seen by contemporary physics as an anomaly within a time--within a physical time that cannot possibly have the character of a chronological sequence. The best they can explain is that we must inhabit a thread that is suspended in actual time, because actual physical time cannot really be one directional, and we experience one directional time because we are really caught in some isolated thread, in the medium of time. So in \"Structure of Rime\" I conceive of myself not in a chronology, although I experience it, being human as such, but as entering such a domain in which real law exists and real time exists, and the real form to which the poem refers and from which it derives its form. The real form has no beginning or end, and is much faster, is universal, so the--in writing the poem I do not create a form, but participate in a form which is of the nature that we believe the physical world to be and I am much for a convert of Whitehead's process and reality in which we believe the spiritual world to be. And that's where \"The Structure of Rime\" takes place. When I say 'thirteen',  that's of course, in my own sequence then and I conceive of that sequence as actually existing in a part of the mosaic that does not have the character of sequence.\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:14:29\nReads \"Structure of Rime XIII\" from The Opening of the Field. \n \nRobert Duncan\n00:16:59\nSome time shortly after The Opening of the Field was published, I was invited up to Portland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6106] by a lawyer and his wife to talk to a small group and I learned in correspondence that he had been attracted to my poetry because of the concepts of law as they move through poems, and so I wrote, for them, the poem called \"The Law\", a series and variation.\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:17:35\nReads \"The Law\" [from Roots and Branches].\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:23:27\nWhen Adams [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11806] said, “the which”, meaning, he said, \"Democracy, the which requires the continual exercise of virtue beyond the reach of human infirmity, even in its best estate\" he was writing to Jefferson and talking about something that was absolutely necessary, he did not mean that we could escape from what required what was impossible. We had to live in the impossible, which is where I found myself entirely in concord with certainly a poet understands what it is to live in the impossible. He speaks in the first place in a voice which is impossible for himself to speak in, and before which he must always be a flunk out and in some sense, a political- a poetical failure in relation to what everywhere's own poetics is to point out what is necessary. Let me in relation to the law again, read the opening of a poem that I will be later be reading entire, but I want to bring it in context with these poems and the law, and close it with a John Adams that I discovered only a passage of John Adams that I discovered for myself, only about what, it's two or three years ago, two years ago. \"Reading on Myth\", this was from a book called I think it's called 18th Century Against the Gods, or confronts--The 18th Century Confronts the Gods and the chapter on John Adams's mythology was a fascinating chapter, and this passage of the poem is built up entirely with no interpolations at all of--it's built up to the place where I cease to read it, with no interpolations at all of passages of the marginalia that John Adams writes in an Encyclopedia of Mythology.\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:25:32\nReads [\"John Adams’s Marginalia...\"].\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:26:53\nMove back to another early poem in The Opening of the Field that was formative to, throughout my work and the last I guess it must be, each one of these is about three, this is the last ten years. The Field began in 1956, so it must be the last 14 years. And this poem is written in 1956. Take my coat off. In articulating the line, we were opening up- Pound had very early said [unintelligible] by the musical phrase and as I said, since his phrases were identical with syntactic utterances, with sentence utterances, the phrase is- the phrase is simpler than the phrases we use, where often they are enjambed, where often they disturb the meaning of the sentence and suspend elements so that they operate in various parts we did not want what was called an ambiguity by Mr. [Adams (?)], we wanted a multi-phasic area of meanings which is something very different. We wanted all parts to operate within all other parts. And I think this is a crucial difference from what let's say fascinated the metaphysicals of the post-Eliot [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37767] period in their idea of ambiguities. We wanted one meaning operating within another meaning and they wanted one meaning secretly giving another meaning, I may have such things too, but I mean it's a very different feeling for us. Certainly they did not have to come to articulate as we did, and with these poems, when I get to, as you'll see in passages, when I get into rhythmic articulations where only my body is intelligent enough to keep them, so I have to throw them back into my hands and to my body, a dance can carry them and a dance is really in a sense, the poem in which I moved straight forward and realized how un-literary this was and not exactly song either, and that this dance centre was going to be for whole sections of poems. So, there's a key poem.\n\nRobert Duncan\n00:29:27\nReads \"The Dance\" [from The Opening of the Field].\n\nUnknown\n00:31:32\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \n\nRobert Duncan\n00:31:33\nResumes reading \"The Dance\" [from The Opening of the Field].\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:32:09.\nSomeone said this evening I probably wouldn't read The Pindar poems, I will. Oh let me sing a song for you, songs, I have a couple of songs that are in books. Songs for me are not that quaint form that, a few of them are like the night nurse's songs, the song the night nurse sang. But a song of the old order and some of the other songs are actual songs, that means when I was writing them, a tune came. And they had only one voice to be in, mine, and we could even say unhappily, but there they were. And startled I was when, this is I think, one of the first songs that came that really belonged in a book of poetry. I had early had some songs in Faust Foutu in a sort of a long play that would never get performed in my mind so I was able to whatever I wanted to in it, and- which is a great kind of play to write, because you don't have to worry about anyone else solving any problems, you can name it, they can be on the moon, or whatever, have no stage dimension problems, but also of course I had no song dimension problems but when I wrote this song, \"Gee, I know I'm going to have to get up and sing it\", well of course now you'll get away with it because how rare you'd hear a poet's voice, unless a poet's already like your happy rock-n-roll singer, which I ain't as you will hear. My idea of song is exceedingly primitive indeed, my impression is very, I think you will hear it in this song, it comes from a brief period in which to much the horror of my theosophical parents, but because we were living in a small town and all your friends went to a Sunday School, I went for several years to a Methodist Sunday school and somebody along the line gave me the hint that hymns would come out much better if I just moved my mouth and didn't join in, happily, the lovely music that was going on and so of course I always wanted to write a hymn and there's something in the Methodist hymnal for sure in the song I'm going to sing. \"A Song of the Old Order\". It's not strictly Methodist in theology, but I meant that it's something of the Methodist hymn. However, I will sing also, by following another song that is certainly Calvinist [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q101849], it's a Halloween song, and like only the scotch can possibly dig out of there- the Calvinist counter hymnal.\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:34:52\nSings \"A Song of the Old Order\" [from The Opening of the Field].\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:38:05\nThat was considerably higher than I've ever tried to do it before. [Audience laughter]. But, like a poem, when you're writing it, when you're in it, you're in for it. You can't re-model it to something you think you might get through with. So I will now do the Pindar poem. That somewhat determines what long poem we're going to do. And since this is the first time I've read here in Montreal, some other places I read, I try and give them new stuff, but I take it outside of some tapes that might be available, you haven't really heard these poems. And this will be the last one from The Opening of the Field. I'll pick up a couple from Roots and Branches and then I will be reading from the current, the Bending the Bow and then after the break I'll read some of the new poems that I've written since Bending the Bow. [Take off Biney's Law (?).] No, this is not the beginning of a Ginsberg [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6711] round [laughter.] \"Beginning with a Line by Pindar\", I am ending up with an exhibition by Ginsberg, [laughter.] We've gotten so [unintelligible] in San Francisco [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q62] since all barriers of all kinds were down you really couldn't compete with the show, so you've got, I mean what to do. Common, ordinary people are just left out, you've got to be somebody extraordinary now to [audience laughter], and poetry has to be my extraordinary thing. Believe me, the rest of me is just me. \"A Poem Beginning with a Line by Pindar\".\n\nRobert Duncan\n00:40:17\nReads \"A Poem Beginning with a Line by Pindar\" [from The Opening of the Field].\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:54:15\nI'll read two poems from--that were requested from Roots and Branches.\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:54:30\nReads [\"Risk”] from Roots and Branches.\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:59:22\nThe other poem I will read from Roots and Branches is \"The Continent\". My poetic thought continuously arises from the ground of my happy and, believe me, wildly misunderstanding readings of contemporary science. And the one real poetic source I have is not a literary magazine but Scientific American [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39379] which I avidly read. So I'm more likely to be studying language than I am to be studying poems and more likely to be studying the world, than I am to be- well, I can't say that, language and the world get even treatment. The poem \"The Continent\" came from the re-assertion that has come in recent years of evidence which has rebuilt the picture of the continental drift. And I was happy at the coordinates to find that Charles Olson [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q922978], who also ransacks the same magazine, but does not have the same misunderstandings of the magazine by any means, we have quite a, we sometimes come to [loggerheads (?) ] in our very positively taken misunderstandings of what is. He also had built sections of “Maximus [Poems]” on the continental drift. I love puns of course right away, and so does he, and if you get my drift in poetry, you will see something of what is revealed when we begin to get the drift of those continents and the fittingness of poetry is of course the logic whereby we identify that the continents originally fitted together and identified the sequence of things that happened. They do fit together, but they must have- I mean, the universe- the Neo-plateness, [unintelligible], well no, it isn't a neo-plate, well, it's a near neo-plate, and it's [unintelligible] Judas [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q81018] refers to the masterpiece which is the Universe, that's the only masterpiece and the rest of us compose masterpieces because we are children of the universe, although we may not recognize that that's what we are doing. Some of us don't have entire respect for what we belong to. \"The Continent\".\n \nRobert Duncan\n01:01:49\nReads \"The Continent\" from Roots and Branches.\n \nUnknown\n01:03:39\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n\nRobert Duncan\n01:03:40\nResumes reading \"The Continent\" from Roots and Branches.\n\nRobert Duncan\n01:06:16\n[Unintelligible] break in tone I'll sing that song I mentioned, the second one that comes from a Calvinist anti-hymnal. It's a song from my Halloween masque. And it's “A Country Wife’s Song”, the country husband is lying in bed, snoring away and the wife rises silently, puts a stick in the bed and a stone on the pillow and sings the following song.\n \nRobert Duncan\n01:07:50\nPerforms “A Country Wife’s Song” [from Roots and Branches].\n \nRobert Duncan\n01:09:38\nWe seem to be close to 10:30 so I'm going to just--I won't read--well, I'd like to read one passage before the intermission and I would also like to read the poem \"Epilogos\", then we'll have a break, I would suggest about 10 minutes and I will then read in the second part, I will be reading from \"Passages\", well let me add one more poem to this first part because I want to give you a sample of what I've been--so there will be one \"Passages\", so those of you with great relief run out into the world will at least have been subject to something of what \"Passages\" is like, and I will read \"Epilogos\" and then I will read one of the poems that I have written, post-Bending the Bow and then you will have a sample of everything and you won't be missing a thing if you don't stay for the second part. [Audience laughter]. Okay, well a few things, but you might be missing them anyway.\n \nRobert Duncan\n01:10:39\nReads \"Transgressing the Real, Passages 27\" [from Bending the Bow].\n \nRobert Duncan\n01:14:14\nReads \"Epilogos\" [from Bending the Bow].\n\nRobert Duncan\n01:20:57\nNow the one poem from, poetry I've written since then, a poem called \"Achilles' Song\". One note before I read it, the island that we would ordinarily in American call ‘Leuke’ a [unintelligible], like in Leukemia--leuke. In Greek would be ‘Lay-okay’ and so I was very alarmed indeed when in this poem, as I was writing it came out ‘Loy-kay’ and it took me quite some time of sheer stage fright and horror at the mis-pronunciation recall the ‘Lauke’ in German is the [unintelligible] and so forth in German, and that I have had for years now, for some years now a tape of H.D. [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q236469] reading from her \"Helen in Egypt\", a poem which is really the mother poem of this poem, and not too much hidden in the poem, for those who know of  my closeness to H.D. who was certainly a surrogate mother for me. Thetis of the poem would certainly be the poetess H.D. and in that tape, H.D. who had lived for most of her life from the 20's on in Switzerland, uses the German pronunciation throughout, ‘Aloike’ and that's how I heard it in association with this poem. So I've finally recognized where it came from but it's an example of the fact that you cannot correct things in poems because it's sewn into a rhyme and absolutely belongs in the music here. Play it differently--I mean, it's what fits a poem not what fits some other system outside the poem that the poem must adhere to. Okay, \"Achilles' Song\".\n \nRobert Duncan\n01:22:44 \nReads \"Achilles' Song\".\n\nUnknown\n01:25:05\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n\nAudience\n01:25:06\nApplause.\n\nRobert Duncan\n01:25:16\nSo we'll take a break of ten minutes and then I'm going to read a rather short section because we're almost at 11 and that would seem, I want to read as many, something like four passages to give you of a feeling of moving through that and that would give you something like Passages are like.\n\nUnknown\n01:25:44\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n\nRobert Duncan\n01:25:45\nTwo aspects of the art, seem particularly mysteries to me as I've been working at the art of poetry since I was 19 and it's now 30 years. In relation to that thing we call rhyme, meter and so forth, I have come to think more and more that it's ratios and numbers that may be the heart of the matter. And at the same time as I begin to feel that at the heart of the matter, as one begins to, as one does with mysteries, be fearful about approaching the question. Some years ago, two years ago or so, with the poet Zukofsky [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q975481], who knows much more than I do of the art, and performs really awesomely in it, I said it had begun, I said \"Zuk,” I said, “I had begun to feel that it isn't a question about syllables or stresses and so forth, it's a question of numbers\". And he said \"Yes, I've decided by now I ought to, certainly if I don't know syllables and stresses and so forth, by now, I mean know them only in my hand, I certainly shouldn't be thinking about them. And I am now only dealing with 8's. All of these lines are 8's, straight through. I have not yet really phased the initiations of the question of numbers but I know that this is central as one moves into the period of working in the art that I'm in.\" The other thing, and that is that I have indicated it earlier, is that the nature of the time of the art is increasingly mysterious, the one thing I'm sure of it cannot be, positive absolutely defined in one area, for a long time I was doing happily enough with the formula that Christians made for themselves of time and eternity and their term of eternity which is the very present moment of any work of art and is also of course somehow containing the ensemble of all of the things created must also be like that time that physics talks about. That makes them puzzle why in the world our own time goes from a thing we call the past to the future. Whitehead [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q183372] solves it in Process and Reality by suggesting that we create, in every moment that we live a past and a future, and we live in a history consequently because that's what we create what we are, is pastness and future, and sum it up in a material, that is still persuasive. But a mystery is when none of the answers are answers and as long as they're not answers the artist has them as really, forces that move as art. Now I make this remark because, well I said something about chronologies I, in the past I have not read these two poems as they appear in the book, in readings, but I want to read them today and I'm going to just underline the transition I want you to see and share with me at this point. I arranged, for all that what I've said about chronologies, I arranged the poems in my volumes chronologically and largely because it seems to me a mystery as they go and the rhymes appear from one to the other, and one poem will be an announcement of a succeeding poem or themes will flow out of it. The one I'm going to read first is not a “Passages\" it's called \"Reflections\" and at the close, and as a theme of it, you will find the old man, who is as a matter of fact, I structure rhyme preceding it had a fire master appearing, who seems very close indeed to the master of fire, and the poem that came next, it may have been in a couple of weeks of so, this was a very productive period, concludes with a figure of an old man tuning a drum between a bowl of fire and a bowl of water, and it was followed by a \"Passages\" which is called \"The Fire\", and from it we can learn that the fire that you see in \"Passages\" which is catastrophic, and is held in a polarity with an ideogram with the natural world, that that which may have indeed be--is indeed a bowl of water, as you will see, I mean it's a stream of water that the fire is composed between a world of water and its own world of fire, but that fire that looks like a catastrophe you will find is the creative fire--if you go under \"Reflections\" and let the reflections that came first reflect into the poem following. Now these are things that you realize afterwards, in your own chronology. I am one of those poets who has the characteristic I find in my study of Whitman [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q81438] in the last three years that Whitman certainly was another poet who studied himself all the time. We have a great prohibition in our contemporary world against studying yourself, but I am not short on the world of ego, so I'm not really very disturbed about the fact that I study myself in the poetry. But the one thing I search to find is not something we would ordinarily call ourselves, I study the poet, the thing that the poems are creating in order for them to come into being. That I can sharply distinguish from myself. As sharply as you can do it, it takes office, the idea of office, and this again I got from my Medieval Studies. Okay, I'm going to read \"Reflections\" and then I'm going to read \"The Fire\" and then I will, the poems I will be reading from then on will be \"Passages\", \"Fire\" is one of \"Passages\". And \"Passages\" is as I explained, an open form that exists in these other universe of time, of something, like, you call eternity.\n \nRobert Duncan\n01:32:07\nReads \"Reflections\" [from Bending the Bow].\n \nEND\n01:34:38\n\n\nrobert_duncan_i006-11-096-2.mp3 [File 2 of 2] \n\nRobert Duncan\n00:00:00\nReads [“The Fire, Passages 13 from Bending the Bow; recording begins abruptly].\n \nUnknown\n00:13:11\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \n\nRobert Duncan\n00:13:12\n...beginning with a poem called \"Soldiers\", a poem in which, um, let's see, right, some lines of Victor Hugo [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q535] enter, I decided I should, well, I guess, lets see, no I don't want to read too late, and soldiers is rather long again, so I want- certain themes that are moving in \"Soldiers\" will reappear. In \"Soldiers\", a recurring line was one from a poem of Victor Hugo's, \"Dieu dans [unintelligible] reve\", which is a line really quite in tune with my own poetics, \"God, oh creator the- or the creator for us too in oneself whose dream, whose work goes much further than our dreams\" and so it's combined with a scene that's Vietnam and it's combined in the Soldiers with the theme of the recognition that in some mystery of that work that goes further than our dreams the soldiers in Vietnam most of them, have just there, and they're 19 or 18 and so forth, they have only there in which to make their lives. And they have only there in which to, to take their souls in the war, as the followers of Orpheus take soul in the poem. The wood to take fire from that dirty flame. A recognition that that is their field in which they must reach life's epiphany and its thing. And the line of Victor Hugo carried me forward to and returned me to grand themes of Victor Hugo's but it also took me back to Vietnam [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q881] and I wanted to give, before I read \"The Kao Dai\" a little sketch of that. There's a theme of Victor Hugo, by the way, of the fall of Lucifer [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q185498] in which, Lucifer's falling into his own denial of God and in falling he opens the univ- creation, and but in his falling a feather breaks loose from his wings and is floating mid-air, and the sight of God descending falls upon the feather and it becomes light and it turns into an angel and that angel is Liberty and that angel's entire message is to transform the rage and wrathful light that had fallen upon it into the reunion and resurrection of Satan, but of course both Satan and God must be called from their wrath, to reconciliation, so this angel, Liberty and Freedom is also the angel of reconciliation and Victor Hugo knew that also there must be some explanation for the fact that the desire and yearning for freedom and liberty has always been wrathful. Blake [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41513] is puzzled by the same thing and I think that today, when all over the world, not only in Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16], but in the United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30], and in China [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q29520], and Yugoslavia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q36704] and Russia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q159] the wrath of Liberty is rising and it is the wrath of God against the civilization to its very roots which we know in our hearts are Godless. But that wrath must be reconciled, because it is itself that it's rising against and there's some mystery in this, so my poetry has begun to take up the figure of that angel and the angel comes into it. Now, in Vietnam, one of the strongest forces in the Viet Cong, not a communist group but a religious group, the Cao Dai [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q470364] and in order to read more in deeper into the Cao Dai, I wisely, I think, went back to sources to the early thirties before Vietnam was quite the cause it is today, and found this story and it came quite in line with my kooky family and my own poetry because it was at a medium's table in 1925 on Christmas Eve, when Christ descended and speaking in French, as I usually put it when I read my, something worse than American French, a French man would feel that that was blasphemy, but I'm after all repeating Christ's words in his own voice so that might be more serious yet that that voice was being attempted. Christ came into the medium and renounced in my birth day for the spirit is descending upon Vietnam and when we remember what happened to the very first generation of Christians who were burned in rows as torches, what the promise of Christ meant to his immediate blessing, the powers of martyrdom. The promise of Christ in 1925 was amply fulfilled to his new disciples. So amply, as a matter of fact, the Cao Dai had more than come to my mind, because the cathedral town of Cao Dai, which is [unintelligible] indeed exactly like a Catholic nunnery or convent, or a Buddhist nunnery or convent is Communist, is the province of Tay Ninh [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q36608], and the Cathedral city of Tay Ninh, now it is been repeated over and over in American papers that when those planes were returning for missions in North Vietnam and hadn't dumped their missions, you're not supposed to return any bombs, you gotta dump them somewhere, so they'd dump them on Tay Ninh, you'd just go over the side and dump them on Tay Ninh, because this particular religious group was stubborn indeed in its inherences. Now, also interesting to me was this particular religious group had as its patron Saint Victor Hugo, and the first place that the French are, that the Vietnamese have French as their deepest religious and literary language and so Christ talked in French so Victor Hugo gave the whole line, it's Victor Hugo's Christ who talked to them at the medium tables in French, and they of course had their medium tables in the line of the tradition of Victor Hugo's own medium tables in the Isle of Jersey. So Victor Hugo becomes patron saint for these passages. In the passage, by the way, a passage called \"Orders\" and I will read a passage from it in which I am actually translating from Victor Hugo quite directly but it's a very long poem and keeping in tune with that master of the sublime is very difficult for us in the modern period. Here we are, the passage, wait a minute, it isn't in that poem, I always think it's in \"Orders\", but it's actually in place of a passage 22, that has the passage with Victor Hugo. I have been working on it for years, and it's mainly trying to keep in tune, I go over and over and over it again and then I find it very difficult to deal with 19th century poetry. But this is a passage straight translation, as literal as I could from Victor Hugo, but really, massive poem.\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:21:11\nReads \"The Soldiers\" [from Bending the Bow].\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:22:14\nCharming little poem called the \"Twentieth Century\", in case you want to know where we are.\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:22:22\nReads \"Twentieth Century\" [published as “The Light, Passages 28” in Bending the Bow].\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:30:27\nI'll close with \"Stage Directions\".\n \nUnknown\n00:30:32\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n\nRobert Duncan\n00:30:33\nReads [“Stage Directions, Passages 30” from Bending the Bow; begins mid-poem].\n \nAudience\n00:37:53\nApplause.\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:38:12\nI'll add one more poem which has not been read aloud except at home today, this is one--I hope I've got the right note--this is a \"Structure of Rime\" that was composed on April Fool's day but it doesn't mean it isn't serious, I mean April 1st.\n \nRobert Duncan\n00:38:32\nReads \"Structure of Rime\" [unnumbered].\n \nAudience\n00:39:54\nApplause.\n \nEND\n00:40:06\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information: \\n\\nAt the time of this reading (1970), Robert Duncan had published Tribunals Passages 31-35 (Black Sparrow Press), a broadside called Poetic Disturbances (Cody’s Books) and A Selection of 65 Drawings from the One Drawing-Book 1952-1956 (Black Sparrow Press, 1970).  He was working on Ground Work (privately printed, 1971) and Robert Duncan: An Interview by George Bowering & Robert Hogg (The Coach House Press, 1971).\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections: \\n \\nDuncan’s first Canadian reading, in  Vancouver by invitation of Warren Tallman at University of British Columbia, occurred in 1961- to an audience of Bowering, Fred Wah and Frank Davey. These readings inspired the creation of Tish magazine[1]. Robert Duncan and George Bowering have corresponded with each other after this reading.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Sarah McDonnell and Ali Barillaro\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"2 reel-to-reel tapes>3 CDs>2 digital files\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/robert-duncan-an-interview-april-19-1969/oclc/963367366&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Bowering, George and Robert Hogg. Robert Duncan: an interview by George Bowering &       \\tRobert Hogg. Montreal: A Beaver Kosmos Folio, 1969. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/bending-the-bow/oclc/612189355&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Duncan, Robert. Bending the Bow. New York: New Directions, 1968.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/caesars-gate-poems-1949-1950/oclc/270147363&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Duncan, Robert. Caesar’s Gate: Poems, 1949-1950. Divers Press, 1955.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/first-decade-selected-poems-1940-1950/oclc/500569831&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Duncan, Robert. First Decade: Selected Poems 1940-1950. Fulcrum, 1969.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/ground-work-before-the-war-in-the-dark/oclc/62509155&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Bertholf, Robert; Duncan, Robert; Maynard, James. Ground Work II: Before the War, In the Dark. New York: New Directions, 1985.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/heavenly-city-earthly-city/oclc/639710248&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Duncan, Robert. Heavenly and Earthly City. Berkeley: Miscellany Editions, 1949. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/opening-of-the-field/oclc/926421653&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Duncan, Robert. The Opening of the Field. Grove Press, 1960.\"},{\"url\":\"<https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-american-literature/oclc/54356940&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"\\\"Duncan, Robert [Edward]\\\". The Oxford Companion to American Literature. James D. Hart (ed),        Phillip W. Leininger (rev). Oxford University Press 1995.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/roots-and-branches/oclc/926421654&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Duncan, Robert. Roots and Branches. New York: Scribners, 1964.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/new-release-from-oyez-the-years-as-catches-first-poems-1939-1946-by-robert-duncan-with-an-introduction-and-bibliography-by-the-author/oclc/62513361&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Duncan, Robert. The Years as Catches: First Poems. Berkeley: Oyez Press, 1966.\"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Patterson, Ian. “Duncan, Robert Edward 1919-”. Literature Online Biography. H.W. Wilson         \\tCompany, 2000. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670548887830528,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0096-1_back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0096-1_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Robert Duncan Tape Box 1 - 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_0096-1_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0096-1_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Robert Duncan Tape Box 1 - 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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_0096-2_side.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0096-2_side.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Robert Duncan Tape Box 2 - 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_0096-2_tape.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0096-2_tape.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Robert Duncan Tape Box 2 - Reel\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/robert_duncan_i006-11-096-1.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"robert_duncan_i006-11-096-1.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"01:34:38\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"227.2 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"robert_duncan_i006-11-096-1.mp3 [File 1 of 2] \\n \\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:00:00\\n...say anything about Robert Duncan's credentials, so I'll make this as brief as possible. M.L. Rosenthal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6723336] said, a little while ago in the Reporter that Duncan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q57421163] was the best of the poets in the experimental tradition and Warren Tolman says he's the best poet writing in the English Language, and I'd probably go further than that. And it's the reading we've been waiting for, most of us, all year, so I'd like to give him as much time as there possibly is. Robert Duncan.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:00:44\\nIn the early 50's, I belonged to a, not a group, because as a matter of fact we were scattered, some in Europe and some in America and didn't know each other, but we were all reacting to a, we all had response of a feeling of poetic responsibility and also a poetic mission, arising out of our response to the publication of Ezra Pound's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q163366] \\\"Pisan Cantos\\\" [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2701465] and the publication that came year after year of the parts of William Carlos Williams's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q178106] \\\"Paterson\\\" [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7017378] but in the same period in magazines, some of the poetry of the later William Carlos Williams was appearing. And it does interest me, although the command of the Modernists had been to write in a natural speech, that in response to features that were appearing in Williams more than Pound, because Pound's lines are all syntactic utterances, but in Williams there's a kind of enjambment and there was a juncture appearing at the end of lines. And we, we took that juncture over and imposed it upon the language, but even in imposing it, found that we had arrived at something that's quite common indeed in our English speech, the stutter is at one end of it, but it is one of the forms we have when we are emotionally excited and things are broken up into phrases and words become almost painful and impossible to say, and this encounter we explored for some time. Later, I'm going to be reading, in passages, which will bring into question radically something related to his. My poetry developed along lines that I began to see as allied to the collage, things that were appearing in American painting, that is whole elements and bits would be taken from anywhere, and very early, at the time, as a matter of fact that I was writing The Opening of the Field, I viewed myself as a kind of jackdaw of poetry and gave up entirely worrying about if I had any originality or had a voice of my own. I was much more attracted picking up things and building them into something, so I was a weaver, I felt in some ways, almost before I was a speaker, and I was a weaver of voices and did not care, or- I decided well, I happen to be the one who is doing this, so certainly that's one thing that I don't have to have an effort about. There's nothing else that's going to be moving out from here. In passages, you'll find a new feature about that collage, but it's already contained in the thing I was suggesting that we took over- the juncture, Creeley [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q918620] for instance built a whole personal style from that juncture and by making its articulation radical, and forcing it into a depth of an emotional statement, and of course of an intellectual statement, because the whole framework of thought changes. Very striking to us in the very beginning was that form was the content, not, it was very hard to determine it, you could say that it even determined content, there was no cause to effect relationship for us, between form and content. Structure determined the nature of what was to thought, like the structure of a body is to what we are, and we didn't think of them as divided, so we were incarnationists in that sense. I feel very strongly that you'll find that repeatedly a theme of my poetry the incarnation of Christ [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q302], the incarnation of spirit and the body, that spirit, that the divine world is manifest and incarnate, and that in its- led us back to the poem as the incarnation and place in which- the spirit doesn't enter poetry, incarnate, it exists. But it was also a collage and you will hear Greek and French entering this world of a collage, and it will be as reformed as the American language is when it enters my collage. And reformed to American contours, the contours of French, and the contours of Greek disappear, forced back into an American stress system, which I find analogous. The French poets were extremely disturbed when Stravinsky set them, she could not bear to hear [Persephone (?)] and because they all came out, French all came out to be Russian in its entire tonation and the French not very happy when the French language turns up in an intonation. I'm thinking of the Parisian, but no Frenchman's very happy about the French language turning up, turning out to be American or Russian. Now my poetry doesn't turn out to be exactly American either, it turns out to be strictly forced back to conform to my poetic patterns, and Greek is not intoned but is forced into a stress pattern. However, with Greek I'm in for free because there's no man who can say what you do with it anyway. In America, we have one system, in Germany, they have another system, and in England, they have, still, a third system of what to do with vowels and what to do with the whole thing. And there's a controversy about whether you do have pitch or whether you do have stress and that arises from the fact that the Hellenistic Greeks [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q428995] already couldn't figure out exactly what you did with those Greek choruses, and they had to put those marks in to instruct their readers what to do, and we don't know what those marks meant for sure [audience laughter]. But they certainly didn't know what it had been like 500 years before. They did poorer, I take it, than the poorest, and that would include me, informed of us do with Middle English [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q36395], and I guess we're nearer to it than they were. Okay, well, we'll just start out and I want to take a path, I'm going to take a path through beginning with a small group of poems from The Opening of the Field.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:07:46\\nReads \\\"The Law I Love is Major Mover” from The Opening of the Field.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:10:44\\nWhen I was about 30, a great Medieval Historian was teaching at the University of California [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q184478], where I made my living teaching, typing thesis and term papers when I was really hard out of luck and the rumour was very thick indeed that something extraordinary had happened, I think, and my impression is that Universities kill off scholars today much faster than they- they certainly don't kill off poets, they give them very handsome fees to come for a week or so, but they certainly kill off scholars, but the existence- perhaps only the World War with its refugee professors from Europe brought this kind of scholarship onto the scene at the University of California and I returned to school to take up Medieval Studies. One of the, clearly, in my work I, the one course, and I studied with that man until he left for the Princeton Institute of Advanced Learning, studied for him--with him for two and a half years, the course that most changed my poetry was a course on Medieval law, and the growth of constitutional law, because the very basis of poetry I think is a- of art, is the discovery of laws, the laws that finally we can trace through from those Medieval concepts of law and constant meditations upon law so I'm going to read a couple of more poems of our- in which this concept of law moves. This is \\\"Structure of Rime XIII\\\" and it's part of an open construct that is a construct that has nothing in its concept, does not belong to a world of cause or effect. It has a chronology, but its chronology is like our chronological time, that is seen by contemporary physics as an anomaly within a time--within a physical time that cannot possibly have the character of a chronological sequence. The best they can explain is that we must inhabit a thread that is suspended in actual time, because actual physical time cannot really be one directional, and we experience one directional time because we are really caught in some isolated thread, in the medium of time. So in \\\"Structure of Rime\\\" I conceive of myself not in a chronology, although I experience it, being human as such, but as entering such a domain in which real law exists and real time exists, and the real form to which the poem refers and from which it derives its form. The real form has no beginning or end, and is much faster, is universal, so the--in writing the poem I do not create a form, but participate in a form which is of the nature that we believe the physical world to be and I am much for a convert of Whitehead's process and reality in which we believe the spiritual world to be. And that's where \\\"The Structure of Rime\\\" takes place. When I say 'thirteen',  that's of course, in my own sequence then and I conceive of that sequence as actually existing in a part of the mosaic that does not have the character of sequence.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:14:29\\nReads \\\"Structure of Rime XIII\\\" from The Opening of the Field. \\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:16:59\\nSome time shortly after The Opening of the Field was published, I was invited up to Portland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6106] by a lawyer and his wife to talk to a small group and I learned in correspondence that he had been attracted to my poetry because of the concepts of law as they move through poems, and so I wrote, for them, the poem called \\\"The Law\\\", a series and variation.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:17:35\\nReads \\\"The Law\\\" [from Roots and Branches].\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:23:27\\nWhen Adams [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11806] said, “the which”, meaning, he said, \\\"Democracy, the which requires the continual exercise of virtue beyond the reach of human infirmity, even in its best estate\\\" he was writing to Jefferson and talking about something that was absolutely necessary, he did not mean that we could escape from what required what was impossible. We had to live in the impossible, which is where I found myself entirely in concord with certainly a poet understands what it is to live in the impossible. He speaks in the first place in a voice which is impossible for himself to speak in, and before which he must always be a flunk out and in some sense, a political- a poetical failure in relation to what everywhere's own poetics is to point out what is necessary. Let me in relation to the law again, read the opening of a poem that I will be later be reading entire, but I want to bring it in context with these poems and the law, and close it with a John Adams that I discovered only a passage of John Adams that I discovered for myself, only about what, it's two or three years ago, two years ago. \\\"Reading on Myth\\\", this was from a book called I think it's called 18th Century Against the Gods, or confronts--The 18th Century Confronts the Gods and the chapter on John Adams's mythology was a fascinating chapter, and this passage of the poem is built up entirely with no interpolations at all of--it's built up to the place where I cease to read it, with no interpolations at all of passages of the marginalia that John Adams writes in an Encyclopedia of Mythology.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:25:32\\nReads [\\\"John Adams’s Marginalia...\\\"].\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:26:53\\nMove back to another early poem in The Opening of the Field that was formative to, throughout my work and the last I guess it must be, each one of these is about three, this is the last ten years. The Field began in 1956, so it must be the last 14 years. And this poem is written in 1956. Take my coat off. In articulating the line, we were opening up- Pound had very early said [unintelligible] by the musical phrase and as I said, since his phrases were identical with syntactic utterances, with sentence utterances, the phrase is- the phrase is simpler than the phrases we use, where often they are enjambed, where often they disturb the meaning of the sentence and suspend elements so that they operate in various parts we did not want what was called an ambiguity by Mr. [Adams (?)], we wanted a multi-phasic area of meanings which is something very different. We wanted all parts to operate within all other parts. And I think this is a crucial difference from what let's say fascinated the metaphysicals of the post-Eliot [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37767] period in their idea of ambiguities. We wanted one meaning operating within another meaning and they wanted one meaning secretly giving another meaning, I may have such things too, but I mean it's a very different feeling for us. Certainly they did not have to come to articulate as we did, and with these poems, when I get to, as you'll see in passages, when I get into rhythmic articulations where only my body is intelligent enough to keep them, so I have to throw them back into my hands and to my body, a dance can carry them and a dance is really in a sense, the poem in which I moved straight forward and realized how un-literary this was and not exactly song either, and that this dance centre was going to be for whole sections of poems. So, there's a key poem.\\n\\nRobert Duncan\\n00:29:27\\nReads \\\"The Dance\\\" [from The Opening of the Field].\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:31:32\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \\n\\nRobert Duncan\\n00:31:33\\nResumes reading \\\"The Dance\\\" [from The Opening of the Field].\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:32:09.\\nSomeone said this evening I probably wouldn't read The Pindar poems, I will. Oh let me sing a song for you, songs, I have a couple of songs that are in books. Songs for me are not that quaint form that, a few of them are like the night nurse's songs, the song the night nurse sang. But a song of the old order and some of the other songs are actual songs, that means when I was writing them, a tune came. And they had only one voice to be in, mine, and we could even say unhappily, but there they were. And startled I was when, this is I think, one of the first songs that came that really belonged in a book of poetry. I had early had some songs in Faust Foutu in a sort of a long play that would never get performed in my mind so I was able to whatever I wanted to in it, and- which is a great kind of play to write, because you don't have to worry about anyone else solving any problems, you can name it, they can be on the moon, or whatever, have no stage dimension problems, but also of course I had no song dimension problems but when I wrote this song, \\\"Gee, I know I'm going to have to get up and sing it\\\", well of course now you'll get away with it because how rare you'd hear a poet's voice, unless a poet's already like your happy rock-n-roll singer, which I ain't as you will hear. My idea of song is exceedingly primitive indeed, my impression is very, I think you will hear it in this song, it comes from a brief period in which to much the horror of my theosophical parents, but because we were living in a small town and all your friends went to a Sunday School, I went for several years to a Methodist Sunday school and somebody along the line gave me the hint that hymns would come out much better if I just moved my mouth and didn't join in, happily, the lovely music that was going on and so of course I always wanted to write a hymn and there's something in the Methodist hymnal for sure in the song I'm going to sing. \\\"A Song of the Old Order\\\". It's not strictly Methodist in theology, but I meant that it's something of the Methodist hymn. However, I will sing also, by following another song that is certainly Calvinist [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q101849], it's a Halloween song, and like only the scotch can possibly dig out of there- the Calvinist counter hymnal.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:34:52\\nSings \\\"A Song of the Old Order\\\" [from The Opening of the Field].\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:38:05\\nThat was considerably higher than I've ever tried to do it before. [Audience laughter]. But, like a poem, when you're writing it, when you're in it, you're in for it. You can't re-model it to something you think you might get through with. So I will now do the Pindar poem. That somewhat determines what long poem we're going to do. And since this is the first time I've read here in Montreal, some other places I read, I try and give them new stuff, but I take it outside of some tapes that might be available, you haven't really heard these poems. And this will be the last one from The Opening of the Field. I'll pick up a couple from Roots and Branches and then I will be reading from the current, the Bending the Bow and then after the break I'll read some of the new poems that I've written since Bending the Bow. [Take off Biney's Law (?).] No, this is not the beginning of a Ginsberg [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6711] round [laughter.] \\\"Beginning with a Line by Pindar\\\", I am ending up with an exhibition by Ginsberg, [laughter.] We've gotten so [unintelligible] in San Francisco [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q62] since all barriers of all kinds were down you really couldn't compete with the show, so you've got, I mean what to do. Common, ordinary people are just left out, you've got to be somebody extraordinary now to [audience laughter], and poetry has to be my extraordinary thing. Believe me, the rest of me is just me. \\\"A Poem Beginning with a Line by Pindar\\\".\\n\\nRobert Duncan\\n00:40:17\\nReads \\\"A Poem Beginning with a Line by Pindar\\\" [from The Opening of the Field].\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:54:15\\nI'll read two poems from--that were requested from Roots and Branches.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:54:30\\nReads [\\\"Risk”] from Roots and Branches.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:59:22\\nThe other poem I will read from Roots and Branches is \\\"The Continent\\\". My poetic thought continuously arises from the ground of my happy and, believe me, wildly misunderstanding readings of contemporary science. And the one real poetic source I have is not a literary magazine but Scientific American [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39379] which I avidly read. So I'm more likely to be studying language than I am to be studying poems and more likely to be studying the world, than I am to be- well, I can't say that, language and the world get even treatment. The poem \\\"The Continent\\\" came from the re-assertion that has come in recent years of evidence which has rebuilt the picture of the continental drift. And I was happy at the coordinates to find that Charles Olson [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q922978], who also ransacks the same magazine, but does not have the same misunderstandings of the magazine by any means, we have quite a, we sometimes come to [loggerheads (?) ] in our very positively taken misunderstandings of what is. He also had built sections of “Maximus [Poems]” on the continental drift. I love puns of course right away, and so does he, and if you get my drift in poetry, you will see something of what is revealed when we begin to get the drift of those continents and the fittingness of poetry is of course the logic whereby we identify that the continents originally fitted together and identified the sequence of things that happened. They do fit together, but they must have- I mean, the universe- the Neo-plateness, [unintelligible], well no, it isn't a neo-plate, well, it's a near neo-plate, and it's [unintelligible] Judas [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q81018] refers to the masterpiece which is the Universe, that's the only masterpiece and the rest of us compose masterpieces because we are children of the universe, although we may not recognize that that's what we are doing. Some of us don't have entire respect for what we belong to. \\\"The Continent\\\".\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n01:01:49\\nReads \\\"The Continent\\\" from Roots and Branches.\\n \\nUnknown\\n01:03:39\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n\\nRobert Duncan\\n01:03:40\\nResumes reading \\\"The Continent\\\" from Roots and Branches.\\n\\nRobert Duncan\\n01:06:16\\n[Unintelligible] break in tone I'll sing that song I mentioned, the second one that comes from a Calvinist anti-hymnal. It's a song from my Halloween masque. And it's “A Country Wife’s Song”, the country husband is lying in bed, snoring away and the wife rises silently, puts a stick in the bed and a stone on the pillow and sings the following song.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n01:07:50\\nPerforms “A Country Wife’s Song” [from Roots and Branches].\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n01:09:38\\nWe seem to be close to 10:30 so I'm going to just--I won't read--well, I'd like to read one passage before the intermission and I would also like to read the poem \\\"Epilogos\\\", then we'll have a break, I would suggest about 10 minutes and I will then read in the second part, I will be reading from \\\"Passages\\\", well let me add one more poem to this first part because I want to give you a sample of what I've been--so there will be one \\\"Passages\\\", so those of you with great relief run out into the world will at least have been subject to something of what \\\"Passages\\\" is like, and I will read \\\"Epilogos\\\" and then I will read one of the poems that I have written, post-Bending the Bow and then you will have a sample of everything and you won't be missing a thing if you don't stay for the second part. [Audience laughter]. Okay, well a few things, but you might be missing them anyway.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n01:10:39\\nReads \\\"Transgressing the Real, Passages 27\\\" [from Bending the Bow].\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n01:14:14\\nReads \\\"Epilogos\\\" [from Bending the Bow].\\n\\nRobert Duncan\\n01:20:57\\nNow the one poem from, poetry I've written since then, a poem called \\\"Achilles' Song\\\". One note before I read it, the island that we would ordinarily in American call ‘Leuke’ a [unintelligible], like in Leukemia--leuke. In Greek would be ‘Lay-okay’ and so I was very alarmed indeed when in this poem, as I was writing it came out ‘Loy-kay’ and it took me quite some time of sheer stage fright and horror at the mis-pronunciation recall the ‘Lauke’ in German is the [unintelligible] and so forth in German, and that I have had for years now, for some years now a tape of H.D. [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q236469] reading from her \\\"Helen in Egypt\\\", a poem which is really the mother poem of this poem, and not too much hidden in the poem, for those who know of  my closeness to H.D. who was certainly a surrogate mother for me. Thetis of the poem would certainly be the poetess H.D. and in that tape, H.D. who had lived for most of her life from the 20's on in Switzerland, uses the German pronunciation throughout, ‘Aloike’ and that's how I heard it in association with this poem. So I've finally recognized where it came from but it's an example of the fact that you cannot correct things in poems because it's sewn into a rhyme and absolutely belongs in the music here. Play it differently--I mean, it's what fits a poem not what fits some other system outside the poem that the poem must adhere to. Okay, \\\"Achilles' Song\\\".\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n01:22:44 \\nReads \\\"Achilles' Song\\\".\\n\\nUnknown\\n01:25:05\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n\\nAudience\\n01:25:06\\nApplause.\\n\\nRobert Duncan\\n01:25:16\\nSo we'll take a break of ten minutes and then I'm going to read a rather short section because we're almost at 11 and that would seem, I want to read as many, something like four passages to give you of a feeling of moving through that and that would give you something like Passages are like.\\n\\nUnknown\\n01:25:44\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n\\nRobert Duncan\\n01:25:45\\nTwo aspects of the art, seem particularly mysteries to me as I've been working at the art of poetry since I was 19 and it's now 30 years. In relation to that thing we call rhyme, meter and so forth, I have come to think more and more that it's ratios and numbers that may be the heart of the matter. And at the same time as I begin to feel that at the heart of the matter, as one begins to, as one does with mysteries, be fearful about approaching the question. Some years ago, two years ago or so, with the poet Zukofsky [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q975481], who knows much more than I do of the art, and performs really awesomely in it, I said it had begun, I said \\\"Zuk,” I said, “I had begun to feel that it isn't a question about syllables or stresses and so forth, it's a question of numbers\\\". And he said \\\"Yes, I've decided by now I ought to, certainly if I don't know syllables and stresses and so forth, by now, I mean know them only in my hand, I certainly shouldn't be thinking about them. And I am now only dealing with 8's. All of these lines are 8's, straight through. I have not yet really phased the initiations of the question of numbers but I know that this is central as one moves into the period of working in the art that I'm in.\\\" The other thing, and that is that I have indicated it earlier, is that the nature of the time of the art is increasingly mysterious, the one thing I'm sure of it cannot be, positive absolutely defined in one area, for a long time I was doing happily enough with the formula that Christians made for themselves of time and eternity and their term of eternity which is the very present moment of any work of art and is also of course somehow containing the ensemble of all of the things created must also be like that time that physics talks about. That makes them puzzle why in the world our own time goes from a thing we call the past to the future. Whitehead [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q183372] solves it in Process and Reality by suggesting that we create, in every moment that we live a past and a future, and we live in a history consequently because that's what we create what we are, is pastness and future, and sum it up in a material, that is still persuasive. But a mystery is when none of the answers are answers and as long as they're not answers the artist has them as really, forces that move as art. Now I make this remark because, well I said something about chronologies I, in the past I have not read these two poems as they appear in the book, in readings, but I want to read them today and I'm going to just underline the transition I want you to see and share with me at this point. I arranged, for all that what I've said about chronologies, I arranged the poems in my volumes chronologically and largely because it seems to me a mystery as they go and the rhymes appear from one to the other, and one poem will be an announcement of a succeeding poem or themes will flow out of it. The one I'm going to read first is not a “Passages\\\" it's called \\\"Reflections\\\" and at the close, and as a theme of it, you will find the old man, who is as a matter of fact, I structure rhyme preceding it had a fire master appearing, who seems very close indeed to the master of fire, and the poem that came next, it may have been in a couple of weeks of so, this was a very productive period, concludes with a figure of an old man tuning a drum between a bowl of fire and a bowl of water, and it was followed by a \\\"Passages\\\" which is called \\\"The Fire\\\", and from it we can learn that the fire that you see in \\\"Passages\\\" which is catastrophic, and is held in a polarity with an ideogram with the natural world, that that which may have indeed be--is indeed a bowl of water, as you will see, I mean it's a stream of water that the fire is composed between a world of water and its own world of fire, but that fire that looks like a catastrophe you will find is the creative fire--if you go under \\\"Reflections\\\" and let the reflections that came first reflect into the poem following. Now these are things that you realize afterwards, in your own chronology. I am one of those poets who has the characteristic I find in my study of Whitman [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q81438] in the last three years that Whitman certainly was another poet who studied himself all the time. We have a great prohibition in our contemporary world against studying yourself, but I am not short on the world of ego, so I'm not really very disturbed about the fact that I study myself in the poetry. But the one thing I search to find is not something we would ordinarily call ourselves, I study the poet, the thing that the poems are creating in order for them to come into being. That I can sharply distinguish from myself. As sharply as you can do it, it takes office, the idea of office, and this again I got from my Medieval Studies. Okay, I'm going to read \\\"Reflections\\\" and then I'm going to read \\\"The Fire\\\" and then I will, the poems I will be reading from then on will be \\\"Passages\\\", \\\"Fire\\\" is one of \\\"Passages\\\". And \\\"Passages\\\" is as I explained, an open form that exists in these other universe of time, of something, like, you call eternity.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n01:32:07\\nReads \\\"Reflections\\\" [from Bending the Bow].\\n \\nEND\\n01:34:38\\n\",\"notes\":\"Robert Duncan reads from The Opening of the Field (Grove Press, 1960), Roots and Branches (New Directions, 1964), and Bending the Bow (New Directions, 1968).\\n\\nI006-11-096.1=AC.1\\n\\n00:00- George Bowering introduces Robert Duncan [INDEX: M.L. Rosenthall, Warren Tallman [sp?], The Reporter, experimental poetry]\\n00:44- Robert Duncan speaks about his poetry, introduces reading. [INDEX: Ezra Pound’s       \\t“Pisan Cantos”, William Carlos William’s “Paterson” and other poetry, impact of the   \\tmodernist tradition, natural speech, syntactic utterances, enjambment in the line, collage,      \\tAmerican Painting, The Opening of the Field, voice, Robert Creeley, form of content,      \\tincarnation of Christ,  Greek and French languages, Igor Stravinsky, Middle English]\\n07:46- Reads “The Law I Love is Major Mover” from The Opening of the Field [all poems to   follow are from this book]\\n10:44- Introduces “The Structure of Rime XIII”. [INDEX: Medieval Historian teaching at         \\tUniversity of California, World War refugee Professors migrating from Europe, Princeton         \\tInstitute for Advanced Learning, Medieval Law, discovery of laws, open construct poem,         \\tchronological time]\\n14:29- Reads “The Structure of Rime XIII”\\n16:59- Introduces “The Law”\\n17:35- Reads “The Law”\\n23:27- Introduces first line “John Adams Marginalia...” [INDEX: John Adams, Democracy, \\tThomas Jefferson, The 18th Century Confronts the Gods by Frank E. Manuel, Encyclopedia of Mythology]\\n25:32- Reads first line “John Adams Marginalia...”\\n25:53- Introduces “The Dance” and discusses his poetry [INDEX: The Opening of the Field,   \\tEzra Pound, phrases and lines, enjambments, disturb meaning of sentences, multi-phasic      \\tarea of meanings, Mr. Adamson [?], metaphysics of the post-Eliot period, rhythmic      \\tarticulations, dance]\\n29:27- Reads “The Dance” [recording is cut and then resumes at 31:33.90]\\n32:09- Introduces “A Song of the Old Order” [INDEX: Songs, process of writing songs, Faust Foutu An Entertainment in Four parts (play), Methodist Sunday School, Methodist   hymnal, Calvinist counter hymnal]\\n34:52- Sings “A Song of the Old Order”\\n38:05- Introduces “A Poem Beginning with the Line by Pindar”, outlines the rest of the       \\treading. [INDEX: Roots and Branches, Bending the Bow, new poems, Allen Ginsberg    \\t‘show’, San Francisco]\\n40:17- Reads “A Poem Beginning with the Line by Pindar”\\n54:15.78- END OF RECORDING\\n \\nI006-11-096.1=AC.2\\n \\n00:00- Robert Duncan introduces “Risk” [INDEX:Roots and Branches]\\n00:14- Reads first line “Risk”\\n05:06- Introduces “The Continent” [INDEX: poetry from contemporary science, Scientific     \\tAmerican magazine, continental drift, Charles Olson, The Maximus Poems, neo-plates]\\n07:33- Reads “The Continent”\\n12:00- Introduces “Song”\\n12:49- Sings “Song”\\n15:22- Introduces series of poems [INDEX: “Epilogos”, Of the War: Passages 22-27,   \\tBending the Bow]\\n16:23- Reads “Transgressing the Real”\\n19:58- Reads “Epilogos”\\n26:41- Introduces “Achilles' Song” [INDEX: mispronunciation of Greek Island Leuke, H.D.   \\treading “Helen in Egypt”, Switzerland, German]\\n28:28- Reads “Achilles' Song”\\n31:00- Introduces poems read after the break\\n31:29- Introduces “Reflections” and talks about his poetry [INDEX: Rhyme, meter, ratios and    numbers, Louis Zukofsky, time and eternity, Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Reality, chronology, Of the War: Passages 22-27, “The Fire”, “Reflections”]\\n37:51- Reads “Reflections”\\n40:23.12- END OF RECORDING\\n\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/robert-duncan-at-sgwu-1970/#1\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/robert_duncan_i006-11-096-2.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"robert_duncan_i006-11-096-2.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:40:06\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"96.3 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"robert_duncan_i006-11-096-2.mp3 [File 2 of 2] \\n\\nRobert Duncan\\n00:00:00\\nReads [“The Fire, Passages 13 from Bending the Bow; recording begins abruptly].\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:13:11\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \\n\\nRobert Duncan\\n00:13:12\\n...beginning with a poem called \\\"Soldiers\\\", a poem in which, um, let's see, right, some lines of Victor Hugo [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q535] enter, I decided I should, well, I guess, lets see, no I don't want to read too late, and soldiers is rather long again, so I want- certain themes that are moving in \\\"Soldiers\\\" will reappear. In \\\"Soldiers\\\", a recurring line was one from a poem of Victor Hugo's, \\\"Dieu dans [unintelligible] reve\\\", which is a line really quite in tune with my own poetics, \\\"God, oh creator the- or the creator for us too in oneself whose dream, whose work goes much further than our dreams\\\" and so it's combined with a scene that's Vietnam and it's combined in the Soldiers with the theme of the recognition that in some mystery of that work that goes further than our dreams the soldiers in Vietnam most of them, have just there, and they're 19 or 18 and so forth, they have only there in which to make their lives. And they have only there in which to, to take their souls in the war, as the followers of Orpheus take soul in the poem. The wood to take fire from that dirty flame. A recognition that that is their field in which they must reach life's epiphany and its thing. And the line of Victor Hugo carried me forward to and returned me to grand themes of Victor Hugo's but it also took me back to Vietnam [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q881] and I wanted to give, before I read \\\"The Kao Dai\\\" a little sketch of that. There's a theme of Victor Hugo, by the way, of the fall of Lucifer [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q185498] in which, Lucifer's falling into his own denial of God and in falling he opens the univ- creation, and but in his falling a feather breaks loose from his wings and is floating mid-air, and the sight of God descending falls upon the feather and it becomes light and it turns into an angel and that angel is Liberty and that angel's entire message is to transform the rage and wrathful light that had fallen upon it into the reunion and resurrection of Satan, but of course both Satan and God must be called from their wrath, to reconciliation, so this angel, Liberty and Freedom is also the angel of reconciliation and Victor Hugo knew that also there must be some explanation for the fact that the desire and yearning for freedom and liberty has always been wrathful. Blake [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41513] is puzzled by the same thing and I think that today, when all over the world, not only in Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16], but in the United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30], and in China [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q29520], and Yugoslavia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q36704] and Russia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q159] the wrath of Liberty is rising and it is the wrath of God against the civilization to its very roots which we know in our hearts are Godless. But that wrath must be reconciled, because it is itself that it's rising against and there's some mystery in this, so my poetry has begun to take up the figure of that angel and the angel comes into it. Now, in Vietnam, one of the strongest forces in the Viet Cong, not a communist group but a religious group, the Cao Dai [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q470364] and in order to read more in deeper into the Cao Dai, I wisely, I think, went back to sources to the early thirties before Vietnam was quite the cause it is today, and found this story and it came quite in line with my kooky family and my own poetry because it was at a medium's table in 1925 on Christmas Eve, when Christ descended and speaking in French, as I usually put it when I read my, something worse than American French, a French man would feel that that was blasphemy, but I'm after all repeating Christ's words in his own voice so that might be more serious yet that that voice was being attempted. Christ came into the medium and renounced in my birth day for the spirit is descending upon Vietnam and when we remember what happened to the very first generation of Christians who were burned in rows as torches, what the promise of Christ meant to his immediate blessing, the powers of martyrdom. The promise of Christ in 1925 was amply fulfilled to his new disciples. So amply, as a matter of fact, the Cao Dai had more than come to my mind, because the cathedral town of Cao Dai, which is [unintelligible] indeed exactly like a Catholic nunnery or convent, or a Buddhist nunnery or convent is Communist, is the province of Tay Ninh [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q36608], and the Cathedral city of Tay Ninh, now it is been repeated over and over in American papers that when those planes were returning for missions in North Vietnam and hadn't dumped their missions, you're not supposed to return any bombs, you gotta dump them somewhere, so they'd dump them on Tay Ninh, you'd just go over the side and dump them on Tay Ninh, because this particular religious group was stubborn indeed in its inherences. Now, also interesting to me was this particular religious group had as its patron Saint Victor Hugo, and the first place that the French are, that the Vietnamese have French as their deepest religious and literary language and so Christ talked in French so Victor Hugo gave the whole line, it's Victor Hugo's Christ who talked to them at the medium tables in French, and they of course had their medium tables in the line of the tradition of Victor Hugo's own medium tables in the Isle of Jersey. So Victor Hugo becomes patron saint for these passages. In the passage, by the way, a passage called \\\"Orders\\\" and I will read a passage from it in which I am actually translating from Victor Hugo quite directly but it's a very long poem and keeping in tune with that master of the sublime is very difficult for us in the modern period. Here we are, the passage, wait a minute, it isn't in that poem, I always think it's in \\\"Orders\\\", but it's actually in place of a passage 22, that has the passage with Victor Hugo. I have been working on it for years, and it's mainly trying to keep in tune, I go over and over and over it again and then I find it very difficult to deal with 19th century poetry. But this is a passage straight translation, as literal as I could from Victor Hugo, but really, massive poem.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:21:11\\nReads \\\"The Soldiers\\\" [from Bending the Bow].\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:22:14\\nCharming little poem called the \\\"Twentieth Century\\\", in case you want to know where we are.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:22:22\\nReads \\\"Twentieth Century\\\" [published as “The Light, Passages 28” in Bending the Bow].\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:30:27\\nI'll close with \\\"Stage Directions\\\".\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:30:32\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n\\nRobert Duncan\\n00:30:33\\nReads [“Stage Directions, Passages 30” from Bending the Bow; begins mid-poem].\\n \\nAudience\\n00:37:53\\nApplause.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:38:12\\nI'll add one more poem which has not been read aloud except at home today, this is one--I hope I've got the right note--this is a \\\"Structure of Rime\\\" that was composed on April Fool's day but it doesn't mean it isn't serious, I mean April 1st.\\n \\nRobert Duncan\\n00:38:32\\nReads \\\"Structure of Rime\\\" [unnumbered].\\n \\nAudience\\n00:39:54\\nApplause.\\n \\nEND\\n00:40:06\\n\",\"notes\":\"Robert Duncan reads from The Opening of the Field (Grove Press, 1960), Roots and Branches (New Directions, 1964), and Bending the Bow (New Directions, 1968).\\n\\n00:00- Recording starts mid-sentence, reading “The Fire”\\n13:12- Introduces “Soldiers” [INDEX: lines by Victor Hugo, Vietnam, Orpheus, “The Kao Dai”,        Lucifer, Satan and God, Liberty and Freedom, William Blake, Canada, U.S., China,     Yugoslavia, Russia, Viet Cong, Province of Tay Ninh, U.S. dumping bombs, Isle of Jersey, passage “Orders”]\\n21:11- Reads “Soldiers”\\n22:14- Introduces “Twentieth Century”\\n22:22- Reads “Twentieth Century”\\n30:27- Reads “Stage Directions”\\n38:12- Introduces “Structure of Rime”, first line “Away from the green fist of the sleeping     \\tchild”\\n38:32- Reads “Structure of Rime”, first line “Away from the green fist of the sleeping child”\\n40:06.70- END OF TRANSCRIPT\\n \\n1.  “The Law I Love” from the “Opening of the Seal”\\nPlease note that the Howard Fink list states the reading took place in “Spring 1970”, while the interview states another (perhaps separate) reading took place on April 19, 1969.\\n\\n2 reels: 30 min 3 3/4ips, 1/4” 5” reel\\n60 min 3 3/4 ips, 1/4” 7”reel\\nPopped strands in tape 1\\n\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/robert-duncan-at-sgwu-1970/#2\"}]"],"score":2.9270062},{"id":"1279","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":["Jerome Rothenberg at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 17 October 1969"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"JEROME ROTHENBERG Recorded October 16, 1969 3.75 ips, 1/2 track on 1 mil. tape 43 minutes\" written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. \"JEROME ROTHENBERG I006/SR95\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. \"I006-11-095\" written on sticker on the reel"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 4"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"creator_names":["Rothenberg, Jerome"],"creator_names_search":["Rothenberg, Jerome"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/109302361\",\"name\":\"Rothenberg, Jerome\",\"dates\":\"1931-\",\"notes\":\"American poet, teacher, translator, performance artist and editor Jerome Rothenberg was born in New York City in 1931. He received his B.A. in 1952 from the City College of New York and his M.A. in 1953 from the University of Michigan. Directly after graduation, Rothenberg enrolled in the military and served until 1955. He then worked on additional graduate work at Columbia University from 1956-1959. Rothenberg’s first collection of poetry, White Sun Black Sun (1960) was published through the small press Hawk’s Well Press, which he founded in 1958 to promote the works of young poets. He also edited the magazine Poems from a Floating World which ran from 1959-1964. At that time, Rothenberg began a long and influential career as a teacher of both Literature and Visual Arts; he worked at the City College of New York (1960-61), the Mannes College of Music (1961-1970), the University of California, San Diego (1971), and at the New School for Social Research (1971-72). Along with his poetry, Rothenberg translated the works of German postwar poets Paul Celan, Gunter Grass and Ingeborg Bachman; the translations influenced many of the poets of the Beat movement. Rothenberg then published his own poetry in The Seven Hells of the Jigoku Zoshi (Trobar, 1962), Sightings (Hawk’s Well, 1964), The Gorky Poems (El Corno Emplumado, 1966), Between: 1960-1963 (Fulcrum, 1967), Poland/1931, Part I (Unicorn Press, 1969), Poems for the Game of Silence (Dial, 1970), Seneca Journal, Midwinter (Singing Bone, 1975) and his popular anthology Shaking the Pumpkin: Traditional Poetry of the Indian North Americas (Doubleday, 1972). Rothenberg then taught at the University of Wisconsin (1974-77), the University of California, San Diego (1977-85), the State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany in 1986 and at Binghamton from 1986-1988, and finally at the University of California, San Diego. More of his poetry collections include Narratives and Realtheater Pieces (Braad, 1978), Poems for the Society of the Mystic Animals (Tetrad, 1979), Abulafia’s Circles (Membrane, 1979), Vienna Blood (New Directions, 1983), Altar Piece (Station Hill, 1982), That Dada Strain (New Directions, 1983), Khurbn & Other Poems (New Directions, 1989), Lorca Variations (New Directions, 1993) which won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award in 1994, Seedings (New Directions, 1996) and A Paradise of Poets (New Directions, 1999). Rothenberg has won, among many other honors, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research grant in 1968, fellowships fro the Guggenheim Foundation in 1974 and the National Endowment for the Arts in 1976. His first collection of essays on poetics, Pre-Faces (New Directions, 1982) won the American Book Award that same year. Rothenberg continues to teach in the Visual Arts and Literature Departments, as a Professor Emeritus at the University of California at San Diego.\",\"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\",\"Performer\"]}]"],"performer_name":["Bowering, George"],"Series_organizer_name":["Bowering, George"],"Performance_Date":[1969],"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\":\"\",\"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\":\"1969 10 17\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Date written on sticker on the back of the tape's box.\",\"source\":\"Accompanying Material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building Room H-651\",\"notes\":\"Location specified in written announcement \\\"Poetry Four: Sir George Williams Poetry Series\\\"\",\"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 Room H-651"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Jerome Rothenberg reads poems published later in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972) and from Poland/1931 (Unicorn Press, 1969)."],"contents":["jerome_rothenberg_i006-11-095.mp3\n\nGeorge Bowering\n00:00:00\nI'm glad we got this room. Welcome back to the first night of the fourth year of our series. And for those of you who are here for the first time, welcome you too. I'm really glad that we could start off with Jerome Rothenberg [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1775056], especially from my own personal viewpoint, because while Jerome Rothenberg is one of the names that I've paid a lot of attention to, and one of the names that poets have paid attention to over the last decade, this'll be the first time that I've been able to hear him read, too. Usually when, often when us people from the West think about the new American poetry, we tend to think of it in terms of people from outposts such as New Mexico [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1522], and Utah, [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q829] and San Francisco [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q62], and so on. And we forget that New York City [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60] is one of the centre-place, central-places, so that it can produce poets such as Joel Oppenheimer [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6213806] who will be here in the following spring, and Paul Blackburn [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7149388], who was here a couple of years ago. Jerome Rothenberg has always been the centre, in the centre of that scene, and not only as one of the principal poets, but as editor, and publisher, and so on and so forth, especially with a very important magazine of the 1960's called some--oblique thing [some/thing]. And he's especially interesting to me too because of the kind of work that produced a book such as Technicians of the Sacred, a compilation of the poetries from various oral traditions around the world, and a similar sort of impulse has always been at the centre of his work too. I'd also like to correct a mistake on the little printed page that wasn't really mine, that I picked up from somewhere else and couldn't quite believe myself, that said that Jerome Rothenberg was born in 1921. All I can say is that he was born sometime between the death of Lord Byron [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5679] and now. [Laughter]. But I'm pretty certain that he wasn't around in 1921. So I'd like you to give a welcome to Jerome Rothenberg.\n \nAudience\n00:02:53\nApplause.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:02:58\nThe birthdate'll come clearer in the second part of the reading. I'll read in two parts. And in the first set, what I'll be reading are translations and re-workings of American Indian poetry, which have been important to me over the last five or six years. And I'll start with some which are based on earlier translations, re-workings of material previously translated, and then as I get into it, some translations that result from direct contact and direct experience of American Indian poetry. This is an Aztec poem. The first four or five, six poems will be Aztec or Mexican in origin, and the theme will be flowers.  \"Offering Flowers\".\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:04:24\nReads \"Offering Flowers\" [from Technicians of the Sacred].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:07:37\nThis is Aztec, too, in origin, translated through the Spanish.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:07:52\nReads “A Song of Chalco” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:09:53\nAnd it doesn't die out, even with the destruction that follows, and flowers are picked up again, this in a series of translations, again through the Spanish, of a series of Peyote songs, from the Huichol Indians of central Mexico [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q96]. The name Wirikuta [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8026952] is the name given to the place of the gods, and the spiritual place of the Peyote. The Peyote is described as the rose, it's described as the corn, the maize, it's described under a number of images, and through the figure, the mythological figure of one called the Blue Stag. This is the first Huichol, Peyote song.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:10:46\nReads “First Peyote Song” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:11:46.19\n\"Song of an Initiate\".\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:11:51\nReads \"Song of an Initiate\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:12:25\nAnd this is a poem called \"How the Violin Was Born: A Peyote Account”.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:12:35\nReads \"How the Violin was Born: A Peyote Account” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:13:24\nThese are a few short Indian pieces. Not poems but part of what's connected with the whole activity of poetry, among the tribal peoples. Which is more than an activity of words; which goes beyond language. And these are the events that accompany the words. And the first is an Iroquois dream event. \n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:13:58\nReads [\"Dream Event 1\", published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:14:08\nThese are a series of vision events. The first two are Eskimo.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:14:14\nReads \"Vision Event I\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n\nJerome Rothenberg\n00:14:25\nReads \"Vision Event 2\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:14:39\nAnd this is a Sioux Indian vision event.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:14:43\nReads \"Vision Event 3\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:15:01\nThis is a Kwakiutl Indian gift event. All the words are from Kwakiut'l Indians. It's either spoken in English or translated into English. The Kwakiut'l, like other Northwest Coast people, celebrate the potlatch, you know, which is not always terrible or distasteful in its consequences. This is benevolent gift-giving. \n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:15:26\nReads \"Gift Event [2]\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:16:32\nThese are a series of seven Navajo animal songs. \n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:16:42\nReads \"Navajo Animal Songs\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:17:49\nThe next few are from a series of translations I've been doing, are called, well, it's the Seneca Indian word for one of their major curing ceremonies, a term for a major curing ceremony, \"Shaking the Pumpkin\", because the pumpkin rattle, the big pumpkin rattle is the major instrument used in this. Or it's got a more ornate name, it's called \"The Society of the Mystic Animals\". The man, Richard Johnny John, Indian, who is working with me on this, explained it's a serious ceremony, he said, but if everything's alright, the one who says the prayer tells them, I leave it up to you, folks, and if you want to have a good time, have a good time. Well everything's alright in the translations, you know, so one eases up there. The translations are done trying to follow everything in the Seneca, including the meaning of the sounds, the hey-ya and the way-oh-hey, that are very common in Indian poetry. Basically the way I do it is to present them visually on the page, and I can't do this in reading them, so I'm just going to select out of these poems that read easily. The purpose is curing, and well-being. \n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:19:34\nReads [\"Caw Caw the Crows Caw Caw\" published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:19:49\nReads \"Two more about a crow, in the manner of Zukofsky\" [later published in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:20:05\nThree poems about the owl, on the page, the vocables, the sounds, make the figure of an owl, even as in the singing of the song, the sound of the owl comes through. But here are just the words.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:20:19\nReads \"The Owl: One\".\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:20:25\nReads \"The Owl: Two\".\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:20:32\nReads \"The Owl: Three\".\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:20:40\n\"A Song of My Song, In Three Parts”.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:20:45\nReads \"A Song of My Song, In Three Parts\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:20:59\nReads “Three Ways to Screw Up on Your Way to the Doings” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:21:16\nBuckets are important, to bring back soup and...The last one from this series.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:21:31\nReads “Where the Song Went Where She Went & What Happened When they Met” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:22:15\nThe next are a little harder to do, but I hope I make it. The Senecas don't use many words. It's a kind of minimal poetry and the power is in the compression. The Navajos use more words, the poetry gets dense, and in addition they use many many non-verbal sounds. And in addition, they distort many of the words in the singing. So that if you translate just for the meaning, you're only getting a small part of what the Navajo is doing. And then in addition, everything is sung in the Navajo. So I began to translate a series called, because that's what they are, \"The Seventeen Horse Songs of Frank Mitchell\". Seventeen horse-blessing, horse-curing songs that were the property of a Navajo medicine man named Frank Mitchell. And the problem that came up for me, I couldn't translate just for meaning, I wanted to, you know, consider all of the factors that went into the poem. So I began to insert sounds corresponding to the sound of the English words as the Navajo had the meaning of the sounds, and to distort the words. And then it seemed to me that it was necessary to carry this further, to begin to sing the songs as well. Which came to me with great difficulty. But I've gotten through a number of them now, and what I'll do is sing one, the \"Tenth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell,\" and then do a tape for three voices of another one of the horse songs. You'll notice the words are rather similar from one to another, the melody changes. In this, and the Navajos of course would know this, the hero, Enemy-Slayer, has gone to the house of his father, the sun up there, to bring back horses for the people. And in this Tenth Horse Song, it's mostly the father, the sun, speaking, telling him to bring the horses back to the house of his mother, you know, who everybody understands to be Changing Woman. Bring it back to the earth. And sometimes the voice of Enemy-Slayer comes into it.  But the basic refrain is to \"go to the woman, go to her.\" \n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:25:24\nPerforms \"Tenth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell\" [from The 17 Horse-Songs of Frank Mitchell]. \n \nAudience\n00:31:25\nApplause.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:31:38\nThe next one, and I guess the last piece in the first set, is the \"Twelfth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell\". The melody changes. Some of the distortions change. The burden changes, and now Enemy-Slayer contemplates the horses coming back to earth with him, in the same sequence. This is done on tape, with three voices. I think that's about all there is to say about it. Three voices.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:32:23\nPlays recording of \"Twelfth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell\", sung by three voices [from The 17 Horse-Songs of Frank Mitchell and published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nAudience\n00:39:42\nApplause.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:39:48\nIn fact, let me end this set with a live poem, I don't want to end with a machine. This is another Aztec poem called \"The Flight of Quetzalcoatl\". The plumed serpent, bird-snake man. In which he discovers that he's become old, and leaves and goes on a long journey, and is reborn as the morning star.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:40:39\nReads \"The Flight of Quetzalcoatl\" [later published in Shaking the Pumpkin].\n \nAudience\n00:47:17\nApplause. \n \nUnknown\n00:47:20\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nGeorge Bowering\n00:47:20\nOkay, we'll hold for about ten minutes, and open the doors and get cool, and then come back. \n \nUnknown\n00:47:27\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:47:28\nThe second set will be a straight reading, whatever that means, from a long series of poems called \"Poland/1931\". A series of ancestral poems. So Poland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q36] is where the ancestors come from, for some number, hundreds of years. And that is Jewish Poland. And 1931, rather than 1921, is the year of my birth. And it's in a sense, though I don't keep to it too strictly, everything before that. To try to build up a world that I really don't know.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:48:29\nReads \"Poland/1931: The Wedding\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:50:46\nReads \"The King of the Jews\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:51:52\nThe next one's called \"The Key of Solomon\". It's the name of a medieval, a series of medieval magical books that were supposed to go back to the times of Solomon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37085]. \n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:57:07\nReads \"The Key of Solomon\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:53:42\n\"The Beadle's Testimony.\" Because beadles were a demon.\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:53:47\nReads \"The Beadle's Testimony\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:54:53\nTwo poems called \"Soap\".\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:54:57\nReads \"Soap \" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:55:56\nReads \"Soap II” [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:57:37\nReads \"The Rabbi's Testimony\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n00:59:08\nReads \"The Connoisseur of Jews\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:00:38\nReads \"The Beards\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:03:32\nReads \"The Mothers I\" [from Poland/1931]. \n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:04:08\nReads \"The Mothers II\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:04:43\nReads \"The Mothers III\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:05:19\nReads \"Milk & Honey I\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:06:00\nReads \"Milk & Honey II\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:06:31\nReads \"Ancestral Scenes\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:07:09\nReads \"The Fathers\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:09:10\nThis one is called \"Portrait of the Jew, Old Country Style\".\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:09:16\nReads \"Poland, 1931: Portrait of the Jew, Old Country Style\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:11:51\nThis is a longer one, called \"The Student's Testimony\"\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:12:04\nReads \"The Student's Testimony\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:17:49\nA somewhat shorter one, and then another long one, and then a quite short one and that's...that's it. \n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:17:58\nReads \"The Brothers\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:20:10\nReads \"The Steward's Testimony\" [from Poland/1931].\n\nAudience\n01:25:15\nLaughter and applause [faint].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:25:20\nNow, I'll end it with, I'll end it with two poems. \"A Poem for the Christians\". It's partly to...[Audience laughter]...it's a found poem from the prayer book. But you can see where there are changes, you know. [Audience laughter].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:25:42\nReads \"A Poem for the Christians\" [from Poland/1931].\n \nJerome Rothenberg\n01:26:45\nReads \"Fish and Paradise\".\n \nEND\n01:27:32\n[Cut off abruptly]."],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:\\n\\nJerome Rothenberg published Poland/1931 (Unicorn Press, 1969) and The Directions (Tetrad Press, 1969) with Tom Phillips and was teaching at the Mannes College for Music.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nDirect connection to Sir George Williams University is unknown. Jerome Rothenberg was an influential member of contemporary American poetry, and had correspondences with other members of the poetry reading series, such as Robert Creeley, Paul Blackburn, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Kelly, Jackson Mac Low, bp Nichol, Gary Snyder and Diane Wakoski (please see Rothenberg’s papers for correspondences).\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript and print catalogue by Rachel Kyne\\n\\nOriginal print catalogue, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\\n\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"Reel-to-reel tape>2 CDs>digital file\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-twentieth-century-poetry-in-english/oclc/954547274&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Gilbert, Roger. \\\"Rothenberg, Jerome\\\". The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Ian Hamilton. Oxford University Press, 1996.\"},{\"url\":\"https://visarts.ucsd.edu/people/emeriti-faculty/jerome-rothenberg.html?_ga=2.257346699.1600795371.1609275761-1945262426.1609275761\",\"citation\":\"“Jerome Rothenberg”. Faculty Description. University of California at San Diego. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/jerome-rothenberg-at-sgwu-1969/\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry Four: Sir George Williams Poetry Series, First Reading”. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 1969. \"},{\"url\":\"http://www.oac.cdlib.org/data/13030/gk/tf0n39n7gk/files/tf0n39n7gk.pdf\",\"citation\":\"“Register of the Jerome Rothenberg Papers, 1944-1985”. Online Archives of California.   University of California, San Diego.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/17-horse-songs-of-frank-mitchell-nos-x-xiii-total-translations-from-the-navaho-indian/oclc/976986882&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Rothenberg, Jerome. The 17 Horse-Songs of Frank Mitchell. London: Tetrad Press, 1969.\"},{\"url\":\"http://d7.drunkenboat.com/db3/rothenberg/rothenberg.html\",\"citation\":\"Rothenberg, Jerome. “Pre-Face to a Symposium on Ethnopoetics (1975)”. Drunken Boat Online Journal of the Arts, Issue 3: Fall/Winter 2001-2002.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/shaking-the-pumpkin-traditional-poetry-of-the-indian-north-americas/oclc/1131195375&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Rothenberg, Jerome. Shaking the Pumpkin. New York: Doubleday, 1972. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/seneca-journal/oclc/898040552&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Rothenberg, Jerome. A Seneca Journal. New York: New Directions, 1971.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/technicians-of-the-sacred-a-range-of-poetries-from-africa-america-asia-europe-and-oceania/oclc/1005090292&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Rothenberg, Jerome. Technicians of the Sacred. New York: Doubleday/Anchor Books, 1969.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/poems-1964-1967/oclc/869018006&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Rothenberg, Jerome. Poems 1964-1967. Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1968. \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Rothenberg, Jerome, 1931-”. Literature Online Biography. Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 2000. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670548893073408,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0095_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Jerome Rothenberg 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_0095_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0095_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Jerome Rothenberg 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_0095_side.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0095_side.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Jerome Rothenberg 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_0095_tape.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0095_tape.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Jerome Rothenberg 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/jerome_rothenberg_i006-11-095.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"jerome_rothenberg_i006-11-095.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"01:27:32\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"210.1 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"George Bowering\\n00:00:00\\nI'm glad we got this room. Welcome back to the first night of the fourth year of our series. And for those of you who are here for the first time, welcome you too. I'm really glad that we could start off with Jerome Rothenberg [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1775056], especially from my own personal viewpoint, because while Jerome Rothenberg is one of the names that I've paid a lot of attention to, and one of the names that poets have paid attention to over the last decade, this'll be the first time that I've been able to hear him read, too. Usually when, often when us people from the West think about the new American poetry, we tend to think of it in terms of people from outposts such as New Mexico [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1522], and Utah, [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q829] and San Francisco [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q62], and so on. And we forget that New York City [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60] is one of the centre-place, central-places, so that it can produce poets such as Joel Oppenheimer [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6213806] who will be here in the following spring, and Paul Blackburn [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7149388], who was here a couple of years ago. Jerome Rothenberg has always been the centre, in the centre of that scene, and not only as one of the principal poets, but as editor, and publisher, and so on and so forth, especially with a very important magazine of the 1960's called some--oblique thing [some/thing]. And he's especially interesting to me too because of the kind of work that produced a book such as Technicians of the Sacred, a compilation of the poetries from various oral traditions around the world, and a similar sort of impulse has always been at the centre of his work too. I'd also like to correct a mistake on the little printed page that wasn't really mine, that I picked up from somewhere else and couldn't quite believe myself, that said that Jerome Rothenberg was born in 1921. All I can say is that he was born sometime between the death of Lord Byron [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5679] and now. [Laughter]. But I'm pretty certain that he wasn't around in 1921. So I'd like you to give a welcome to Jerome Rothenberg.\\n \\nAudience\\n00:02:53\\nApplause.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:02:58\\nThe birthdate'll come clearer in the second part of the reading. I'll read in two parts. And in the first set, what I'll be reading are translations and re-workings of American Indian poetry, which have been important to me over the last five or six years. And I'll start with some which are based on earlier translations, re-workings of material previously translated, and then as I get into it, some translations that result from direct contact and direct experience of American Indian poetry. This is an Aztec poem. The first four or five, six poems will be Aztec or Mexican in origin, and the theme will be flowers.  \\\"Offering Flowers\\\".\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:04:24\\nReads \\\"Offering Flowers\\\" [from Technicians of the Sacred].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:07:37\\nThis is Aztec, too, in origin, translated through the Spanish.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:07:52\\nReads “A Song of Chalco” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:09:53\\nAnd it doesn't die out, even with the destruction that follows, and flowers are picked up again, this in a series of translations, again through the Spanish, of a series of Peyote songs, from the Huichol Indians of central Mexico [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q96]. The name Wirikuta [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8026952] is the name given to the place of the gods, and the spiritual place of the Peyote. The Peyote is described as the rose, it's described as the corn, the maize, it's described under a number of images, and through the figure, the mythological figure of one called the Blue Stag. This is the first Huichol, Peyote song.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:10:46\\nReads “First Peyote Song” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:11:46.19\\n\\\"Song of an Initiate\\\".\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:11:51\\nReads \\\"Song of an Initiate\\\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:12:25\\nAnd this is a poem called \\\"How the Violin Was Born: A Peyote Account”.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:12:35\\nReads \\\"How the Violin was Born: A Peyote Account” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:13:24\\nThese are a few short Indian pieces. Not poems but part of what's connected with the whole activity of poetry, among the tribal peoples. Which is more than an activity of words; which goes beyond language. And these are the events that accompany the words. And the first is an Iroquois dream event. \\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:13:58\\nReads [\\\"Dream Event 1\\\", published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:14:08\\nThese are a series of vision events. The first two are Eskimo.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:14:14\\nReads \\\"Vision Event I\\\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n\\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:14:25\\nReads \\\"Vision Event 2\\\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:14:39\\nAnd this is a Sioux Indian vision event.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:14:43\\nReads \\\"Vision Event 3\\\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:15:01\\nThis is a Kwakiutl Indian gift event. All the words are from Kwakiut'l Indians. It's either spoken in English or translated into English. The Kwakiut'l, like other Northwest Coast people, celebrate the potlatch, you know, which is not always terrible or distasteful in its consequences. This is benevolent gift-giving. \\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:15:26\\nReads \\\"Gift Event [2]\\\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:16:32\\nThese are a series of seven Navajo animal songs. \\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:16:42\\nReads \\\"Navajo Animal Songs\\\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:17:49\\nThe next few are from a series of translations I've been doing, are called, well, it's the Seneca Indian word for one of their major curing ceremonies, a term for a major curing ceremony, \\\"Shaking the Pumpkin\\\", because the pumpkin rattle, the big pumpkin rattle is the major instrument used in this. Or it's got a more ornate name, it's called \\\"The Society of the Mystic Animals\\\". The man, Richard Johnny John, Indian, who is working with me on this, explained it's a serious ceremony, he said, but if everything's alright, the one who says the prayer tells them, I leave it up to you, folks, and if you want to have a good time, have a good time. Well everything's alright in the translations, you know, so one eases up there. The translations are done trying to follow everything in the Seneca, including the meaning of the sounds, the hey-ya and the way-oh-hey, that are very common in Indian poetry. Basically the way I do it is to present them visually on the page, and I can't do this in reading them, so I'm just going to select out of these poems that read easily. The purpose is curing, and well-being. \\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:19:34\\nReads [\\\"Caw Caw the Crows Caw Caw\\\" published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:19:49\\nReads \\\"Two more about a crow, in the manner of Zukofsky\\\" [later published in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:20:05\\nThree poems about the owl, on the page, the vocables, the sounds, make the figure of an owl, even as in the singing of the song, the sound of the owl comes through. But here are just the words.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:20:19\\nReads \\\"The Owl: One\\\".\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:20:25\\nReads \\\"The Owl: Two\\\".\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:20:32\\nReads \\\"The Owl: Three\\\".\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:20:40\\n\\\"A Song of My Song, In Three Parts”.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:20:45\\nReads \\\"A Song of My Song, In Three Parts\\\" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:20:59\\nReads “Three Ways to Screw Up on Your Way to the Doings” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:21:16\\nBuckets are important, to bring back soup and...The last one from this series.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:21:31\\nReads “Where the Song Went Where She Went & What Happened When they Met” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:22:15\\nThe next are a little harder to do, but I hope I make it. The Senecas don't use many words. It's a kind of minimal poetry and the power is in the compression. The Navajos use more words, the poetry gets dense, and in addition they use many many non-verbal sounds. And in addition, they distort many of the words in the singing. So that if you translate just for the meaning, you're only getting a small part of what the Navajo is doing. And then in addition, everything is sung in the Navajo. So I began to translate a series called, because that's what they are, \\\"The Seventeen Horse Songs of Frank Mitchell\\\". Seventeen horse-blessing, horse-curing songs that were the property of a Navajo medicine man named Frank Mitchell. And the problem that came up for me, I couldn't translate just for meaning, I wanted to, you know, consider all of the factors that went into the poem. So I began to insert sounds corresponding to the sound of the English words as the Navajo had the meaning of the sounds, and to distort the words. And then it seemed to me that it was necessary to carry this further, to begin to sing the songs as well. Which came to me with great difficulty. But I've gotten through a number of them now, and what I'll do is sing one, the \\\"Tenth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell,\\\" and then do a tape for three voices of another one of the horse songs. You'll notice the words are rather similar from one to another, the melody changes. In this, and the Navajos of course would know this, the hero, Enemy-Slayer, has gone to the house of his father, the sun up there, to bring back horses for the people. And in this Tenth Horse Song, it's mostly the father, the sun, speaking, telling him to bring the horses back to the house of his mother, you know, who everybody understands to be Changing Woman. Bring it back to the earth. And sometimes the voice of Enemy-Slayer comes into it.  But the basic refrain is to \\\"go to the woman, go to her.\\\" \\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:25:24\\nPerforms \\\"Tenth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell\\\" [from The 17 Horse-Songs of Frank Mitchell]. \\n \\nAudience\\n00:31:25\\nApplause.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:31:38\\nThe next one, and I guess the last piece in the first set, is the \\\"Twelfth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell\\\". The melody changes. Some of the distortions change. The burden changes, and now Enemy-Slayer contemplates the horses coming back to earth with him, in the same sequence. This is done on tape, with three voices. I think that's about all there is to say about it. Three voices.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:32:23\\nPlays recording of \\\"Twelfth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell\\\", sung by three voices [from The 17 Horse-Songs of Frank Mitchell and published later in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nAudience\\n00:39:42\\nApplause.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:39:48\\nIn fact, let me end this set with a live poem, I don't want to end with a machine. This is another Aztec poem called \\\"The Flight of Quetzalcoatl\\\". The plumed serpent, bird-snake man. In which he discovers that he's become old, and leaves and goes on a long journey, and is reborn as the morning star.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:40:39\\nReads \\\"The Flight of Quetzalcoatl\\\" [later published in Shaking the Pumpkin].\\n \\nAudience\\n00:47:17\\nApplause. \\n \\nUnknown\\n00:47:20\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:47:20\\nOkay, we'll hold for about ten minutes, and open the doors and get cool, and then come back. \\n \\nUnknown\\n00:47:27\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:47:28\\nThe second set will be a straight reading, whatever that means, from a long series of poems called \\\"Poland/1931\\\". A series of ancestral poems. So Poland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q36] is where the ancestors come from, for some number, hundreds of years. And that is Jewish Poland. And 1931, rather than 1921, is the year of my birth. And it's in a sense, though I don't keep to it too strictly, everything before that. To try to build up a world that I really don't know.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:48:29\\nReads \\\"Poland/1931: The Wedding\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:50:46\\nReads \\\"The King of the Jews\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:51:52\\nThe next one's called \\\"The Key of Solomon\\\". It's the name of a medieval, a series of medieval magical books that were supposed to go back to the times of Solomon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37085]. \\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:57:07\\nReads \\\"The Key of Solomon\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:53:42\\n\\\"The Beadle's Testimony.\\\" Because beadles were a demon.\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:53:47\\nReads \\\"The Beadle's Testimony\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:54:53\\nTwo poems called \\\"Soap\\\".\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:54:57\\nReads \\\"Soap \\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:55:56\\nReads \\\"Soap II” [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:57:37\\nReads \\\"The Rabbi's Testimony\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n00:59:08\\nReads \\\"The Connoisseur of Jews\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:00:38\\nReads \\\"The Beards\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:03:32\\nReads \\\"The Mothers I\\\" [from Poland/1931]. \\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:04:08\\nReads \\\"The Mothers II\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:04:43\\nReads \\\"The Mothers III\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:05:19\\nReads \\\"Milk & Honey I\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:06:00\\nReads \\\"Milk & Honey II\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:06:31\\nReads \\\"Ancestral Scenes\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:07:09\\nReads \\\"The Fathers\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:09:10\\nThis one is called \\\"Portrait of the Jew, Old Country Style\\\".\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:09:16\\nReads \\\"Poland, 1931: Portrait of the Jew, Old Country Style\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:11:51\\nThis is a longer one, called \\\"The Student's Testimony\\\"\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:12:04\\nReads \\\"The Student's Testimony\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:17:49\\nA somewhat shorter one, and then another long one, and then a quite short one and that's...that's it. \\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:17:58\\nReads \\\"The Brothers\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:20:10\\nReads \\\"The Steward's Testimony\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n\\nAudience\\n01:25:15\\nLaughter and applause [faint].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:25:20\\nNow, I'll end it with, I'll end it with two poems. \\\"A Poem for the Christians\\\". It's partly to...[Audience laughter]...it's a found poem from the prayer book. But you can see where there are changes, you know. [Audience laughter].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:25:42\\nReads \\\"A Poem for the Christians\\\" [from Poland/1931].\\n \\nJerome Rothenberg\\n01:26:45\\nReads \\\"Fish and Paradise\\\".\\n \\nEND\\n01:27:32\\n[Cut off abruptly].\",\"notes\":\"Jerome Rothenberg reads poems published later in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972) and from Poland/1931 (Unicorn Press, 1969).\\n\\nRachel has indexed poems.\\n00:00- George Bowering introduces Jerome Rothenberg. [INDEX: room, first night of fourth year of the series, poets, West, New American Poetry, New Mexico, Utah, San Francisco, New York City, Joel Oppenheimer, Paul Blackburn, editor, publisher, Some CH Oblique Thing [unknown 1960’s magazine], Technicians of the Sacred, oral traditions worldwide, pamphlet mistake: Rothenberg not born in 1921, Lord Byron.]\\n02:58- Jerome Rothenberg introduces reading and “Offering Flowers”. [INDEX: birthdate, two-part reading, translations or re-workings of American Indian poetry, direct contact, direct experience with American Indians, Aztec poem, Mexican, theme of flowers; unknown source.]\\n04:24- Reads “Offering Flowers”. [INDEX: translation, Aztec, Mexico, flower, feast, offering, morning, temple, spiritual, god, dance, repetition, anaphora, food, drink, word]\\n07:37- Introduces “A Song of Chalco”. [INDEX: Aztec in origin, translated to Spanish; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n07:52- Reads “A Song of Chalco”. [INDEX: rose, fire, god, house, bird, thrush,   song, poet, forest, flower, dance, lust, father, prince, joy, son, body, river.]\\n09:53- Introduces first line “First Peyote Song”. [INDEX: die out, destruction, flowers, translations, Spanish, Peyote songs, Huichol Indians of central Mexico, Wiricota, gods,        spiritual place of the Peyote, rose, the corn, the maize, images, mythological figure called Blue Stag, Huichol; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n10:46- Reads first line “First Peyote Song” . [INDEX: rose, birth, flower, wind, eternal, god, mountain, mother, house, heart, Peyote, Blue Stag, rain, maize, earth, Aztec, Mexico, song.]\\n11:46- Reads “Song of an Initiate”. [INDEX: rose, song, god, stair, sky, silence; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n12:25- Introduces “How the Violin Was Born: A Peyote Account”. [INDEX: peyote account; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n12:35- Reads “How the Violin Was Born”. [INDEX: music, violin, wood, cedar, stone, tree, heart, soul, Big Stag, bird, song, wind.]\\n13:24- Introduces “Dream Event I”. [INDEX: Indian pieces, whole activity of poetry, tribal peoples, activity of words, beyond language, events that accompany words, Iroquois dream-event; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n13:58- Reads “Dream Event I\\\". [INDEX: aboriginal, dream, community,         \\tinterpretation, theatre.]\\n14:08- Introduces “Vision Event I”. [INDEX: ‘Eskimo’; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n14:14- Reads “Vision Event I”. [INDEX: aboriginal, Eskimo, solitude, stone, circle, place, time, ritual.]\\n14:25- Reads “Vision Event II”. [INDEX: aboriginal, Eskimo, vision, hanging, sight; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n14:39- Introduces “Vision Event III”. [INDEX: Sioux Indian.]\\n14:43- Reads “Vision Event III”. [INDEX: American Indian, aboriginal, vision, crying, sight; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n15:01- Introduces “Gift Event” [INDEX: Kwakiut’l Indian gift event, English, translation,        Northwest Coast people, celebrate the potlatch, consequences, benevolent; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n15:26- Reads “Gift Event”. [INDEX: Kwakiut'l, giving, gift, potlatch, Northwest, coast, aboriginal, animal, ritual, house, sound, value, name.]\\n16:32- Introduces “Seven Navajo Animal Songs”.\\n16:42- Reads “Seven Navajo Animal Songs”. [INDEX: animal, chipmunk, action, movement, mole, sex, wildcat, water, turkey, madness, scatological, pinion jay, bird; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n17:49- Introduces “Caw Caw the Crows Caw”. [INDEX: Seneca Indian word, curing ceremony “Shaking the pumpkin”, instrument, “The Society of the Mystic Animals”, Richard Johnny-John Indian, serious ceremony, prayer, translations, meanings of sounds, Indian poetry, visual presentation of sound, curing, well-being; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n19:34- Reads “Caw Caw the Crows Caw”.  [INDEX: Seneca, aboriginal, crow, movement; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n19:49- Reads  “Two more about a crow, in the manner of Zukofsky...”.  [INDEX: Louis Zukofsky, sound, Seneca, aboriginal later published in Shaking the Pumpkin      (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n20:05- Introduces “The Owl: One”. [INDEX: page, vocables, sounds, figure, singing of song, \\tsound of the owl.]\\n20:19- Reads “The Owl: One”. [INDEX: Seneca, aboriginal, owl, home, tree, hemlock]\\n20:25- Reads “The Owl: Two”.  [INDEX: Seneca, aboriginal, cure, sickness, poison, owl]\\n20:32- Reads “The Owl: Three”. [INDEX: Seneca, aboriginal, owl, tree, sound, whistle.]\\n20:40- Reads “A Song of My Song”. [INDEX: three parts, song, distance, circle, room,   proximity, sound; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n20:59- Reads “Three Ways to Screw Up on Your Way to the Doings”. [INDEX: later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972)\\n21:16- Introduces “Where the Song Went Where She Went & What Happened When they Met”. [INDEX: buckets, soup, last of series; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n21:31- Reads “Where the Song Went Where She Went & What Happened When they Met”\\n22:15- Introduces “Tenth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell”. [INDEX: Senecas, words, minimal poetry, power in compression, Navajo poetry, non-verbal sounds, distort words when sung, translation, meaning, series, horse-blessing, horse-curing songs, Navajo medicine man Frank Mitchell, problem translating, insert sounds, English, sing, tape of three voices of horse song, melody, hero, Enemy-Slayer, father’s house, sun, people, mother, Changing Woman, earth, refrain “go to the woman, go to her”.]\\n25:24- Reads/Sings “Tenth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell”.\\n31:38- Introduces “Twelfth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell”. [INDEX: melody change, distortions change, burden changes, Enemy-Slayer, horses, earth, sequence, three voices, later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n32:23- Plays recording of “Twelfth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell”.\\n39:48- Introduces “The Flight of the Quetzalcoatl”. [INDEX: live poem, machine, Aztec poem, plumed serpent, bird-snake-man, old, long journey, morning star; published later in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).]\\n40:39- Reads “The Flight of the Quetzalcoatl”.\\n47:20- George Bowering introduces break.\\n47:27.02- END OF RECORDING.\\n\\n00:00- Jerome Rothenberg introduces long poem “Poland 1931”. [INDEX: long poem, ancestral poems, Jewish Poland, year of Rothenberg’s birth, world unknown.]\\n01:02- Reads “Poland, 1931: The Wedding”.\\n03:19- Reads “Poland, 1931: The King of Jews”.\\n04:25- Introduces “Poland, 1931: The Key of Solomon”. [INDEX: medieval magical books.]\\n04:40- Reads “Poland, 1931: The Key of Solomon”.\\n06:15- Introduces “Poland, 1931: The Beetle’s Testimony”. [INDEX: beetles, demon.]\\n06:20- Reads “Poland, 1931: The Beetle’s Testimony”.\\n07:26- Introduces “Poland, 1931: Soap”. [INDEX: two poems called “Soap”.]\\n07:30- Reads “Poland, 1931: Soap I”.\\n08:29- Reads “Poland, 1931: Soap II”.\\n10:10- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: The Rabbi's Testimony\\\"\\n11:41- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: The Connoisseur of Jews\\\"\\n13:11- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: The Beards\\\"\\n16:05- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: The Mothers I\\\"  \\n16:41- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: The Mothers II\\\"\\n17:16- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: The Mothers III\\\"\\n17:52- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: Milk and Honey I\\\"\\n18:33- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: Milk and Honey II\\\"\\n19:04- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: Ancestral Scenes\\\"\\n19:42- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: The Fathers\\\"\\n21:43- Introduces \\\"Poland, 1931: Portrait of the Jew, Old Country Style\\\"\\n21:49- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: Portrait of the Jew, Old Country Style\\\"\\n24:24- Introduces \\\"Poland, 1931: The Student's Testimony\\\"\\n24:37- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: The Student's Testimony\\\"\\n30:31- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: The Brothers\\\"\\n32:43- Reads \\\"Poland, 1931: The Steward's Testimony\\\"\\n37:53- Introduces “A Poem for the Christians”. [INDEX: found poem in prayer book.]\\n38:15- Reads \\\"A Poem for the Christians\\\"\\n39:18- Reads \\\"Fish and Paradise\\\"\\n00:40:05.58- END OF RECORDING\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"Yes\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/jerome-rothenberg-at-sgwu-1969/\"}]"],"score":2.9270062},{"id":"1281","cataloger_name":["Mahtab,Banihashemi"],"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":["Allen Ginsberg at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 7 November 1969"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"ALAN GINSBERG -1 Recorded November 7, 1969 3.75 ips on 1 mil. tape, 1/2 track\" written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. ALAN GINSBERG refers to Allen Ginsberg. ALAN is mispelled. \"PERMISSION FROM HOWARD FINK TO REPRODUCE THIS TAPE\" also written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. \"ALAN GINSBERG-1 I006/SR33.1\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. \"I006-11-033.1\" written on sticker on the reel.\n\n\"ALAN GINSBERG -2 Recorded November 7, 1969 3.75 ips on 1 mil. tape, 1/2 track\" written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. ALAN GINSBERG refers to Allen Ginsberg. ALAN is mispelled. \"PERMISSION FROM HOWARD FINK TO REPRODUCE THIS TAPE\" also written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. \"ALAN GINSBERG-1 I006/SR33.2\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. \"ALAN GINSBERG-1 I006-11-033.2\" written on sticker on the reel."],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 4"],"item_identifiers":["[I006-11-033.1, I006-11-033.2]"],"creator_names":["Ginsberg, Irwin Allen"],"creator_names_search":["Ginsberg, Irwin Allen"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/108417923\",\"name\":\"Ginsberg, Irwin Allen\",\"dates\":\"1926-1997 \",\"notes\":\"Poet, revolutionary, and Beat generation icon Allen Ginsberg was born on June 3, 1926 in Paterson, New Jersey, to Naomi, a radical communist, and Louis Ginsberg, teacher and lyric poet. In his early life, Ginsberg’s mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, a condition that would forever shape her son’s life. After graduation from high school, Ginsberg was accepted to Columbia University on scholarship to study labor law. However, after meeting Mark Van Doren and Lionel Trilling, Ginsberg turned to English and poetry. It was also at this time when he met Jack Kerouac, Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Neal Cassady who would eventually form the ‘Beat Generation’. In 1948, Ginsberg had a vision of poet William Blake entering his apartment window, an event which would influence the rest of his life, attempting to recapture the image. In 1949, Ginsberg had a few minor run-ins with the law and he was committed to the Columbia-Presbyterian Psychiatric Institution. There he met his future publisher and life-long friend, Carl Solomon, a troubled intellectual. After serving in the merchant marines, and spending several months in Mexico, Ginsberg moved to San Francisco, where he met poets Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder and Peter Orlovsky, who would become his life-long partner. After composing his first major notable poem, “Howl”, in 1955, he and Rexroth organized a reading of it at the Six Gallery, featuring Snyder and Michael McClure, with Lawrence Ferlenghetti (who later published the poem) and Kerouac in attendance. Ginsberg’s first collection of poetry was published in 1956, but with its second printing in 1957, Howl and Other Poems (City Lights Books, 1956) was seized by U.S. Customs for being ‘obscene’. However, after a trial, the book was deemed to have literary merit, which propelled Ginsberg and the Beat group of poets into instant fame, giving Ginsberg the opportunity to promote Kerouac’s On the Road and Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. In 1956, Ginsberg received news that his mother had died, which compelled him to write the poems “Death to Van Gogh’s Ear!” and “The Lion for Real”, and Kaddish and Other Poems (City Lights Books, 1961) as well as Empty Mirror: Early Poems (Corinth Books, 1961). During the 1960s Ginsberg traveled widely with Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Snyder to Paris, India, Tangier, Prague (where he was deported for being a corrupting influence). He published  Reality Sandwiches: 1953-1960 (City Lights Books, 1963), The Yage Letters with William Burroughs (City Lights Books, 1963), TV Baby Poems (Beach Books, 1968), Angkor Wat (Fulcrum Press, 1968), Planet News (City Lights Books, 1968), and Airplane Dreams: Compositions from Journals (City Lights Books, 1969). The years of 1968 and 1969 were filled with mourning for Ginsberg, as he learned of the death of both Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac. The 1970s saw Ginsberg publish a number of collections, including The Fall of America: Poems of These States (City Lights, 1972), which won the National Book Award in 1974, The Gates of Wrath: Rhymed Poems, 1948-1952 (Grey Fox, 1972), Iron Horse (City Lights, 1974), First Blues: Rags, Ballads and Harmonium Songs, 1971-1974 (Full Court Press, 1975), Mind Breaths: Poems (City Lights, 1977), Poems All Over the Place: Mostly Seventies (Cherry Valley Editions, 1978). In 1976, Ginsberg and poet Anne Waldman were invited to create a writing program at the Naropa Institute in Colorado, which they named the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. In the 1980s and 1990s, Ginsberg published Plutonian Ode and Other Poems, 1977-1980 (City Lights, 1982), White Shroud: Poems 1980-1985 (Harper & Row, 1986), Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems, 1986-1992 (HarperCollins,1994), Selected Poems (HarperCollins, 1996), Death & Fame: Last Poems, 1993-1997 (HarperFlamingo, 1999). Until his death, Ginsberg used his fame and poetry to speak out against censorship, the Vietnam War and drug prohibition, and for gay rights. Allen Ginsberg died in New York City, on April 4th, 1997.\",\"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":[1969],"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\":\"Excellent\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"track_configuration\":\"Half-track\",\"material_designation\":\"Reel to Reel\",\"physical_composition\":\"Magnetic Tape\",\"accompanying_material\":\"\",\"other_physical_description\":\"\"},{\"side\":\"\",\"image\":\"\",\"other\":\"\",\"extent\":\"1/4 inch\",\"AV_types\":\"Audio\",\"tape_brand\":\"\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"3 3/4 ips\",\"sound_quality\":\"Excellent\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"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","Reel to Reel"],"physical_compositions":["Magnetic Tape","Magnetic Tape"],"recording_type":["Analogue","Analogue"],"AV_type":["Audio","Audio"],"playback_mode":["Mono","Mono"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"1969 11 7\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Date written on sticker on the back of the tape's box.\",\"source\":\"Accompanying Material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building Room H-110\",\"notes\":\"Previous researcher\",\"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 Room H-110"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Allen Ginsberg reads from Angkor Wat (Fulcrum Press, 1968), Planet News (City Lights Books, 1968), as well as pieces that were published later in The Fall of America: Poems of These States (City Lights Books, 1973). Ginsbger also performs musical versions of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience (MGM, 1970). "],"contents":["allen_ginsberg_i006-11-033-1.mp3 [File 1 of 2]\n \nUnnamed Performers and Audience\n00:00:00\nSing and chant accompanied by music . \n \nUnknown\n00:16:38\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nGeorge Bowering\n00:16:41\nWelcome to the...welcome to the fourth—third week of the fourth series of our readings here at Sir George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q326342] and this one is a special one, partly in that it was, it is being presented by a combination of the daytime Arts Student Association and the evening Arts Student Association, and not simply on the normal schedule. I'm certain that you don't have to be told who Allen Ginsberg [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6711] is, and you might think on how lucky it is that you happen to be in Montreal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q340] and he is here at the same time. Last night he was at York University [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q849751] in Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172], and tomorrow he's going to be in Ottawa [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1930], and we're going to sap an awful lot of his energy. Allen is, I think, the most noted poet we've had over the last couple of decades, in the world, and as you're going to find out and as you already know, one of the super-poets in terms of writing poetry, as well. I'd like to give you, without any more cogitation, Mr. Allen Ginsberg. \n\nAudience\n00:18:13\nApplause.\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:18:23\nGeorge Bowering [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280], who I've known a long time, asked me to read a poem that I haven't read through but once before, called \"Angkor Wat\". So I'll try that. It's middle-sized, like, ten minutes, probably. What it is, is notations taken down in the course of one night in Cambodia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q424], in Siem Reap [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11711], which is outside of Angkor Wat [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q43473], a town outside of the ruins.\n \nUnknown\n00:18:55\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:18:56\nReads \"Angkor Wat\" [from Angkor Wat]. \n \nAudience\n00:41:32\nApplause [cut off].\n \nUnknown\n00:41:37\nSilence [cut or edit made in tape].  \n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:41:45\nI want to read a couple poems from a book published in Toronto by Anansi Press, or one poem from that. This is written in Saigon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1854], so it's about a week, yes it's about...the same week, I think. Oh this is...a week before. \n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:42:19\nReads “Understand that this is a Dream” [from Airplane Dreams].\n \nUnknown\n00:49:28\nSilence [cut or edit made in tape].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:49:36\nI've been working on Blake's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41513] Songs of Innocence [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q20644964] and Experience [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q27890603], making tunes, or tuning the songs, so I'd like to sing some. \n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:49:48\nPerforms \"(a) Introduction / (b) The Shepherd”, accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience]. \n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:52:30\nSinging them in the order in Experience, that they're in the book, what follows is \"The Echoing Green\".\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:52:40\nPerforms \"The Echoing Green\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience]. \n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:54:29\n“The Little Boy Lost\" and \"The Little Boy Found\".\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:54:41\nPerforms \"The Little Boy Lost\" and \"The Little Boy Found\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience]. \n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:56:14\nPerforms \"The Blossom\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience]. \n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:57:16\nFrom Experience, the first song is \"Hear the Voice of the Bard\".\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:57:22\nPerforms \"Hear the Voice of the Bard\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later as “Introduction” on Songs of Innocence and Experience]. \n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:59:26\nAnd the last song in Experience...\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:59:33\nPerforms \"Introduction\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n01:00:47.46\nAnd last from Innocence, \"The Laughing Song\".\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n01:00:50\nPerforms \"The Laughing Song\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later as “b) Laughing Song” on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\n \nAudience\n01:01:48\nApplause [cut off].\n\nEND\n01:01:52\n\n\nallen_ginsberg_i006-11-033-2.mp3 [File 2 of 2] \n\nAllen Ginsberg\n00:00:00\nReads \"Morning\" [from Planet News]. \n \nAudience\n00:02:17\nLaughter and applause.\n \nUnknown\n00:02:23\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:02:23\nReads \"Today\" [from Planet News]. \n \nAudience\n00:10:04\nApplause.\n \nUnknown\n00:10:07\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:10:08\nReads \"First party at Ken Kesey's with Hell's Angels\" [from Planet News]. \n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:11:22\nReads \"Uptown\" [from Planet News]. \n \nAudience\n00:12:20\nLaughter and applause\n \nUnknown\n00:12:29\n[Cut or edit made in tape].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:12:30\nPerforms \"Holy Ghost on the Nod over the Body of Bliss\" [from Planet News]. \n \nAudience\n00:14:46\nApplause.\n \nUnknown\n00:14:52\nSilence [cut or edit made in tape].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:14:59\nPerforms \"Hari Om Namah Shivaya” chant, accompanying himself on harmonium. \n \nAudience\n00:25:17\nApplause.\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:25:22\nPerforms \"The Lamb\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:27:00\nPerforms \"The Little Black Boy\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:30:11\nPerforms \"Holy Thursday\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:31:37\nI'll finish the Blake with \"The Nurse's Song\". Get up a little closer to me.\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:31:52\nPerforms\"The Nurse's Song\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later as “Nurses Song” on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:32:27\nNo...start again.\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:32:32\nPerforms \"The Nurse's Song\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later as “Nurses Song” on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\n \nAudience\n00:35:58\nApplause.\n \nUnknown\n00:36:05\nSilence [cut or edit made in tape].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:36:13\nThe continuation of a long poem on these dates. Some of those who are specialists, some of those who are specialists in poesy will know a text published in a book I've been reading from, Planet News [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7201132], called \"Wichita Vortex Sutra\". This is the continuation of the same long poem a year later, bringing the war, the mental war up to 1967. January, 1967. Related to the poem \"Wichita Vortex Sutra\" in that it's crossing the central part of the United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30] again, north of Kansas [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1558] through Nebraska [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1553], passing again by Lincoln [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q28260], Nebraska. A trip between Wichita, Kansas and Lincoln, Nebraska two...a year and a half earlier having been the subject of the text \"Wichita Vortex Sutra\". This continuation.\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:37:09\nReads [“Returning North of Vortex\", published later in The Fall of America: Poems of These States].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:43:12\nA continuation of the same poem, between Kansas City [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41819] and St. Louis [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q38022]. Middle of the long poem on these dates.\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:43:22\nReads [\"Kansas City to Saint Louis\", published later in The Fall of America: Poems of These States].\n \nAudience\n00:52:41\nApplause.\n \nUnknown\n00:52:46\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:52:47\nReads \"Car Crash\" [published later in The Fall of America: Poems of These States; audience laughter throughout].\n\nAllen Ginsberg\n00:58:17\nAnd July 4th, 1969. \"Orange hawkeye\"--Hawkeye is a New York state [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1384] flower, a flower that grows in New York state, very tiny, bright orange, eyeball with a tiny brown, brownish, purplish pupil.\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n00:58:35\nReads [\"Independence Day\", published later in The Fall of America: Poems of These States]\n \nAllen Ginsberg\n01:00:49\nFinish with a mantra. Well or, read one last poem, which has been distributed by Dakota Broadsides, they're people from Logos, or connected with Logos, I think. Is that not right? Yeah. I'll pass these out, I think. It's a poem written in Grant Park [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q159085] on August 28th, '68, during the Democratic Convention. Uh, Grant Park, the day after the election of, or the day after the nomination of Humphrey [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q209989]. \n \nAllen Ginsberg\n01:01:27\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nAudience\n01:02:25\nApplause and laughter [cut off].\n \nEND\n01:02:31\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information: \\n\\nIn 1969, Ginsberg had published Airplane Dreams: Compositions from Journals. In June of 1969, Ginsberg recorded a series of William Blake’s poetry set to music, which was released by MGM records in 1970. Close friend Jack Kerouac died on October 21, 1969, which prompted Allen to write his long elegy, “Memory Gardens”. In December, Ginsberg testified in court at the “Chicago Seven” trial of protesters in the 1968 Democratic National Convention.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nAllen Ginsberg not only became a household name and a symbol for youth in North America during the 60’s and 70’s, he led the ‘Beat’ poetry movement, was a world traveler, a defender of civil and human rights, a teacher and spiritual guide. Ginsberg states in the recording that he had known George Bowering, who was a professor at Sir George Williams University, for “a long time” (I006-11-033.1).\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"George Bowering published his reaction to Ginsberg’s poem, “Howl” in 1969, How I hear Howl (Montreal, Beaver kosmos folio, 1, 1969).\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Stephen Morrissey has recollections of attending most of the readings in the series: <http://www.vehiculepoets.com/recollective_essay.htm>\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Original print catalogue, introduction, research and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"2 reel-to-reel tapes>2 CDs>2 digital files\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-twentieth-century-poetry-in-english/oclc/807465072&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Butscher, Edward. \\\"Ginsberg, Allen\\\". The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Ian Hamilton, ed. Oxford University Press, 1996.\\n\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-encyclopedia-of-american-literature/oclc/769478515&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Carlise, Chuck. \\\"Ginsberg, Allen\\\". The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. Jay Parini, ed. Oxford University Press 2004. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/ankor-wat/oclc/17611&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Ginsberg, Allen. Angkor Wat. London: Fulcrum Press, 1968. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/planet-news-1961-1967/oclc/806341370&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Ginsberg, Allen. Planet News. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1968. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/fall-of-america-poems-of-these-states-1965-1971/oclc/472756006&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Ginsberg, Allen. The Fall of America: Poems of These States. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1973.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q20713959\",\"citation\":\"Ginsberg, Allen. Songs of Innocence and Experience. New York: MGM, 1970. \"},{\"url\":\"http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/ginsberg-fbi.html\",\"citation\":\"Mitgang, Herbert. Dangerous dossiers: exposing the secret war against America’s greatest authors. New York: D.I. Fine, 1988.\"},{\"url\":\"http://www.allenginsberg.org\",\"citation\":\"Allen Ginsberg Project. The Allen Ginsberg Trust, 2010. \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Duerden, Paul. “Ginsberg, Allen, 1926-”. Literature Online Biography. Proquest, 2008.   \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Nook: Ginsberg”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 12 November 1969, page 7.\"}]"],"_version_":1853670548896219136,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0033-1_back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0033-1_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Allen Ginsberg Tape Box 1 - 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_0033-1_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0033-1_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Allen Ginsberg Tape Box 1 - 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Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:16:41\\nWelcome to the...welcome to the fourth—third week of the fourth series of our readings here at Sir George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q326342] and this one is a special one, partly in that it was, it is being presented by a combination of the daytime Arts Student Association and the evening Arts Student Association, and not simply on the normal schedule. I'm certain that you don't have to be told who Allen Ginsberg [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6711] is, and you might think on how lucky it is that you happen to be in Montreal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q340] and he is here at the same time. Last night he was at York University [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q849751] in Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172], and tomorrow he's going to be in Ottawa [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1930], and we're going to sap an awful lot of his energy. Allen is, I think, the most noted poet we've had over the last couple of decades, in the world, and as you're going to find out and as you already know, one of the super-poets in terms of writing poetry, as well. I'd like to give you, without any more cogitation, Mr. Allen Ginsberg. \\n\\nAudience\\n00:18:13\\nApplause.\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:18:23\\nGeorge Bowering [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280], who I've known a long time, asked me to read a poem that I haven't read through but once before, called \\\"Angkor Wat\\\". So I'll try that. It's middle-sized, like, ten minutes, probably. What it is, is notations taken down in the course of one night in Cambodia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q424], in Siem Reap [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11711], which is outside of Angkor Wat [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q43473], a town outside of the ruins.\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:18:55\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:18:56\\nReads \\\"Angkor Wat\\\" [from Angkor Wat]. \\n \\nAudience\\n00:41:32\\nApplause [cut off].\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:41:37\\nSilence [cut or edit made in tape].  \\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:41:45\\nI want to read a couple poems from a book published in Toronto by Anansi Press, or one poem from that. This is written in Saigon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1854], so it's about a week, yes it's about...the same week, I think. Oh this is...a week before. \\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:42:19\\nReads “Understand that this is a Dream” [from Airplane Dreams].\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:49:28\\nSilence [cut or edit made in tape].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:49:36\\nI've been working on Blake's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41513] Songs of Innocence [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q20644964] and Experience [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q27890603], making tunes, or tuning the songs, so I'd like to sing some. \\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:49:48\\nPerforms \\\"(a) Introduction / (b) The Shepherd”, accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience]. \\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:52:30\\nSinging them in the order in Experience, that they're in the book, what follows is \\\"The Echoing Green\\\".\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:52:40\\nPerforms \\\"The Echoing Green\\\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience]. \\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:54:29\\n“The Little Boy Lost\\\" and \\\"The Little Boy Found\\\".\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:54:41\\nPerforms \\\"The Little Boy Lost\\\" and \\\"The Little Boy Found\\\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience]. \\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:56:14\\nPerforms \\\"The Blossom\\\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience]. \\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:57:16\\nFrom Experience, the first song is \\\"Hear the Voice of the Bard\\\".\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:57:22\\nPerforms \\\"Hear the Voice of the Bard\\\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later as “Introduction” on Songs of Innocence and Experience]. \\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:59:26\\nAnd the last song in Experience...\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:59:33\\nPerforms \\\"Introduction\\\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n01:00:47.46\\nAnd last from Innocence, \\\"The Laughing Song\\\".\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n01:00:50\\nPerforms \\\"The Laughing Song\\\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later as “b) Laughing Song” on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\\n \\nAudience\\n01:01:48\\nApplause [cut off].\\n\\nEND\\n01:01:52\\n\",\"notes\":\"Allen Ginsberg reads from Angkor Wat (Fulcrum Press, 1968), Planet News (City Lights Books, 1968), as well as pieces that were published later in The Fall of America: Poems of These States (City Lights Books, 1973). Ginsbger also performs musical versions of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience (MGM, 1970). \\n                                              \\n00:00- Recording begins with Hare Krishna chanting music.\\n16:41- George Bowering introduces Allen Ginsberg. [INDEX: Sir George Williams University, third week of the fourth series of readings, reading presented with both daytime and evening Arts Student Association, Ginsberg’s reading schedule: York University (Toronto), Ottawa.]\\n18:23- Introduces “Angkor Wat”. [INDEX: George Bowering, notations taken from one night in Siem Reap, Cambodia; from Angkor Wat (Fulcrum Press, 1968).]\\n18:56- Reads “Angkor Wat”.\\n41:45- Introduces “Understand That This is a Dream”. [INDEX: Published by Anansi Press, Toronto; found in Airplane Dreams (City Lights Books, 1969).]\\n42:19- Reads “Understand That This is a Dream”.\\n49:36- Introduces Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, poem beginning “Piping down the valleys wild”.\\n49:48- Sings (with harmonium-style instrument) “Piping down the valleys wild”.\\n51:20- Sings (with harmonium-style instrument) “How sweet is the shepherd’s sweet lot”.\\n52:30- Introduces “The Echoing Green” [INDEX: Blake’s Experience.]\\n52:40- Sings (with harmonium-style instrument) “The Echoing Green”.\\n54:29- Sings (with harmonium-style instrument) “The Little Boy Lost” and “The Little Boy Found”.\\n56:14- Sings (with harmonium-style instrument) “The Blossom”.\\n57:16- Introduces “Hear the Voice of the Bard” [INDEX: from Experience.]\\n57:22- Sings (with harmonium-style instrument) “Hear the Voice of the Bard”.\\n59:33- Sings (with harmonium-style instrument) “Youth of delight, come hither”.\\n1:00:47- Sings (with harmonium-style instrument) “The Laughing Song”\\n1:01:48.50- END OF RECORDING.\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/allen-ginsberg-at-sgwu-1969/#1\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/allen_ginsberg_i006-11-033-2.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"allen_ginsberg_i006-11-033-2.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"66.6 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"allen_ginsberg_i006-11-033-2.mp3 [File 2 of 2] \\n\\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:00:00\\nReads \\\"Morning\\\" [from Planet News]. \\n \\nAudience\\n00:02:17\\nLaughter and applause.\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:02:23\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:02:23\\nReads \\\"Today\\\" [from Planet News]. \\n \\nAudience\\n00:10:04\\nApplause.\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:10:07\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:10:08\\nReads \\\"First party at Ken Kesey's with Hell's Angels\\\" [from Planet News]. \\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:11:22\\nReads \\\"Uptown\\\" [from Planet News]. \\n \\nAudience\\n00:12:20\\nLaughter and applause\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:12:29\\n[Cut or edit made in tape].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:12:30\\nPerforms \\\"Holy Ghost on the Nod over the Body of Bliss\\\" [from Planet News]. \\n \\nAudience\\n00:14:46\\nApplause.\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:14:52\\nSilence [cut or edit made in tape].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:14:59\\nPerforms \\\"Hari Om Namah Shivaya” chant, accompanying himself on harmonium. \\n \\nAudience\\n00:25:17\\nApplause.\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:25:22\\nPerforms \\\"The Lamb\\\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:27:00\\nPerforms \\\"The Little Black Boy\\\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:30:11\\nPerforms \\\"Holy Thursday\\\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:31:37\\nI'll finish the Blake with \\\"The Nurse's Song\\\". Get up a little closer to me.\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:31:52\\nPerforms\\\"The Nurse's Song\\\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later as “Nurses Song” on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:32:27\\nNo...start again.\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:32:32\\nPerforms \\\"The Nurse's Song\\\", accompanying himself on harmonium [recorded later as “Nurses Song” on Songs of Innocence and Experience].\\n \\nAudience\\n00:35:58\\nApplause.\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:36:05\\nSilence [cut or edit made in tape].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:36:13\\nThe continuation of a long poem on these dates. Some of those who are specialists, some of those who are specialists in poesy will know a text published in a book I've been reading from, Planet News [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7201132], called \\\"Wichita Vortex Sutra\\\". This is the continuation of the same long poem a year later, bringing the war, the mental war up to 1967. January, 1967. Related to the poem \\\"Wichita Vortex Sutra\\\" in that it's crossing the central part of the United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30] again, north of Kansas [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1558] through Nebraska [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1553], passing again by Lincoln [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q28260], Nebraska. A trip between Wichita, Kansas and Lincoln, Nebraska two...a year and a half earlier having been the subject of the text \\\"Wichita Vortex Sutra\\\". This continuation.\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:37:09\\nReads [“Returning North of Vortex\\\", published later in The Fall of America: Poems of These States].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:43:12\\nA continuation of the same poem, between Kansas City [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41819] and St. Louis [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q38022]. Middle of the long poem on these dates.\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:43:22\\nReads [\\\"Kansas City to Saint Louis\\\", published later in The Fall of America: Poems of These States].\\n \\nAudience\\n00:52:41\\nApplause.\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:52:46\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:52:47\\nReads \\\"Car Crash\\\" [published later in The Fall of America: Poems of These States; audience laughter throughout].\\n\\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:58:17\\nAnd July 4th, 1969. \\\"Orange hawkeye\\\"--Hawkeye is a New York state [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1384] flower, a flower that grows in New York state, very tiny, bright orange, eyeball with a tiny brown, brownish, purplish pupil.\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n00:58:35\\nReads [\\\"Independence Day\\\", published later in The Fall of America: Poems of These States]\\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n01:00:49\\nFinish with a mantra. Well or, read one last poem, which has been distributed by Dakota Broadsides, they're people from Logos, or connected with Logos, I think. Is that not right? Yeah. I'll pass these out, I think. It's a poem written in Grant Park [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q159085] on August 28th, '68, during the Democratic Convention. Uh, Grant Park, the day after the election of, or the day after the nomination of Humphrey [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q209989]. \\n \\nAllen Ginsberg\\n01:01:27\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nAudience\\n01:02:25\\nApplause and laughter [cut off].\\n \\nEND\\n01:02:31\\n\",\"notes\":\"Allen Ginsberg reads from Angkor Wat (Fulcrum Press, 1968), Planet News (City Lights Books, 1968), as well as pieces that were published later in The Fall of America: Poems of These States (City Lights Books, 1973). Ginsbger also performs musical versions of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, recorded later on Songs of Innocence and Experience (MGM, 1970). \\n\\n00:00- Recording begins, Ginsberg reads “Morning”. [INDEX: from Planet News (City Lights Books, 1968).] \\n02:23- Reads “Today”. [INDEX: from Planet News (City Lights Books, 1968).] \\n10:08- Reads “First party at Ken Kesey’s with Hell’s Angels”. [INDEX: from Planet News (City Lights Books, 1968).]\\n11:22- Reads “Uptown”. [INDEX: from Planet News (City Lights Books, 1968).]\\n12:30- Reads “Holy Ghost, on the Nod, over the Body of Bliss”. [INDEX: from Planet News (City Lights Books, 1968).]\\n13:50- Chants section of poem, first line “And Santa Barbara rejoices in the alleyways of        Brindaban...”.\\n14:59- Harmonium/music starts, Ginsberg sings “Hari Om Namo Shivaya...”\\n25:22- Sings “Little Lamb, Who Made Thee?” [INDEX: William Blake]\\n27:00- Sings \\\"My mother bore me in the southern wild\\\". [INDEX: William Blake.]\\n30:11- Sings “Twas on a Holy Thursday”. [INDEX: William Blake]\\n31:37- Introduces “The Nurse’s Song”. [INDEX: William Blake]\\n31:52- Sings “The Nurse’s Song”.\\n36:13- Introduces “Wichita Votex Sutra”. [INDEX: from Planet News (City Lights Books,   1968).]\\n37:09- Reads “Wichita Vortex Sutra”.\\n43:12- Introduces continuation of same poem, first line “Leaving K.C., MO...”\\n52:47- Reads “Car Crash”.\\n58:17- Introduces “July 4th, 1969”. [INDEX: hawkeye, New York State flower]\\n58:35- Reads “July 4th, 1969”.\\n1:00:49- Introduces unknown mantra, line “Green air, children sit under trees with the old...”\\n1:01:27- Reads unknown mantra, line “Green air, children sit under trees with the old...”\\n1:02:31.23- END OF RECORDING\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/allen-ginsberg-at-sgwu-1969/#2\"}]"],"score":2.9270062},{"id":"1283","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":["Gladys Hindmarch and Stan Persky at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 21 November 1969"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"GLADYS HINDMARCH I086-11-020\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box and on the reel. \"RT 511\" written on sticker on the front of the tape's box and on the back of the box.\n\n\"STAN PERSKY Recorded November 21, 1969 3.75 ips, 1/2 track 1 mil. tape 55 minutes\" written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. \"STAN PERSKY I006/SR137\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. \"I006-11-137\" written on sticker on the reel"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 4"],"item_identifiers":["[I086-11-020, I006-11-137]"],"creator_names":["Hindmarch, Gladys","Persky, Stan"],"creator_names_search":["Hindmarch, Gladys","Persky, Stan"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/38164256\",\"name\":\"Hindmarch, Gladys\",\"dates\":\"1940-\",\"notes\":\"Gladys Maria Hindmarch was born on Vancouver Island in 1940. She completed her Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts at the University of British Columbia. There she met poets George Bowering, Frank Davey, David Dawson, James Reid, Fred Wah and critic and professor Warren Tallman and was influential in creating the Tish magazine in 1961. However, she never published her own work in the magazine as she wrote prose. Her first publication was Sketches, published by George Bowering via the English Department of Sir George Williams University in 1970. Hindmarch wrote two novels, The Peter Stories (Coach House Press, 1976) and A Birth Account (New Star Books, 1967), which was followed by Watery part of the world (Douglas & McIntyre, 1988). Hindmarch has taught at Langara College and Capilano Colleges and she continues to live and write in Vancouver.\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Author\",\"Performer\"]},{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/57448780\",\"name\":\"Persky, Stan\",\"dates\":\"1941-\",\"notes\":\"Writer, teacher, activist and critic Stan Persky was born in Chicago on January 19, 1941. Early on, he was influenced by the Beat Generation poets and decided he would pursue a career in letters. Persky enrolled in the US Navy, and then moved to San Francisco in the early 1960’s where he became involved with the writers of the San Francisco Renaissance, including Jack Spicer, Robin Blaser and Robert Duncan. Persky’s first publications include Les enfants du paradis (St-Denis Press, 1961) and Moss (Rabbit Mountain College, 1961). In 1966, Persky moved with Robin Blaser to Vancouver, where Persky received his BA and MA degrees from the University of British Columbia. Persky co-founded the Georgia Straight Writing Supplements in the late 60’s, which led to what is now known as New Star Books. Persky and other writers began to publish the works of Milton Acorn, Gerry Gilbert, Jack Spicer, George Bowering, Fred Wah, bill bisset and Daphne Marlatt along with many others. Persky has taught at the Northwest College, Malaspina College, Simon Fraser University and at the Capilano University. Persky published Lives of the French Symbolist poets (White Rabbit Press, 1967),  The Day (Georgia Straight Writing Supplement, 1971), George Bowering published An oral literary history of Vancouver in 1972 in the Beaver Kosmos Series, Slaves (New Star Books, 1974), and Wrestling the angel (Talonbooks, 1976). His first political-themed books, Son of Socred (New Star, 1979), The House That Jack Built (New Star, 1980) and Bennett II (New Star, 1983) gained wide-spread acclaim. His other many publications include At the Lenin Shipyard: Poland and the Rise of the Solidarity Trade Union (New Star, 1981), The Solidarity Sourcebook (New Star, 1981), he edited Flaunting It: A Decade of Gay Journalism From the Body Politic with Henry Flam (New Star, 1982), The Holy Forest with introductions by Robin Blaser and Robert Creeley (Coach Hosue Press, 1998), Buddy’s: Meditations on Desire (New Star Press, 1989) which won a Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize nomination, Then we Take Berlin: Stories from the Other Side of Europe (Knopf, 1995), On Kiddie Porn: Sexual Representation, Free Speech and the Robin Sharpe Case with John Dixon (New Star, 2001) and most recently Top Sentence: A Writer’s Education (New Star, 2007). He has been a media commentator for the CBC, and has written for The Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Sun, Saturday Night, The Tyee and dooneyscafe.com as well as other journals. Persky resides in Vancouver and Berlin and continues to lecture and write.\",\"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":[1969],"material_description":["[{\"side\":\"\",\"image\":\"\",\"other\":\"\",\"extent\":\"1/4 inch\",\"AV_types\":\"Audio\",\"tape_brand\":\"\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"\",\"sound_quality\":\"Good\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"track_configuration\":\"\",\"material_designation\":\"Reel to Reel\",\"physical_composition\":\"Magnetic Tape\",\"accompanying_material\":\"\",\"other_physical_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\":\"\",\"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","Reel to Reel"],"physical_compositions":["Magnetic Tape","Magnetic Tape"],"recording_type":["Analogue","Analogue"],"AV_type":["Audio","Audio"],"playback_mode":["Mono","Mono"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"1969 11 21\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Date written on tape box for I006-11-137\",\"source\":\"Accompanying Material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building Room H-651\",\"notes\":\"\",\"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 Room H-651"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Gladys Hindmarch reads a series of short stories later published in The Watery Part of the World (Douglas & McIntyre, 1988). Stan Persky reads from Wrestling the Angel (Talonbooks, 1976) as well as a few unpublished poems."],"contents":["gladys_hindmarch_i086-11-020.mp3 [File 1 of 2]\n\nGeorge Bowering\n00:00:00\nAnother Vancouver [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24639] night in the series, this will be, this is the final reading of the fall series, and will be picked up again in January. As you know from the propaganda sheets, we're presenting what I consider to be the centre of the Vancouver writing scene. Gladys Hindmarch has been in that scene for ten years, and was associated with all those people who've got all kinds of names over the last few years such as West Coast movement and the Tish movement and the New Wave Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16] and that sort of business. And Stan Persky [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2330087], was as much related if not more because he is also a sort of superstar of little magazines [audience laughter] in San Francisco [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q62], and made the usual move up to Vancouver, what, three years ago? And has now become the superstar of the Vancouver writing scene. What's going to happen is that the reading will be split into two pieces. At the beginning, Stan is going to introduce Gladys, and then there will be a break of about ten minutes, and then Gladys is going to introduce Stan. So, I'd like to give you \"Stan and Gladys Evening\".\n \nStan Persky\n00:01:43\n\"Beginning again and again is a natural thing, even when there is a series. Beginning again and again and again, explaining composition and time is a natural thing. It is understood by this time that everything's the same, except composition and time. Composition, and the time of the composition and the time in the composition. Everything is the same except composition and as the composition is different, and always going to be different, everything is not the same. Everything is not the same as the time when, of the composition, and the time in the composition is different. The composition is different, that is certain.\" Gertrude Stein [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q188385].\n \nGladys Hindmarch\n00:02:40\nWhen I whistle, just imagine that it's a very good whistler. \"They know what they're doing\".\n \nGladys Hindmarch\n00:02:53\nReads \"They know what they're doing\" [published later as “Callback” in The Watery Part of the World].\n \nGladys Hindmarch\n00:16:08\nThat's the third in a group of stories, or series of stories that I'm writing. [Audience laughter]. I haven't got a title for this one, it's still in the first day on the trip but it's the seventh story. I call it \"The [Salad (?)] Story\" in my head but I'll have to find a title for it.\n \nGladys Hindmarch\n00:16:54\nReads [\"Nothing is Simple\", published later in The Watery Part of the World].\n \nGladys Hindmarch\n00:33:30\nAnother, I've got lots of others, but I'm just going to read one other short one that's got a number of daydream passages that I don't think I--it's necessary to know which of the day--I mean you can, I think you can get it, it's just call it \"Number 12\" right now it also hasn't got a title. \"Outside deck scene\"--I guess that George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280] didn't say, I used to work as a mess girl and a cook on a West Coast freighter called the Tahsis Prince, I worked on four or five of them because I was relief working, but the main one I worked on went up the west coast of Vancouver Island [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q170479], and not, they have great difficulty getting women to go out there, maybe obvious reasons in these stories so I could almost get a job on it, whereas the other ones I could get jobs if nobody was available, but since on this particular boat, usually nobody was available. One time I was leaving shopping in the Army and Navy and a guy came down the hall and said, Look you know, they're trying to get a hold of you, you've gotta go up there. And I said, come on, now, and sort of walked me back to the hall. And one Christmas run there were fifty one men--lots of people don't want to go out at Christmas, but a lot of the seamen, just work in the summer, so if they can get a job for two weeks they take it. They had fifty one cards on the board and not one of them--and there was a call for a cook, which was a girl's job and a call for an able seaman, and not one of the fifty-one men would go out on the boat--they got a guy who hadn't registered yet went out. This is an end of summer trip, it's not rough at all.\n \nAnnotation\n00:35:42\nReads [\"How It Feels”, published later in The Watery Part of the World].\n \nEND\n00:45:52\n[Cut off abruptly].\n\nstan_persky_i006-11-137.mp3 [File 2 of 2]\n\nGladys Hindmarch\n00:00:00\nStan and I both view Gertrude Stein as sort of eternal and I find that I can never read more than two pages of her at a time, like you just sort of become hypnotized, but she's pretty good to...like when I'm starting, trying to get into something to start to write and if I just read, you know just open one of her books at any sort of page, you know just at random and I just read two or three sentences, sometimes a paragraph, never more than that...and so I'm going to introduce Stan with a couple of Gertrude Stein sentences.  \"There's singularly nothing that makes a difference, a difference in beginning, and in middle, and in ending, except that each generation has something different at which they are all looking. By this I mean so simply that anybody knows it that composition is the difference which makes each and all of them then different from other generations, and this is what makes everything different, otherwise they're all like, and everybody knows it because everybody says it.\" Stan Persky. \n \nStan Persky\n00:01:13\nYeah, I'm doing fine. The reading that I'm going to give is called \"The Day\", and what it is is pieces of everything that I'm onto right now, and so you have to bear with however unable to follow it out. And of course, like what we're trying to do is give you some sense of what it's like to be out where we are. \n\nStan Persky\n00:01:45\nReads \"Notebook, around August 20th, 1969\". \n \nStan Persky\n00:03:34.14\nIs that unbearably fast?\n \nStan Persky\n00:03:38.89\nReads \"Notebook, around August 25th, 1969\".\n \nStan Persky\n00:07:16\n\"Notebook, Sunday, August 29th or 30th, 1969\"  You can see the energy this takes, it's just...[laughter]. This is barely doing it. \"Jim and Franz...\" I'm going to try to read one of these a little more slowly, maybe.\n \nStan Persky\n00:07:42\nReads \"Notebook, Sunday, August 29th or 30th, 1969\".\n \nStan Persky\n00:11:45\nThis one's a longer pull if that's possible. \"The Marriage\". Angela, this is the gossip for you [laughter]. Coming in here, I was thinking, who's sitting in the room, and you'd like to hear your names [laughter]...Arnie...\"The Marriage\". \n \nStan Persky\n00:12:23\nReads \"The Marriage\". \n\nAudience\n00:19:00\nLaughter. \n\nStan Persky\n00:19:04\nTricky dick! [laughter].\n \nStan Persky\n00:19:10\nResumes reading \"The Marriage\".\n \nAudience\n00:27:54\nApplause [cut off]. \n\nUnknown\n00:27:55\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nStan Persky\n00:27:57\nReads \"To Gladys\".\n \nAudience\n00:34:54\nLaughter.\n \nStan Persky\n00:34:59\n\"October 24th, 1969\". Did I write this for this, did I write this reading? \n \nStan Persky\n00:35:08\nReads \"October 24th, 1969\".\n \nStan Persky\n00:36:46\nReads \"Jamie\". \n \nStan Persky\n00:39:49\nAnd the last three...\n \nUnknown\n00:39:52\n[Cut or edit made in tape here. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nStan Persky\n00:39:53\nReads \"Wednesday, November 5th, 1969, by Hunter's Creek\".\n \nStan Persky\n00:42:04\nReads \"Fred Study. Notebook, Friday, November 7th, 1969, Fred Study.\"\n \nStan Persky\n00:44:17\nAnd at last, to finish, as far as it's gone, or whatever it is, \"The Day\".\n \nStan Persky\n00:44:26\nReads \"The Day\".\n \nEND\n00:46:38\n[Cut off abruptly]."],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information: \\n\\nIn 1969, Gladys Hindmarch was writing and participating in the writing scene in Vancouver. No specific information could be found on Gladys Hindmarch during this year.\\n\\nIn 1969, Persky was living in Vancouver, was published in The Pacific Nation (Vancouver, 1969). He was working on a series of poems called “The Day”, published in Wrestling the Angel (Talonbooks, 1976).\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nGladys Hindmarch went to the University of British Columbia, where she met professor and Poetry Reading Series Committee Member George Bowering. Hindmarch was an integral part of the Vancouver poetry renaissance, and was connected to the important poets of the Vancouver ‘scene’.\\n\\nStan Persky met George Bowering and Stanton Hoffman (Faculty and Poetry Reading Series Committee members) when they were in Vancouver and at University of British Columbia during the same period of time, involved in the poetry scene. Please see The Oral Literary History of Vancouver: Stan Persky’s Section (Beaver Kosmos Folio, #5) for how Bowering and Persky met as well as Persky’s relationship to Gladys Hindmarch. Persky is also associated with Robin Blaser (who also read in 1969), Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, as well as many other local Vancouver writers in this series.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"I086-11-020:\\nOriginal transcript, print catalogue, research and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\\n\\nI006-11-137:\\nOriginal transcript by Rachel Kyne\\n\\nOriginal print catalogue, research and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\\n\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"2 reel-to-reel tapes>2 CDs> 2 digital files\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oral-literary-history-of-vancouver-stan-perskys-section/oclc/85105672&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Bowering, George and Brad Robinson (eds). An Oral Literary History of Vancouver: Stan Persky’s Section. Vancouver: Beaver Kosmos Folios, no. 5, 1973. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/sketches/oclc/499435403&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Hindmarch, Gladys. Sketches. Montreal: Beaver Kosmos Folios, no. 3, 198-?.\\n\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/watery-part-of-the-world/oclc/17479102&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Hindmarch, Gladys. The Watery Part of the World. Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 1988.\"},{\"url\":\"http://www.vancouverartinthesixties.com/people/189\",\"citation\":\"“People / Gladys (Maria) Hindmarch”. Ruins in the Process: Vancouver Art in the Sixties.\"},{\"url\":\"http://www.vancouverartinthesixties.com/people/185\",\"citation\":\"“People / Stan Persky”. Ruins in Process: Vancouver Art in the Sixties. Vancouver: The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, The University of British Columbia and the grunt gallery.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/topic-sentence-a-writers-education/oclc/1151428685&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Persky, Stan. Topic Sentence: A Writer’s Education. Vancouver: New Star Books, 2007.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/wrestling-the-angel/oclc/3320699&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Persky, Stan. Wrestling the Angel. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1977.\"},{\"url\":\"https://dooneyscafe.com/robin-blaser-1925-2009-deaths-duty/\",\"citation\":\"Persky, Stan. “Robin Blaser, 1925-2009: Death’s Duty”. dooneyscafe.com. 8 May 2009. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/words-we-call-home-celebrating-creative-writing-at-ubc/oclc/923442804&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Svendsen, Linda. Words We Call Home: Celebrating Creative Writing at UBC. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1990. \"},{\"url\":\"http://www.abcbookworld.com/view_author.php?id=1850\",\"citation\":\"Twigg, Allen. “Persky, Stan”. BC BookWorld Canada. Vancouver: Simon Fraser University, 2007. \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Nook Book”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 12  November 1969, page 7. \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Stan Persky”. The Writers’ Union of Canada: Members’ Pages. The Writer’s Union of Canada, 2009.\"}]"],"_version_":1853670548901462016,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0086_11_0020_back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0137_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Stan Persky 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/I0086_11_0020_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0137_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Stan Persky Tape Box - 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Reel\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/gladys_hindmarch_i086-11-020.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"gladys_hindmarch_i086-11-020.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:45:52\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"110.1 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"gladys_hindmarch_i086-11-020.mp3 [File 1 of 2]\\n\\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:00:00\\nAnother Vancouver [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24639] night in the series, this will be, this is the final reading of the fall series, and will be picked up again in January. As you know from the propaganda sheets, we're presenting what I consider to be the centre of the Vancouver writing scene. Gladys Hindmarch has been in that scene for ten years, and was associated with all those people who've got all kinds of names over the last few years such as West Coast movement and the Tish movement and the New Wave Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16] and that sort of business. And Stan Persky [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2330087], was as much related if not more because he is also a sort of superstar of little magazines [audience laughter] in San Francisco [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q62], and made the usual move up to Vancouver, what, three years ago? And has now become the superstar of the Vancouver writing scene. What's going to happen is that the reading will be split into two pieces. At the beginning, Stan is going to introduce Gladys, and then there will be a break of about ten minutes, and then Gladys is going to introduce Stan. So, I'd like to give you \\\"Stan and Gladys Evening\\\".\\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:01:43\\n\\\"Beginning again and again is a natural thing, even when there is a series. Beginning again and again and again, explaining composition and time is a natural thing. It is understood by this time that everything's the same, except composition and time. Composition, and the time of the composition and the time in the composition. Everything is the same except composition and as the composition is different, and always going to be different, everything is not the same. Everything is not the same as the time when, of the composition, and the time in the composition is different. The composition is different, that is certain.\\\" Gertrude Stein [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q188385].\\n \\nGladys Hindmarch\\n00:02:40\\nWhen I whistle, just imagine that it's a very good whistler. \\\"They know what they're doing\\\".\\n \\nGladys Hindmarch\\n00:02:53\\nReads \\\"They know what they're doing\\\" [published later as “Callback” in The Watery Part of the World].\\n \\nGladys Hindmarch\\n00:16:08\\nThat's the third in a group of stories, or series of stories that I'm writing. [Audience laughter]. I haven't got a title for this one, it's still in the first day on the trip but it's the seventh story. I call it \\\"The [Salad (?)] Story\\\" in my head but I'll have to find a title for it.\\n \\nGladys Hindmarch\\n00:16:54\\nReads [\\\"Nothing is Simple\\\", published later in The Watery Part of the World].\\n \\nGladys Hindmarch\\n00:33:30\\nAnother, I've got lots of others, but I'm just going to read one other short one that's got a number of daydream passages that I don't think I--it's necessary to know which of the day--I mean you can, I think you can get it, it's just call it \\\"Number 12\\\" right now it also hasn't got a title. \\\"Outside deck scene\\\"--I guess that George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280] didn't say, I used to work as a mess girl and a cook on a West Coast freighter called the Tahsis Prince, I worked on four or five of them because I was relief working, but the main one I worked on went up the west coast of Vancouver Island [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q170479], and not, they have great difficulty getting women to go out there, maybe obvious reasons in these stories so I could almost get a job on it, whereas the other ones I could get jobs if nobody was available, but since on this particular boat, usually nobody was available. One time I was leaving shopping in the Army and Navy and a guy came down the hall and said, Look you know, they're trying to get a hold of you, you've gotta go up there. And I said, come on, now, and sort of walked me back to the hall. And one Christmas run there were fifty one men--lots of people don't want to go out at Christmas, but a lot of the seamen, just work in the summer, so if they can get a job for two weeks they take it. They had fifty one cards on the board and not one of them--and there was a call for a cook, which was a girl's job and a call for an able seaman, and not one of the fifty-one men would go out on the boat--they got a guy who hadn't registered yet went out. This is an end of summer trip, it's not rough at all.\\n \\nAnnotation\\n00:35:42\\nReads [\\\"How It Feels”, published later in The Watery Part of the World].\\n \\nEND\\n00:45:52\\n[Cut off abruptly].\",\"notes\":\"Gladys Hindmarch reads a series of short stories later published in The Watery Part of the World (Douglas & McIntyre, 1988). \\n\\n00:00- George Bowering introduces reading. [INDEX: ‘Vancouver night’, final reading in fall series, January, ‘propaganda sheet’, centre of Vancouver writing scene, West Coast    movement, Tish movement, New Wave Canada, Stan Persky, little magazines, San Francisco, move to Vancouver, Stan introduces Gladys, intermission, Gladys introduces Stan.]\\n01:43- Stan Persky reads Gertrude Stein quote [INDEX: composition, series, composition, time.]\\n02:40- Gladys Hindmarch introduces “They Know What They’re Doing”. [INDEX: originally published in Writing (renamed GSWS) No.3, April 1970; and in Iron, No. 3 as recorded in The Watery Part of the World; perhaps later published as “Callback” in The Watery Part of the World (Douglas & McIntyre, 1988).]\\n02:53- Reads “They Know What They’re Doing”.\\n16:08- Introduces untitled story, dubbed “The Salad Story”, first line “Setting up supper is not nearly so slow...”. [INDEX: third in series of stories, untitled, trip; published later as “Nothing is Simple” in The Watery Part of the World (Douglas & McIntyre, 1988).]\\n16:54- Reads first line “Setting up supper is not nearly so slow...”.\\n33:30- Introduces first line “The sun on my eyes...” [INDEX: short story, daydream passages, preliminary titled “12”, George Bowering, mess cook on a West Coast freighter called “Tahsis Prince”, relief working, Vancouver Island, women, seamen, jobs, treatment of women, Army and Navy, Christmas, summer, cook; perhaps later published as “How it Feels” in The Watery Part of the World (Douglas & McIntyre, 1988).]\\n35:42- Reads first line “The sun on my eyes...”.\\n45:52.62- END OF RECORDING.\\n\\n“Howard Fink List of Poems Read”:\\nPrint catalogue page from archives contains the following information:\\n \\nTitle: Gladys Hindmarch reading her own poetry: Final Fall Reading 1969\\nSource: One 5” reel, 3 3/4 , mono lasting 45 mins.\\nDate: November 21, 1969\\n \\nIntroduction by Stan Persky\\n \\nSpeakers: Stan Persky, Gladys Hindmarch\\n \\n1.Title: They Know What They’re Doing\\nFirst Line: “Nobody is moving quickly…”\\n2. Title: untitled [is poem actually called “Untitled,” or is it just listed on archived print cat. as such?]\\nFirst Line: “Setting up for supper…”\\n3.Title: untitled\\nFirst Line: “The sun in my eye…”\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/gladys-hindmarch-at-sgwu-1969/\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/stan_persky_i006-11-137.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"stan_persky_i006-11-137.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"111.9 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"stan_persky_i006-11-137.mp3 [File 2 of 2]\\n\\nGladys Hindmarch\\n00:00:00\\nStan and I both view Gertrude Stein as sort of eternal and I find that I can never read more than two pages of her at a time, like you just sort of become hypnotized, but she's pretty good to...like when I'm starting, trying to get into something to start to write and if I just read, you know just open one of her books at any sort of page, you know just at random and I just read two or three sentences, sometimes a paragraph, never more than that...and so I'm going to introduce Stan with a couple of Gertrude Stein sentences.  \\\"There's singularly nothing that makes a difference, a difference in beginning, and in middle, and in ending, except that each generation has something different at which they are all looking. By this I mean so simply that anybody knows it that composition is the difference which makes each and all of them then different from other generations, and this is what makes everything different, otherwise they're all like, and everybody knows it because everybody says it.\\\" Stan Persky. \\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:01:13\\nYeah, I'm doing fine. The reading that I'm going to give is called \\\"The Day\\\", and what it is is pieces of everything that I'm onto right now, and so you have to bear with however unable to follow it out. And of course, like what we're trying to do is give you some sense of what it's like to be out where we are. \\n\\nStan Persky\\n00:01:45\\nReads \\\"Notebook, around August 20th, 1969\\\". \\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:03:34.14\\nIs that unbearably fast?\\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:03:38.89\\nReads \\\"Notebook, around August 25th, 1969\\\".\\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:07:16\\n\\\"Notebook, Sunday, August 29th or 30th, 1969\\\"  You can see the energy this takes, it's just...[laughter]. This is barely doing it. \\\"Jim and Franz...\\\" I'm going to try to read one of these a little more slowly, maybe.\\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:07:42\\nReads \\\"Notebook, Sunday, August 29th or 30th, 1969\\\".\\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:11:45\\nThis one's a longer pull if that's possible. \\\"The Marriage\\\". Angela, this is the gossip for you [laughter]. Coming in here, I was thinking, who's sitting in the room, and you'd like to hear your names [laughter]...Arnie...\\\"The Marriage\\\". \\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:12:23\\nReads \\\"The Marriage\\\". \\n\\nAudience\\n00:19:00\\nLaughter. \\n\\nStan Persky\\n00:19:04\\nTricky dick! [laughter].\\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:19:10\\nResumes reading \\\"The Marriage\\\".\\n \\nAudience\\n00:27:54\\nApplause [cut off]. \\n\\nUnknown\\n00:27:55\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:27:57\\nReads \\\"To Gladys\\\".\\n \\nAudience\\n00:34:54\\nLaughter.\\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:34:59\\n\\\"October 24th, 1969\\\". Did I write this for this, did I write this reading? \\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:35:08\\nReads \\\"October 24th, 1969\\\".\\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:36:46\\nReads \\\"Jamie\\\". \\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:39:49\\nAnd the last three...\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:39:52\\n[Cut or edit made in tape here. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:39:53\\nReads \\\"Wednesday, November 5th, 1969, by Hunter's Creek\\\".\\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:42:04\\nReads \\\"Fred Study. Notebook, Friday, November 7th, 1969, Fred Study.\\\"\\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:44:17\\nAnd at last, to finish, as far as it's gone, or whatever it is, \\\"The Day\\\".\\n \\nStan Persky\\n00:44:26\\nReads \\\"The Day\\\".\\n \\nEND\\n00:46:38\\n[Cut off abruptly].\",\"notes\":\"Stan Persky reads from Wrestling the Angel (Talonbooks, 1976) as well as a few unpublished poems.\\n\\n00:00- Gladys Hindmarch introduces Stan Persky. [INDEX: Gertrude Stein, reading Stein, Stein quote.]\\n01:13- Stan Persky introduces reading and the poem “Notebook, around August 20th, 1969”. [INDEX: reading called “The Day”, current work; published in Wrestling the Angel (Talonbooks, 1976), titled “It Starts with This”.]\\n01:45- Reads “Notebook, around August 20th, 1969”.\\n03:35- Stan asks audience about speed of his reading.\\n03:38- Reads “Notebook, around August 25th, 1969”.\\n07:16- Introduces “Notebook, around August 29th or 30th, 1969”. [INDEX: energy, Jim, Franz, reading more slowly.]\\n07:42- Reads “Notebook, around August 29th, or 30th, 1969”.\\n11:45- Introduces “The Marriage”. [INDEX: longer poem, Angela, gossip, audience, Arnie (random audience names); published in Wrestling the Angel (Talonbooks, 1976).]\\n12:23- Reads “The Marriage”.\\n18:56- Interrupts poem [INDEX: interruption, tricky dick.]\\n19:10- Continues “The Marriage”.\\n27:57- Reads “To Gladys”. [INDEX: Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Pound’s Canto 29, H.D. Warren Tallman.]\\n34:59- Introduces “October 24th, 1969”. [INDEX: write poem for reading.]\\n35:08- Reads “October 24th, 1969”. [INDEX: Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley.]\\n36:46- Reads “Jamie”. [INDEX: Tish magazine, James Reed.]\\n39:53- Reads “Wednesday, November 5th, 1969, by Hunter’s Creek”.\\n42:04- Reads “Fred Study. Notebook, Friday, November 7th, 1969”\\n44:26- Introduces “The Day”.\\n44:26- Reads “The Day”.\\n46:38.09- END OF RECORDING.\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/stan-persky-at-sgwu-1969/\"}]"],"score":2.9270062},{"id":"1291","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":["Ted Berrigan Reading at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 4 December 1970"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"RT 551 TED BERRIGAN Recorded December 4, 1970 at Sir George Williams University 3.75 ips on 1. mil tape, 1/2 track\" written on sticker on the back of the tape box. \"RT 551\" written on sticker on the front of the tape box. \"TED BERRIGAN I086-11-004\" written on spine of the tape box. \"TED BERRIGAN I086-11-004\" and \"RT 551\" written on stickers on the reel.\n\nWrong tape and information photographed ??"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 5"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"creator_names":["Berrigan, Ted"],"creator_names_search":["Berrigan, Ted"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/64027570\",\"name\":\"Berrigan, Ted\",\"dates\":\"1934-1983\",\"notes\":\"Poet and editor Ted Berrigan was born in Providence, Rhode Island on November 15, 1934. He studied briefly at Providence College until 1954 when he joined the US army, which he served three years, an eighteen months of which were spent in the Korean War. Berrigan returned to the US and completed a Bachelor’s degree in English literature at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1595. It was there that he met Ron Padgett and Joe Brainard. Berrigan completed his MA in 1962, and soon after, with a number of friends from Tulsa, went north to the Lower East Side of New York City. By 1963, Berrigan had established C: A Journal of Poetry, which published not only the work of his friends, but the poetry of the older generation of New York poets and artists like Andy Warhol. In 1964, Berrigan published his most accomplished collection of poems, The Sonnets (Lorenz & Ellen Gude, 1964). Berrigan also taught at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project at its conception by Paul Blackburn, helping to shape the project and its programmes in its early days. He also lectured at the State University of Michigan, University of Iowa, Yale University, the University of Michigan, and at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. A selection of his publications include A Lily for My Love (Self published, 1959), In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard Press, 1970), Red Wagon (Yellow Press, 1976), Galileo; or Finksville a play (1964) and Bean Spasms (Kulchur Press, 1967) written with Ron Padgett. Ted Berrigan died on July 4, 1983. The most comprehensive collection of his poetry can be found in So Going Around Cities: New and Selected Poems 1958-1979 (Blue Wind Press, 1980).\",\"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":[1970],"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\":\"Excellent\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"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\":\"1970 12 4\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Date reference on tape box\",\"source\":\"Accompanying Material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building Room H-651\",\"notes\":\"\",\"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 Room H-651"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Ted Berrigan reads from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970), The Sonnets (Grove Press, 1964), Many Happy Returns (Corinth, 1969) and poems later collected in So Going Around Cities (Berkley, 1980) as well as a few unknown poems."],"contents":["ted_berrigan_i086-11-004.mp3\n\nGeorge Bowering\n00:00:00\nWelcome to at last the second reading in the series, for this year.  As you probably know, the series that we have, it might be loosely called a kind of an avant-garde series, and in the, this is our fifth year, and this is the first time we've ever had anybody from the New York School [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1972942]--it's not going to be the last time, we're going to have Kenneth Koch [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2708628] in the spring, and we're looking for Tom Clarke [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7815337] next fall. Berrigan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2399732] is I guess now, one of the, say the halfback, I supposed, or quarterback of the New York School. Many of you have probably seen...[laughter] yeah, linebacker! When you ask when you're a little thin... And most of you have probably seen the propaganda sheet that's been around, downstairs and so on, and so you've heard the words that some of his confreres have said about him. I'd just like to add a little bit, in addition to those earlier books such as The Sonnets, and Bean Spasms, there's a couple of new books that have just appeared, one's called In the Early Morning Rain, which will be available here because it's a Cape Goliard book, and it's distributed in Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16] by one of the big Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172] publishers, and another one with a Kraut title that I can't read that's bilingual, half-German and half-English that I'm sure we'll hear some from....\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:01:31\nThe title's [unintelligible] Guillaume Apollinaire [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q133855] ist ...\n \nGeorge Bowering\n00:01:34\nOh I see, yeah right.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:01:35\nHowever I don't have any available, only in Berlin [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q64].\n \nGeorge Bowering\n00:01:38\nRight, so if you happen to be in Berlin, snap up a copy of Guillaume Apollinaire ist tot und Anders. So I'd like to mention that Ted Berrigan is going to read one set, and then he wants to stop for a very short intermission, say like a five-minute intermission, and then haul you back in again and do a second set. So ladies and gentlemen, etcetera, Ted Berrigan.\n \nAudience\n00:02:05\nApplause. \n \nUnknown\n00:02:07\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:02:08\nIn the first set I'm going to read mostly poems I've written over the last four or five years. Actually, longer than that, some going back to 1962, or '61. I don't know how long this set'll be. It'll, should be less than a half-hour. In the second set I'll read poems I've written over the last year or two. However I want to start with a poem that I wrote about two years ago. It's called \"Heroin\" I read this in high schools in Ann Arbor [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q485172] which I went to read in a program called Poetry Ann Arbor, and I wanted, I read the title and then I wanted to, I read the title and then I wanted to, I found it real funny because it was called \"Heroin,\" and I wanted to disclaim that it was a pro-heroin poem. So I said, this poem is not a pro-heroin poem.Then I realized there wasn't an anti-heroin poem either.  So I ended them, it was just sort of an on-heroin poem. [Audience laughter]. All my poems are pretty much alike, and this is fairly typical of what you'll be hearing the rest of the evening. \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:03:19\nReads \"Heroin\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:04:22\nThis poem is called \"Frank O'Hara's Question\". Frank O'Hara [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q951010] is a poet from New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60], who's dead, he died when he was forty years old a couple of years ago in an automobile accident. The title doesn't have too much to do with the poem, except that it sort of states something that Frank O'Hara evidently had to say, and so it says something that I have to say too in my own way, not that I have to say it the same way that Frank did. \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:04:56\nReads \"Frank O’Hara’s Question\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:05:42\nThis is a poem I wrote in 1962. It's called \"Words for Love\". It's a bit rhetorical, but it's the best I could do in 1962, and I still like it a lot, albeit I wonder at some of it.  \"Words for Love\". It was written, actually, at a very difficult time in my life, and I guess I felt the need to make some sort of statement.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:06:09\nReads \"Words for Love\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:08:07\nReads [\"I wake up 11:30, back aching\"].\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:09:23\nReads “Personal Poem #7. \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:10:23\nReads “Personal Poem”.\n \nAudience\n00:11:08\nApplause.\n\nTed Berrigan\n00:11:10\nThank you. Charlie Stanton liked that one too. [Audience laughter]. This is the last one of those kind of poems [audience laughter]. \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:11:21\nReads “Personal Poem #9”.\n\nTed Berrigan\n00:12:32\nI've always liked that poem. [Laughter]. All of those are written around 1962, 61 and 62.  I want to skip up to around 1967. I wrote this poem called \"Things to do in New York City\". I was leaving New York, and this poem, like many of my poems, was written for a specific occasion. It was for someone's birthday. And the poem, it's just my poem, it's not about the other person's birthday, it's just a present for him on his birthday. \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:13:24\nReads \"Things to do in New York City\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:14:20\nThis poem is called \"Ten Things I do Every Day,\" which is...it's true, as a matter of fact, in a way. In a manner of speaking. But it's not true that it's ten things. Alas. But that was just the title, like the ten greatest movies of the year. \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:14:40\nReads \"Ten Things I do Every Day\".\n\nAudience\n00:15:16\nLaughter.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:15:21\nThat's what you do in New York. [Audience laughter]. I'll read this poem called \"Resolution\". \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:15:35\nReads \"Resolution”.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:15:58\nI don't know what I'll do about it if you do, but...something. All those dramatic poems. \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:16:06\nReads “Sonnet XXXVII”.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:17:08\nI want to move around a little and not do exactly what I said. This is a poem I wrote last summer in London [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q84], it's dedicated to the poet Tom Raworth [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7817338] and his wife. They lived in Colchester [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q184163], which is an hour or two train-ride from London, and I was supposed to go down and see them, and I didn't go. And by way of apologies, I wrote this poem to Tom and to his wife, Val.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:17:33\nReads \"Apologies to Val and Tom\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:19:05\nI'll read this one for George Bowering's old lady, [audience laughter] Mrs. Angela Bowering. It's called \"Things to do on Speed\". [Audience laughter].\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:19:19\nReads \"Things to do on Speed\" [audience laughter throughout].\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:20:58 [Laughter] I forgot about that one.  \n\nAudience \n00:21:01\nLaughter.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:21:03\nResumes reading \"Things to do on Speed\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:22:21\nI wrote that one courtesy of The New York Times [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9684]. Okay, one more this set. This is called, \"Things to do in Providence\". [Audience laughter]. Which is, Providence [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18383], Rhode Island [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1387], or whatever else you can make of it.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:22:50\nReads \"Things to do in Providence\".\n \nAudience\n00:26:23\nLaughter.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:26:29\nResumes reading \"Things to do in Providence\".\n \nAudience\n00:27:46\nApplause.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:27:52\n[Unintelligible].\n \nUnknown\n00:27:55\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nGeorge Bowering\n00:27:55\nHere he is again, terrible Ted Berrigan. \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:28:01\nAll the poems I'm going to read in this set are from my book, In the Early Morning Rain.  The title of this book I got from Gordon Lightfoot [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q359552], the Canadian folk singer-songwriter, and I didn't know, I made, I decided to use that title before Bobby Dylan's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q392] album Self-Portrait [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q634569] came out, so I didn't know that Bobby was going to record this song. I would have used it anyway, I'm sure. But, I mean if Dylan can steal it, I can steal it. And this book is a collection of poems of mine from over the last ten years, and I'm just going to read around in it. I wrote a lot of different kind of poems. I don't very often try for...I mean, I just take my poems where they come. This poem is called \"Hello\". \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:28:51\nReads \"Hello\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:29:06\nNow I'm going to read two or three poems that are from a section of this book called \"Life of a Man\".  \"Life of a Man\" is a book of poems in Italian by an Italian poet, a very great Italian poet who died not too long ago called Giuseppe Ungaretti [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q311802]. There's a little story behind these. A lady poet named Barbara Guest [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q807448] once asked my friend Ron Patchett and I, would we translate some of Ungaretti's poems, because Ungaretti was coming to America [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30]. And she thought it would be nice if we would translate them as a sort of homage to him. And so I told her, I said, “Barbara, but we don't understand Italian,” and she said, “Oh, I'm sure you can do it, you two are marvelous”.  And she said, “Just get a dictionary, and you can look up the words”. So I looked at Ron and he looked at me, and we said, yeah, we can translate 'em, sure, but we don't want to get any dictionaries. So we just translated 'em without any dictionaries. [Audience laughter]. And we never showed them to Ungaretti but we showed them to Barbara Guest and she had the horrors. The first one is called \"Matinee\". \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:30:16\nReads \"Matinee\" from In the Early Morning Rain [audience laughter throughout].\n\nTed Berrigan\n00:30:26\nThe next one is called \"December\" [audience laughter].\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:30:30\nReads \"December\" from In the Early Morning Rain [audience laughter throughout].\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:30:38\nAnd this one is called \"The Reply to the Fragile.\" \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:30:42\nReads \"The Reply to the Fragile\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:30:53\nThat one's a little, that's rated X. [Audience laughter]. And this is the last one, it's called “Corporal Pellegrini”. If any of you know Italian, you can understand where all these words came from [audience laughter].\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:31:09\nReads \"Corporal Pellegrini\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:31:38\nI think Ungaretti would've liked them. [Audience laughter]. He probably would have retranslated them and gotten some new ones. This next work is a translation too and it's a translation I did from French, which I understand some. And so this time I only had to leave certain words. This time I translated a lot of it accurately. But it's called \"Life among the woods\". And it's a translation of a page from a grammar book, some kind of book written in the French language. After I'd gotten this much done I decided it was over. Anyway, it's called \"Life Among the Woods\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:32:20\nReads \"Life Among the Woods\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:34:30.58\nPretty interesting family. This is a poem called \"In Four Parts.\"\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:34:40.14\nReads \"In Four Parts\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:35:22\nThat was four sentences from the New York Times. They had this secret continuity. [Laughter]. This is a poem called \"March 17th, 1970\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:35:35\nReads \"March 17th, 1970\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:36:03\nAnd you'd better believe it. Only not right now, right then. I don't know if I can subject you to this poem. I guess I will anyway. This is called \"The Ten Greatest Books of the Year, 1968\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:36:28\nReads \"The Ten Greatest Books of the Year, 1968\" from In the Early Morning Rain [audience laughter throughout].\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:38:02\nYou people that are laughing are getting it.\n\nTed Berrigan\n00:38:04\nResumes reading \"The Ten Greatest Books of the Year, 1968\" from In the Early Morning Rain. \n\nAudience\n00:38:14\nLaughter.\n\nTed Berrigan\n00:38:17\nThis is a poem called \"Thirty\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:38:18\nReads \"Thirty\" from In the Early Morning Rain\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:38:24\nThat's for all of you guys that did thirty. This poem is called \"Things to do in Anne's Room\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:38:34\nReads \"Things to do in Anne's Room\" from In the Early Morning Rain\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:39:42\nThis is called \"The Great Genius\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:39:45\nReads \"The Great Genius\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:39:56\nThis is called \"Anti-War Poem\". It's another New Year's poem, actually.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:40:03\nReads \"Anti-War Poem\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:40:41\nAnd this poem is called \"Tough Brown Coat\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:40:43\nReads \"Tough Brown Coat\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:41:04\nThis poem is called \"Babe Rainbow\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:41:08\nReads \"Babe Rainbow\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:41:25\nAnd this is called \"In My Room\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:41:30\nReads \"In My Room\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:41:54\nThis is called \"Ann Arbor Elegy\". It was written for a girl who was killed in an automobile accident. September 27th, 1969. The funny thing about this poem is it was written before she was killed. And when I looked at it after she was dead, I saw that I didn't have to write an elegy for her, that somehow I'd written one already. \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:42:17\nReads \"Ann Arbor Elegy - For Franny Winston\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:43:13\nAnd this is a sort of berserk work, which I wrote called \"Wake Up,\" which is about all it says, really.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:43:23\nReads \"Wake up\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:44:18\nI have another poem which I'd like to read but I won't, but it's a series of aphorisms from the works of Francis Picabia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q157321], the French poet and painter. And this friend Jim Carroll [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q444806] and I translated these from French. I'll read you my favourite one, in any case, which Jim Carroll translated. It says, \"Spinoza [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q35802] is the one who threw a pass to move Spinoza.\" I really...in this book I put some poems by some of my friends so I wouldn't have to read all my works. Though when I read I never read theirs, I notice. This poem is called \"In Bed\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:44:56\nReads \"In Bed\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:45:12\nThat's an example of saying nothing. [Audience laughter]. This poem is called \"Easy Living\". It's dedicated to a boy named David Henderson, a poet who was a friend of mine, whom I once took a trip to Pittsburgh [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1342] with. Had a very nice time. \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:45:33\nReads \"Easy Living\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:46:25\nThis is a poem I wrote, it's called \"Like Poem\". A friend of mine wrote a love poem to this girl, and I thought I should do that too. But I only wanted to write a like poem to her, because I don't want to have any obligations. [Audience laughter]. No, that isn't the reason why, but that's what came out. This is called \"Like Poem,\" it's to Joan Fagan, who's the wife of my friend Larry Fagan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q95906997], the poet. \n \nTed Berrigan\n00:46:50\nReads \"Like Poem\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:47:06\nThis poem is called \"Ann Arbor Song\". This poem I actually tried to write a poem out of a very corny feeling that I'd had, which nevertheless is very genuine. It starts at a poetry reading in Ann Arbor, but it's really about being in Ann Arbor and realizing I was leaving soon, and thinking about all the things that wouldn't happen to me again, because this trip was going to be over.  Even though, I'm--it's not all that sentimental, I mean I knew I might go to Ann Arbor again and all that, it was just that this particular trip was going to be over. I also wrote it with the idea in mind of reading it at a poetry reading too.  \"Ann Arbor Song\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:47:45\nReads \"Ann Arbor Song\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:49:22\nI'm going to read two more. First one's called \"Peace\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:49:29 \nReads \"Peace\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n\nTed Berrigan\n00:50:37\nAlright, and this is the last poem. I hate to end heavy, but there's no place to read this poem but at the end. This poem is called \"People Who Died\". It's just a list. \"People Who Died\".\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:50:55\nReads \"People Who Died\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\n \nAudience\n00:52:48\nApplause.\n \nTed Berrigan\n00:52:53\nNot the most, uh...[laughter].\n \nEND\n00:52:59\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:\\n\\nIn 1970, Ted Berrigan published In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard Press), and also privately published Scorpion, Eagle & Dove.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nTed Berrigan’s connection to Sir George Williams University is unclear at the moment, but Berrigan was part of the so called ‘Second Beat’ movement, as well as part of the ‘New York School’ of poetry. In this recording, he dedicates a poem to Angela Bowering, (George Bowering’s wife) so he either had met her before this reading or because of the occasion.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript and print catalogue by Rachel Kyne\\n\\nOriginal print catalogue, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\\n\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"Reel-to-reel tape>CD>digital file\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/in-the-early-morning-rain/oclc/563054848&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Berrigan, Ted. In the Early Morning Rain. London: Cape Goliard, 1970. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/sonnets/oclc/934480499&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Berrigan, Ted. The Sonnets. New York: Grove Press, 1964. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/many-happy-returns-poems/oclc/564000383&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Berrigan, Ted. Many Happy Returns. New York: Corinth Press, 1969. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/so-going-around-cities-new-and-selected-poems-1958-1979/oclc/255865532&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Berrigan, Ted. So Going Around Cities. Los Angeles: Berkley Press, 1980. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-twentieth-century-poetry-in-english/oclc/937869379&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Horning, Ron. \\\"Berrigan, Ted\\\". The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamilton. Oxford University Press, 1996. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-american-literature/oclc/54356940&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"\\\"Berrigan, Ted (Edmund J.M. Berrigan, Jr.)\\\". The Oxford Companion to American Literature. James D. Hart, ed., rev. Phillip W. Leininger. Oxford University Press 1995. \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Pursglove, Glyn. “Berrigan, Ted”. Literature Online Biography. ProQuest LLC, 2009. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670548921384960,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0086_11_0004_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"\",\"title\":\"Ted Berrigan Tape Box - Back\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0086_11_0004_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"\",\"title\":\"Ted Berrigan Tape Box - Front\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0086_11_0004_side.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"\",\"title\":\"Ted Berrigan Tape Box - Spine\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0086_11_0004_tape.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"\",\"title\":\"Ted Berrigan 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/ted_berrigan_i086-11-004.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"ted_berrigan_i086-11-004.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"127.2 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"George Bowering\\n00:00:00\\nWelcome to at last the second reading in the series, for this year.  As you probably know, the series that we have, it might be loosely called a kind of an avant-garde series, and in the, this is our fifth year, and this is the first time we've ever had anybody from the New York School [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1972942]--it's not going to be the last time, we're going to have Kenneth Koch [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2708628] in the spring, and we're looking for Tom Clarke [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7815337] next fall. Berrigan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2399732] is I guess now, one of the, say the halfback, I supposed, or quarterback of the New York School. Many of you have probably seen...[laughter] yeah, linebacker! When you ask when you're a little thin... And most of you have probably seen the propaganda sheet that's been around, downstairs and so on, and so you've heard the words that some of his confreres have said about him. I'd just like to add a little bit, in addition to those earlier books such as The Sonnets, and Bean Spasms, there's a couple of new books that have just appeared, one's called In the Early Morning Rain, which will be available here because it's a Cape Goliard book, and it's distributed in Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16] by one of the big Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172] publishers, and another one with a Kraut title that I can't read that's bilingual, half-German and half-English that I'm sure we'll hear some from....\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:01:31\\nThe title's [unintelligible] Guillaume Apollinaire [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q133855] ist ...\\n \\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:01:34\\nOh I see, yeah right.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:01:35\\nHowever I don't have any available, only in Berlin [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q64].\\n \\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:01:38\\nRight, so if you happen to be in Berlin, snap up a copy of Guillaume Apollinaire ist tot und Anders. So I'd like to mention that Ted Berrigan is going to read one set, and then he wants to stop for a very short intermission, say like a five-minute intermission, and then haul you back in again and do a second set. So ladies and gentlemen, etcetera, Ted Berrigan.\\n \\nAudience\\n00:02:05\\nApplause. \\n \\nUnknown\\n00:02:07\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:02:08\\nIn the first set I'm going to read mostly poems I've written over the last four or five years. Actually, longer than that, some going back to 1962, or '61. I don't know how long this set'll be. It'll, should be less than a half-hour. In the second set I'll read poems I've written over the last year or two. However I want to start with a poem that I wrote about two years ago. It's called \\\"Heroin\\\" I read this in high schools in Ann Arbor [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q485172] which I went to read in a program called Poetry Ann Arbor, and I wanted, I read the title and then I wanted to, I read the title and then I wanted to, I found it real funny because it was called \\\"Heroin,\\\" and I wanted to disclaim that it was a pro-heroin poem. So I said, this poem is not a pro-heroin poem.Then I realized there wasn't an anti-heroin poem either.  So I ended them, it was just sort of an on-heroin poem. [Audience laughter]. All my poems are pretty much alike, and this is fairly typical of what you'll be hearing the rest of the evening. \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:03:19\\nReads \\\"Heroin\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:04:22\\nThis poem is called \\\"Frank O'Hara's Question\\\". Frank O'Hara [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q951010] is a poet from New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60], who's dead, he died when he was forty years old a couple of years ago in an automobile accident. The title doesn't have too much to do with the poem, except that it sort of states something that Frank O'Hara evidently had to say, and so it says something that I have to say too in my own way, not that I have to say it the same way that Frank did. \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:04:56\\nReads \\\"Frank O’Hara’s Question\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:05:42\\nThis is a poem I wrote in 1962. It's called \\\"Words for Love\\\". It's a bit rhetorical, but it's the best I could do in 1962, and I still like it a lot, albeit I wonder at some of it.  \\\"Words for Love\\\". It was written, actually, at a very difficult time in my life, and I guess I felt the need to make some sort of statement.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:06:09\\nReads \\\"Words for Love\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:08:07\\nReads [\\\"I wake up 11:30, back aching\\\"].\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:09:23\\nReads “Personal Poem #7. \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:10:23\\nReads “Personal Poem”.\\n \\nAudience\\n00:11:08\\nApplause.\\n\\nTed Berrigan\\n00:11:10\\nThank you. Charlie Stanton liked that one too. [Audience laughter]. This is the last one of those kind of poems [audience laughter]. \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:11:21\\nReads “Personal Poem #9”.\\n\\nTed Berrigan\\n00:12:32\\nI've always liked that poem. [Laughter]. All of those are written around 1962, 61 and 62.  I want to skip up to around 1967. I wrote this poem called \\\"Things to do in New York City\\\". I was leaving New York, and this poem, like many of my poems, was written for a specific occasion. It was for someone's birthday. And the poem, it's just my poem, it's not about the other person's birthday, it's just a present for him on his birthday. \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:13:24\\nReads \\\"Things to do in New York City\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:14:20\\nThis poem is called \\\"Ten Things I do Every Day,\\\" which is...it's true, as a matter of fact, in a way. In a manner of speaking. But it's not true that it's ten things. Alas. But that was just the title, like the ten greatest movies of the year. \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:14:40\\nReads \\\"Ten Things I do Every Day\\\".\\n\\nAudience\\n00:15:16\\nLaughter.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:15:21\\nThat's what you do in New York. [Audience laughter]. I'll read this poem called \\\"Resolution\\\". \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:15:35\\nReads \\\"Resolution”.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:15:58\\nI don't know what I'll do about it if you do, but...something. All those dramatic poems. \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:16:06\\nReads “Sonnet XXXVII”.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:17:08\\nI want to move around a little and not do exactly what I said. This is a poem I wrote last summer in London [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q84], it's dedicated to the poet Tom Raworth [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7817338] and his wife. They lived in Colchester [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q184163], which is an hour or two train-ride from London, and I was supposed to go down and see them, and I didn't go. And by way of apologies, I wrote this poem to Tom and to his wife, Val.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:17:33\\nReads \\\"Apologies to Val and Tom\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:19:05\\nI'll read this one for George Bowering's old lady, [audience laughter] Mrs. Angela Bowering. It's called \\\"Things to do on Speed\\\". [Audience laughter].\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:19:19\\nReads \\\"Things to do on Speed\\\" [audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:20:58 [Laughter] I forgot about that one.  \\n\\nAudience \\n00:21:01\\nLaughter.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:21:03\\nResumes reading \\\"Things to do on Speed\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:22:21\\nI wrote that one courtesy of The New York Times [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9684]. Okay, one more this set. This is called, \\\"Things to do in Providence\\\". [Audience laughter]. Which is, Providence [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18383], Rhode Island [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1387], or whatever else you can make of it.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:22:50\\nReads \\\"Things to do in Providence\\\".\\n \\nAudience\\n00:26:23\\nLaughter.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:26:29\\nResumes reading \\\"Things to do in Providence\\\".\\n \\nAudience\\n00:27:46\\nApplause.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:27:52\\n[Unintelligible].\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:27:55\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nGeorge Bowering\\n00:27:55\\nHere he is again, terrible Ted Berrigan. \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:28:01\\nAll the poems I'm going to read in this set are from my book, In the Early Morning Rain.  The title of this book I got from Gordon Lightfoot [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q359552], the Canadian folk singer-songwriter, and I didn't know, I made, I decided to use that title before Bobby Dylan's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q392] album Self-Portrait [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q634569] came out, so I didn't know that Bobby was going to record this song. I would have used it anyway, I'm sure. But, I mean if Dylan can steal it, I can steal it. And this book is a collection of poems of mine from over the last ten years, and I'm just going to read around in it. I wrote a lot of different kind of poems. I don't very often try for...I mean, I just take my poems where they come. This poem is called \\\"Hello\\\". \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:28:51\\nReads \\\"Hello\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:29:06\\nNow I'm going to read two or three poems that are from a section of this book called \\\"Life of a Man\\\".  \\\"Life of a Man\\\" is a book of poems in Italian by an Italian poet, a very great Italian poet who died not too long ago called Giuseppe Ungaretti [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q311802]. There's a little story behind these. A lady poet named Barbara Guest [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q807448] once asked my friend Ron Patchett and I, would we translate some of Ungaretti's poems, because Ungaretti was coming to America [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30]. And she thought it would be nice if we would translate them as a sort of homage to him. And so I told her, I said, “Barbara, but we don't understand Italian,” and she said, “Oh, I'm sure you can do it, you two are marvelous”.  And she said, “Just get a dictionary, and you can look up the words”. So I looked at Ron and he looked at me, and we said, yeah, we can translate 'em, sure, but we don't want to get any dictionaries. So we just translated 'em without any dictionaries. [Audience laughter]. And we never showed them to Ungaretti but we showed them to Barbara Guest and she had the horrors. The first one is called \\\"Matinee\\\". \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:30:16\\nReads \\\"Matinee\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain [audience laughter throughout].\\n\\nTed Berrigan\\n00:30:26\\nThe next one is called \\\"December\\\" [audience laughter].\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:30:30\\nReads \\\"December\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain [audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:30:38\\nAnd this one is called \\\"The Reply to the Fragile.\\\" \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:30:42\\nReads \\\"The Reply to the Fragile\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:30:53\\nThat one's a little, that's rated X. [Audience laughter]. And this is the last one, it's called “Corporal Pellegrini”. If any of you know Italian, you can understand where all these words came from [audience laughter].\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:31:09\\nReads \\\"Corporal Pellegrini\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:31:38\\nI think Ungaretti would've liked them. [Audience laughter]. He probably would have retranslated them and gotten some new ones. This next work is a translation too and it's a translation I did from French, which I understand some. And so this time I only had to leave certain words. This time I translated a lot of it accurately. But it's called \\\"Life among the woods\\\". And it's a translation of a page from a grammar book, some kind of book written in the French language. After I'd gotten this much done I decided it was over. Anyway, it's called \\\"Life Among the Woods\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:32:20\\nReads \\\"Life Among the Woods\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:34:30.58\\nPretty interesting family. This is a poem called \\\"In Four Parts.\\\"\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:34:40.14\\nReads \\\"In Four Parts\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:35:22\\nThat was four sentences from the New York Times. They had this secret continuity. [Laughter]. This is a poem called \\\"March 17th, 1970\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:35:35\\nReads \\\"March 17th, 1970\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:36:03\\nAnd you'd better believe it. Only not right now, right then. I don't know if I can subject you to this poem. I guess I will anyway. This is called \\\"The Ten Greatest Books of the Year, 1968\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:36:28\\nReads \\\"The Ten Greatest Books of the Year, 1968\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain [audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:38:02\\nYou people that are laughing are getting it.\\n\\nTed Berrigan\\n00:38:04\\nResumes reading \\\"The Ten Greatest Books of the Year, 1968\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain. \\n\\nAudience\\n00:38:14\\nLaughter.\\n\\nTed Berrigan\\n00:38:17\\nThis is a poem called \\\"Thirty\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:38:18\\nReads \\\"Thirty\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:38:24\\nThat's for all of you guys that did thirty. This poem is called \\\"Things to do in Anne's Room\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:38:34\\nReads \\\"Things to do in Anne's Room\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:39:42\\nThis is called \\\"The Great Genius\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:39:45\\nReads \\\"The Great Genius\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:39:56\\nThis is called \\\"Anti-War Poem\\\". It's another New Year's poem, actually.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:40:03\\nReads \\\"Anti-War Poem\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:40:41\\nAnd this poem is called \\\"Tough Brown Coat\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:40:43\\nReads \\\"Tough Brown Coat\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:41:04\\nThis poem is called \\\"Babe Rainbow\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:41:08\\nReads \\\"Babe Rainbow\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:41:25\\nAnd this is called \\\"In My Room\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:41:30\\nReads \\\"In My Room\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:41:54\\nThis is called \\\"Ann Arbor Elegy\\\". It was written for a girl who was killed in an automobile accident. September 27th, 1969. The funny thing about this poem is it was written before she was killed. And when I looked at it after she was dead, I saw that I didn't have to write an elegy for her, that somehow I'd written one already. \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:42:17\\nReads \\\"Ann Arbor Elegy - For Franny Winston\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:43:13\\nAnd this is a sort of berserk work, which I wrote called \\\"Wake Up,\\\" which is about all it says, really.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:43:23\\nReads \\\"Wake up\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:44:18\\nI have another poem which I'd like to read but I won't, but it's a series of aphorisms from the works of Francis Picabia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q157321], the French poet and painter. And this friend Jim Carroll [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q444806] and I translated these from French. I'll read you my favourite one, in any case, which Jim Carroll translated. It says, \\\"Spinoza [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q35802] is the one who threw a pass to move Spinoza.\\\" I really...in this book I put some poems by some of my friends so I wouldn't have to read all my works. Though when I read I never read theirs, I notice. This poem is called \\\"In Bed\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:44:56\\nReads \\\"In Bed\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:45:12\\nThat's an example of saying nothing. [Audience laughter]. This poem is called \\\"Easy Living\\\". It's dedicated to a boy named David Henderson, a poet who was a friend of mine, whom I once took a trip to Pittsburgh [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1342] with. Had a very nice time. \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:45:33\\nReads \\\"Easy Living\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:46:25\\nThis is a poem I wrote, it's called \\\"Like Poem\\\". A friend of mine wrote a love poem to this girl, and I thought I should do that too. But I only wanted to write a like poem to her, because I don't want to have any obligations. [Audience laughter]. No, that isn't the reason why, but that's what came out. This is called \\\"Like Poem,\\\" it's to Joan Fagan, who's the wife of my friend Larry Fagan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q95906997], the poet. \\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:46:50\\nReads \\\"Like Poem\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:47:06\\nThis poem is called \\\"Ann Arbor Song\\\". This poem I actually tried to write a poem out of a very corny feeling that I'd had, which nevertheless is very genuine. It starts at a poetry reading in Ann Arbor, but it's really about being in Ann Arbor and realizing I was leaving soon, and thinking about all the things that wouldn't happen to me again, because this trip was going to be over.  Even though, I'm--it's not all that sentimental, I mean I knew I might go to Ann Arbor again and all that, it was just that this particular trip was going to be over. I also wrote it with the idea in mind of reading it at a poetry reading too.  \\\"Ann Arbor Song\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:47:45\\nReads \\\"Ann Arbor Song\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:49:22\\nI'm going to read two more. First one's called \\\"Peace\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:49:29 \\nReads \\\"Peace\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n\\nTed Berrigan\\n00:50:37\\nAlright, and this is the last poem. I hate to end heavy, but there's no place to read this poem but at the end. This poem is called \\\"People Who Died\\\". It's just a list. \\\"People Who Died\\\".\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:50:55\\nReads \\\"People Who Died\\\" from In the Early Morning Rain.\\n \\nAudience\\n00:52:48\\nApplause.\\n \\nTed Berrigan\\n00:52:53\\nNot the most, uh...[laughter].\\n \\nEND\\n00:52:59\\n\",\"notes\":\"Ted Berrigan reads from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970), The Sonnets (Grove Press, 1964), Many Happy Returns (Corinth, 1969) and poems later collected in So Going Around Cities (Berkley, 1980) as well as a few unknown poems.\\n\\n(Rachel has indexed individual poems)\\n00:00- George Bowering introduces Ted Berrigan. [INDEX: second reading in the series in 1970, series called ‘avant-garde series’, fifth year, first reader from the ‘New York School’, Kenneth Coke, Tom Clarke, quarterback of the school, ‘propaganda’ (advertisement) paper of reading, The Sonnets (1967), Bean Spasms (Kulchur Press, 1967, In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970), Cape Goliard, distributed by big Toronto publisher, ‘Kraut’ title, half German, half English, Guillaume Apollinaire ist tot und Anders (sp?), Berlin.]\\n02:08- Ted Berrigan introduces “Heroin”. [INDEX: poems read from last 4-5 years, in first set   some read from 1961-62, in second set poems read from year or two before, poem read in high schools in Ann Arbour, program called Poetry Ann Arbour, not a pro-heroin poem, not anti-heroin poem either, ‘on-heroin poem’; from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).]\\n03:19- Reads “Heroin”. [INDEX: list, heroin, photograph, Kerouac, Anne, heart, light, streets.]\\n04:22- Introduces “Frank O’Hara’s Question”. [INDEX: O’Hara: dead poet from new York, car accident, significance of title; from In the Early Mornin Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).]\\n04:56- Reads “Frank O’Hara’s Question”. [INDEX: Frank O'Hara, list, sky, letter, Isaac        Dennison, high, happy, long poem, art, guard, mess, message.]\\n05:42- Introduces “Words for Love”. [INDEX: written in 1962, rhetorical; from Many Happy Returns (Corinth, 1969).]\\n06:09- Reads “Words for Love”. [INDEX: winter, snow, read, poetry, weakness, obsession, Jackson Pollock, Rilke, Benedict Arnold, psyche, high, drugs, poems, list, words, time, lady of the lake, God, heart]\\n08:07- Reads first line “I wake up at 11:30, back aching...”. [INDEX: confessional, New York, Pat, Ron, birthday, Pepsi, high, class, book, Juan Gris, poems, ballad, sonnet, Shakespeare, Auden, Spenser, Stevens, Pound, Frank O'Hara, Jan, Helen, Babe, David, ego, self, wonder, toilet paper; poem not indicated on Howard Fink Poem List.]\\n09:23- Reads “Personal Poem #7”. [INDEX: confessional, New York, drugs, sex, John   Ashbery, food, write, stealing; from Many Happy Returns (Corinth, 1969); poems not    \\tindicated on Howard Fink Poem List.]\\n10:23- Reads “Personal Poem #8”. [INDEX: confessional, diary, journal, love, Ray Joss, New York, court, wife, police, John Stanton; from Many Happy Returns (Corinth, 1969); poems not indicated on Howard Fink Poem List.]\\n11:07- Introduces first line “Personal Poem #9”. [INDEX: Charlie Stanton; from Many Happy   Returns (Corinth, 1969); poems not indicated on Howard Fink Poem List.]\\n11:21- Reads first line “Personal Poem #9”. [INDEX: confessional, journal, diary,      \\tBrooklyn, New York, Pepsi, food, memory, book.]\\n12:32- Explains last selection of poems, introduces “Things to do in New York City”. [INDEX: selection written in 1961-2, “Things to do in New York City” written around 1967, leaving New York, written for a birthday present.]\\n13:24- Reads “Things to do in New York City”. [INDEX: confessional, occasional poem, city, New York, By the Waters of Manhattan, drugs, cigarette, read, break, girls, love, death, birth, friends, departure; from Many Happy Returns (Corinth, 1969).]\\n14:20- Introduces “Ten Things I do Every Day”. [INDEX: title; from Many Happy    \\tReturns (Corinth, 1969).]\\n14:40- Reads “Ten Things I do Every Day”.  [INDEX: New York, waking, smoking, pot, love, eating, food, cat, sound, song, streets, read, children, friends, Pepsi.]\\n15:21- Introduces “Resolution”. [INDEX: New York City; from Many Happy  \\tReturns (Corinth, 1969).]\\n15:35- Reads “Resolution”. [INDEX: city, New York, snow, winter, New Year's, driving]\\n15:58- Introduces “Sonnet XXXVII”. [INDEX: from The Sonnets (Grove Press, 1964).] \\n16:06- Reads “Sonnet XXXVII”. [INDEX: night, sleep, Guillaume Apollinaire, poem, dream, crying, song, library, tear, light]\\n17:08- Introduces “Apologies to Val and Tom”. [INDEX: written last summer in London, dedicated to poet Tom Raworth and his wife, Colchester, London, apology; from unknown source.]\\n17:33- Reads “Apologies to Val and Tom”. [INDEX: place, London, apology, night, city, memory, remembrance, New York, friend, poem, visit.]\\n19:05- Introduces “Things to do on Speed”. [INDEX: for Angela Bowering, George Bowering; from the section “How We Live in the Jungle 1969-1970 in So Going Around Cities (Berkley, 1980).]\\n19:19- Reads “Things to do on Speed”. [INDEX: list, typewriter, mind, writing, book, desk, Pepsi, sleep, dream, paper, song, sickness, drugs, imperative, talking, New York, city, work, hallucination, high, sex, heroin, speed]\\n22:21- Explains “Things to do on Speed” and introduces “Things to do in Providence. [INDEX: New York Times, Providence, Rhode Island.]\\n22:50- Reads “Things to do in Providence”. [INDEX: confessional, place, Providence, Rhode Island, city, drugs, imperative, list, food, TV, war, Texas, movie, Western, tear, cowboy, New York, drunk, children, phone, talk, family, mother, birth, work, cigarette, hippie, teenager, home, car, death, grandmother, heart, stranger, sleep; from the section “Buffalo Days: Summer 1970 in So Going Around Cities (Berkley, 1980).]\\n27:55- After a break (cut in recording), George Bowering introduces Ted Berrigan again.\\n28:01- Ted Berrigan introduces “Hello”. [INDEX: poems read from In the Early Morning Rain, title from Gordon Lightfoot: Canadian Folk singer-songwriter, Bob Dylan’s Self Portrait Album, stealing titles, collection from last ten years; from In the Early Mornin Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).] \\n28:51- Reads “Hello”. [INDEX: hello, etymology, health.]\\n29:06- Introduces section of book, “Life of a Man”, and poem “Matinee”. [INDEX: Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, poet Barbara Guest, Ron Patchett, translate Ungaretti’s poems, translation without dictionary; from In the Early Mornin Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).]  \\n30:16- Reads “Matinee”. [INDEX: translation, morning.]\\n30:26- Reads “December” [INDEX: translation, farewell, mother, brother, sister, sex, heart; from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).]\\n30:38- Reads “Reply to the Fragile”. [INDEX: translation, bite, pain, sex, breasts; from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).]\\n30:53- Introduces “Corporal Pellegrini”. [INDEX: Italian; from In the Early Mornin Rain    (Cape Goliard, 1970).]\\n31:09- Reads “Corporal Pellegrini”. [INDEX: translation, corporal, sex, horse, soldier, death.]\\n31:38- Introduces “Life Among the Woods”. [INDEX: Ungaretti, retranslated to make new poems, translation from French, from grammar book; from In the Early Mornin Rain  (Cape Goliard, 1970).] \\n32:20- Reads “Life Among the Woods”. [INDEX: translation, Paris, boat, woods, family, children, rich, house, garden, cooking, list.]\\n34:30- Reads “In Four Parts”.  [INDEX: beach, Israel, Mayor Frank X. Graves, Allen    Ginsberg, marijuana, news, William Carlos Williams, poet, American, New York Times;  \\tfrom In the Early Mornin Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).]\\n35:22- Explains “In Four Parts”, introduces “March 17th, 1970”. [INDEX: sentences from the New York Times, secret continuity.] \\n35:35- Reads “March 17th, 1970”. [INDEX: love, like, phone, wire, listening, kill.]\\n36:03- Introduces “The Ten Greatest Books of the Year, 1968”.\\n36:28- Reads “The Ten Greatest Books of the Year, 1968”. [INDEX: book, list, William Carlos Williams, Charles Olson, Chicago Review, dictionary, Aristotle, language, Frank O'Hara, Ralph Conners, zodiac, consciousness, names, rank, sonnet; from In the Early Mornin Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).]\\n38:13- Introduces “30”. [INDEX: from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).]\\n38:18- Reads “30”.\\n38:34- Introduces “Things to do in Anne’s Room”.\\n38:34- Reads “Things to do in Anne’s Room”.  [INDEX: room, house, place, imperative, list, sex, couple, book, Moby Dick, Planet of the Apes, clothes, bed, alone, death; from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).]\\n39:42- Reads “The Great Genius”. [INDEX: man, crazy; from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).]\\n39:56- Introduces “Anti-War Poem”. [INDEX: New Year’s poem; from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970)\\n40:03- Reads “Anti-War Poem”. [INDEX: peace, war, resolution, New Year's Eve, 1968, Iowa City, city, memory, remembrance, death.]\\n40:41- Reads “Tough Brown Coat”. [INDEX: coat, description, clothes, death; from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).]\\n41:04- Reads “Babe Rainbow”. [INDEX: smoke, cigarette, burn, bed, read; from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970)\\n41:25- Reads “In My Room”. [INDEX: place, house, room, list, Thanksgiving.]\\n42:17- Introduces “Ann Arbor Elegy”. [INDEX: girl killed in automobile accident on \\tSeptember 27, 1969, written before her accident; from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape   Goliard, 1970).]\\n42:17- Reads “Ann Arbor Elegy”. [INDEX: for Franny Winston, party, night, drinking, alcohol, high, girl, place, Ann Arbor, death, morning, sky, food, news.]\\n43:13- Reads “Wake Up”. [INDEX: morning, wake, bed, girl, work, Jim Dine, day, list, imperative; from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).]\\n44:15- Introduces “In Bed”. [INDEX: series of aphorisms, Francis Picabia French poet and painter, Jim Carroll, translation from French, placing other poet’s work in his books; from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).] \\n44:56- Reads “In Bed”. [INDEX: girl, bed, sex.]\\n45:12- Introduces “Easy Living”. [INDEX: dedicated to boy named David Henderson,    Pittsburgh; from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).] \\n45:33- Reads “Easy Living”.   [INDEX: travel, Africa, time, rain, heat, weather, David    Henderson, Pittsburgh.]\\n46:25- Introduces “Like Poem”. [INDEX: friend wrote love poem, to Joan Fagan, wife of poet Larry Fagan; in the section “In the Wheel: Winter 1969” in So Going Around Cities (Berkley, 1980).]\\n46:50- Reads “Like Poem”. [INDEX: couple, drugs, Joan Fagan, like.]\\n47:06- Introduces “Ann Arbor Song”. [INDEX: feeling, poetry reading in Ann Arbor, trip.]\\n47:45- Reads “Ann Arbor Song”.  [INDEX: place, Ann Arbor, poetry, poetry reading, poem, boredom, Jack, Anne, high, drugs, friends, time, memory, remembrance.]\\n49:22- Reads “Peace”. [INDEX: heart, day, east, west, peace, couple, love, woman; unknown source.]\\n50:53- Introduces “People Who Died”. [INDEX: heavy poem, end of reading, list; from In the Early Morning Rain (Cape Goliard, 1970).]\\n50:55- Reads “People Who Died”. [INDEX: death, list, dates, friends, accidents, cancer, suicide, Neal Cassidy, Frank O'Hara, Ann Kepler, Franny Winston, Jack Kerouac.]\\n52:59.60- END OF RECORDING.\\n \\nPoems with Time Stamps and Duration                         \\tTime           \\tDuration (mins.)\\n“Heroin”                                                                             \\t00:03:19      \\t01:02  \\n“Frank O’Hara’s Question”            \\t                                \\t           00:04:56      \\t00:44\\n“Words For Love”                                                              \\t00:06:09      \\t01:57\\n[“I wake up 11:30, back aching”]                                       \\t00:08:07      \\t01:13\\n“Personal Poem #7                                                             \\t00:09:23      \\t00:58\\n“Personal Poem” (#8?)                                                       \\t00:10:23      \\t00:42\\n“Personal Poem #9                                                             \\t00:11:21      \\t01:08\\n“Things To Do in New York City”            \\t                       \\t00:13:24      \\t00:55\\n“Ten Things I Do Every Day”                                                    00:14:40      \\t00:35\\n“Resolution”                                                                       \\t00:15:35      \\t00:17\\n“Sonnet XXXVII”  \\t        \\t                                            \\t00:16:06      \\t01:01\\n“Apologies to Val And Tom”                                             \\t00:17:33      \\t01:31\\n“Things To Do On Speed”                                                 \\t00:19:19      \\t02:58\\n“Things To Do In Providence”                                           \\t00:22:50      \\t04:55\\n“Hello”                                                                                \\t00:28:51      \\t00:15\\n“Matinee”                                                                           \\t00:30:16      \\t00:09\\n“December”                                                                        \\t00:30:30      \\t00:07\\n“Reply to the Fragile”                                                        \\t00:30:42      \\t00:10\\n“Corporal Pelegrini”                                                           \\t00:31:09      \\t00:28\\n“Life Among the Woods”                                                   \\t00:32:20      \\t02:09\\n“In Four Parts”                                                                    \\t00:34:40      \\t00:40\\n“March 17, 1970”                                                               \\t00:35:35      \\t00:28\\n“The Ten Greatest Books of the Year – 1968”                  \\t00:36:28      \\t01:45\\n“Thirty”                                                                              \\t00:38:18      \\t00:06\\n“Things To Do In Anne’s Room”                                      \\t00:38:34      \\t01:09\\n“The Great Genius”                                                            \\t00:39:45      \\t00:10\\n“Anti-War Poem”                                                               \\t00:40:03      \\t00:37  \\n“Tough Brown Coat”                                                          \\t00:40:43      \\t00:20\\n“Babe Rainbow”                                                                 \\t00:41:08      \\t00:16\\n“In My Room”                                                                    \\t00:41:30      \\t00:23\\n“Ann Arbor Elegy”                                                             \\t00:42:17      \\t00:57\\n“Wake Up”                                                                         \\t00:43:23      \\t00:56\\n “In Bed”                                                                             \\t00:44:56      \\t00:15\\n“Easy Living”                                                                     \\t00:45:33      \\t00:50\\n“Like Poem”                                               \\t                    \\t00:46:50      \\t00:16\\n“Ann Arbor Song”                                                              \\t00:47:45      \\t01:46\\n“Peace”                                                                               \\t00:49:29      \\t01:07\\n“People Who Died”                                                            \\t00:50:55      \\t01:51\\n \\nHoward Fink List of Poems:\\n“Ted Berrigan”\\nIntroduction by George Bowering\\nRecorded December 4, 1970\\nNote: “Personal Poems” do not appear on this list, and an extra first line in between “Wake Up” and “In Bed” reads “Spinoza is the one who threw a pass...”.\\npg. 66\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"Yes\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/ted-berrigan-at-sgwu-1970/\"}]"],"score":2.9270062},{"id":"1293","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":["David McFadden and Gerry Gilbert at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 15 January 1971"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"DAVID McFADDEN AND GERRY GILBERT Recorded January 15, 1971 3.75 ips on 1 mil. tape, 1/2 track Quality: Fair to poor. Poems read alternately\" written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. \"DAVID McFADDEN GERRY GILBERT I006/SR19\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. \"I006-11-019\" 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 5"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"creator_names":["McFadden, David","Gilbert, Gerry"],"creator_names_search":["McFadden, David","Gilbert, Gerry"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/7405434\",\"name\":\"McFadden, David\",\"dates\":\"1940-2018\",\"notes\":\"Writer David McFadden was born in 1940, in Hamilton, Ontario, where he spent his first thirty-nine years. He started Mountain, a mimeographed magazine in 1962, and his early work appeared in tish, Is, Evidence, Weed, and Talon. He became a proofreader for the Hamilton Spectator in 1962 and a reporter for the same in 1970. David McFadden’s first collections of poems were published in Letters from the earth to the earth in 1968 (Coach House Press), Poems worth knowing in 1971 (Coach House Press) and Intense pleasure in 1972 (McClelland and Stewart). His first novel was The great Canadian sonnet, published in 1970 (Coach House Press). In 1976 he resigned from the Hamilton Spectator to focus on freelance writing and editing. McFadden continued to publish his poems in A knight in dried plums in 1975 (McClelland and Stewart), and On the road again in 1978 (McClelland and Stewart). His short stories and novels include three from the ‘Great Lakes Series’, published from 1980 to 1988 (Coach House Press), and Animal spirits: stories to live by in 1983 (Coach House Press). McFadden has published over fifteen other novels and collections of poems from 1967 to 1995, which include My Body was Eaten by Dogs (McClelland and Stewart, 1981), selected poems edited and introduced by George Bowering, and The Art of Darkness (McClelland Stewart, 1984). Be Calm Honey (Mansfield Press, 2008) was a finalist for the 2009 Governor General’s Award and his final published book, What's the Score? (Mansfield Press, 2012) won the 2013 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize. McFadden died in 2018.\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Author\",\"Performer\"]},{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/13554305\",\"name\":\"Gilbert, Gerry\",\"dates\":\"1936-2009\",\"notes\":\"Canadian poet and photographer Gerry Gilbert, born in 1936, was one of the most experimental writers from Vancouver in the 60’s. He started as a television cameraman, and then concentrated on writing poetry. Gilbert founded and edited The B.C. Monthly, which published literary and political criticism. He was also the editor of Radio Free Rain Forest, published out of Vancouver. Gilbert’s publications are numerous, and include artful self-published books of poetry. White lunch: poems was published by Periwinkle Press in 1964, followed by The milk (Minimedia, 1967), Quote, New York, July 1965 (Ganglia Press, 1969), Phone book (Weed/Flower, 1969), On my face (G.Gilbert, 1970), The (Probable Latitude 76 ̊15' Longitude 113 ̊10'E, London, 1970), a film Doi,ngng (NFB, Ottawa, 1970), And a place in mind... (Hesheitworks, 1971), Apr. 35, 1978 (Hesheitworks, 1971), And (Blewointmentpress, 1971), Money (York Street Commune, 1971), Lease (Coach House Press, 1971), Journal to the East (Blewointmentpress, 1974), Bicycle (Caledonia Writing Series, 1977), New and used poems (G.Gilbert, 1980), Moby Jane (Coach House Press, 1987), The 1/2 of it (Wave 7 Press, 1989), Azure blues (Talon Books, 1991), Year off  (BC Monthly, 2001), and Poetrees (BC Monthly, 2006). Gilbert died in Vancouver in 2009.\",\"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":[1971],"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\":\"Poor\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"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\":\"1971 1 15\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Date written on sticker on the back of the tape's box and in written announcement\\n\",\"source\":\"Accompanying Material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building Room H-651\",\"notes\":\"\",\"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 Room H-651"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["David McFadden reads from The Great Canadian Sonnet (Coach House Press, 1970), as well as poems published later in Poems Worth Knowing (Coach House Press, 1971) and Intense Pleasure (McClelland and Stewart, 1972). Gerry Gilbert reads from Money (York Street Commune, 1971) and Phone Book (Weed/Flower, 1969) and And (Blewointmentpress, 1971) as well as some poems from unknown sources."],"contents":["david_mcfadden_gerry_gilbert_i006-11-019.mp3\n\nGeorge Bowering\n00:00:08\nWe have two readers tonight, both Canadian poets, as you know, and, but in most cases when we have two poets as we did last time, we generally have one poet read for a while, then have a break, and then have the other poet read for a while, but we're not going to do it that way tonight. We're just going to throw the thing open to both David McFadden [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5237344] and Gerry Gilbert [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5552756] and they will work it out as it seems to work out for them. This makes a lot of sense, although they've never read together before, they're both published by the same publishing house, and published in the same magazines and know each other as they used to say in the old days in the ivy league by reputation. Gerry Gilbert is, as a lot of people we've had this year, is from the West Coast and has been involved for quite a while with an outfit in the coast that gobbles up your tax money called Intermedia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39079179], that's why the screen is there, something might happen there occasionally. Gerry was at one time the editor of a seminal West Coast publishing venture called Radio Free Rain Forest, and is the author of a series of books and things that are like books, as for instance, White Lunch which came out several years ago in Vancouver [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24639] and Telephone Book which is published by Coach House Press, I think, no, Weed/Flower, sorry. David's also been published by Weed/Flower and the Coach House Press, and his forthcoming book is the second volume of the Big/Little Book novel, called The Great Canadian Sonnet with illustrations by a little-known London [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q92561] artist named Greg Curnoe [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5605459]. His next book is going to be called Poems Worth Knowing, a title that anyone from Ontario [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1904] or British Columbia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1974] will know. What we're going to do is they're going to operate for a little while, and then when they feel the need for a break there will be a short intermission, like about ten minutes, then we'll proceed again with what, as they say, the second set. So I'm not going to be able to say that somebody's reading first and somebody's reading second but what I will be able to say is that the readers will be David McFadden and Gerry Gilbert.\n \nUnknown\n00:02:39\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n\nDavid McFadden\n00:02:40\nReads unnamed poem. \n\nUnknown\n00:06:02\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n\nGerry Gilbert\n00:06:03\nReads \"Her white face where I have seen Her ride the last bus, before\" [from Money].\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:07:14\nReads \"A moving picture moves, it's the truth about movies\" [from Money].\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:07:33\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:08:20\nReads \"I REMEMBER TOOTSIE ROLLS when they were only in American comic books\" [from Money].\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:09:46\nReads [“The Slippery Wig” published later in Intense Pleasure and collected in Why Are You So Sad?]. \n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:10:38\nReads \"London 1964\" [from Money]\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:12:28\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:13:37\nReads \"waitress calls the man in the corner, HARRY” [from Money].\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:14:30\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:14:53\nReads \"the pleasure. I said” [from Money].\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:16:14\nReads [“Titles I Have Heard Of But Not Read” published later in Intense Pleasure and collected in Why Are You So Sad?].\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:18:26\nReads [\"Single Mens Unit\" from Money].\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:19:05\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nDavid McFadden\n00:21:03\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:23:13\nReads \"Goodness and mercy are following me across the lake\" [from Money].\n\nGerry Gilbert\n00:24:10\nReads \"Bicycle\" [from Money].\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:24:55\nReads \"on the bed” [from Money].\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:25:32\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nDavid McFadden\n00:26:05\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:26:18\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:26:49\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:28:03\nReads \"bone ring on my finger\" [from Money].\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:28:34\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nDavid McFadden\n00:31:05\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:32:10\nWe're reading Canadian history. A few of the poems from Phone Book.\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:32:28\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:33:05\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:33:42\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:34:31\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:35:25\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:36:37\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:36:58\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:37:29\nThis poem's called \"Garden\".\n \nGerry Gilbert \n00:37:35\nReads \"Garden\" [from Money].\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:38:38\nReads [“Journey To Love” published later in Poems Worth Knowing].\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:39:21\nReads [“A Poem Without A Title Is Like A Letter Without A Stamp” published later in Poems Worth Knowing].\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:39:50\nReads \"find your birds\" [from Money].\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:41:32\nReads [“Art’s Variety” published later in Poems Worth Knowing].\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:42:04\nReads \"sometimes I miss\" [from Money].\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:42:18\nReads [“Another Revolution” published later in Poems Worth Knowing].\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:42:57\nReads [“Chapter One” from The Great Canadian Sonnet].\n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:47:06\nDid I hear you say 'boiled skunks'? This is a little tale. \n\nGerry Gilbert\n00:49:24\nReads unnamed poem. \n\nGerry Gilbert\n00:49:45\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:51:42\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:53:02\nReads \"Vital Statistics: Distances from Hamilton To...\" [from The Great Canadian Sonnet]. \n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:54:52\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nDavid McFadden\n00:54:52\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nDavid McFadden\n00:55:52\nReads unnamed poem [audience laughter throughout]. \n \nGerry Gilbert\n00:56:52\nReads [“SQUEEZE THRU THE TUBE” from And].\n\nGerry Gilbert\n00:57:08\nReads [“24.11.70. TORONTO” from And].\n\nGerry Gilbert\n00:57:59\nThe following is a Rochdale College [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14875408] council meeting. 23rd of November, 1970.\n\nGerry Gilbert\n00:58:08\nReads [“ROCHDALE COUNCIL MEETING 23.11.70” and other untitled sections from And].\n \nDavid McFadden\n01:01:24\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nDavid McFadden\n01:01:39\nReads unnamed poem. \n\nUnknown\n01:09:59\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n\nGerry Gilbert\n01:10:01\nReads [“QUIET” from And].\n\nGerry Gilbert\n01:10:28\nReads untitled poem [from And].\n\nGerry Gilbert\n01:10:41\nReads [“THE WEST IS ALONE SEA” from And].\n\nGerry Gilbert\n01:10:57\nReads “TICKET” [from And].\n\nGerry Gilbert\n01:11:33\nReads [“2.1.71” from And]. \n\nGerry Gilbert\n01:12:44\nReads [“49th week 1970” from And].\n\nGerry Gilbert\n01:12:49\nReads “FRIED EGG SANDWICH ON BROWN” [from And].\n\nDavid McFadden\n01:13:54\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nGerry Gilbert\n01:23:26\nReads [first section of “Babyland Blues” from Money]. \n \nGerry Gilbert\n01:27:05\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nGerry Gilbert\n01:27:52\nReads [section of “Babybland Blues from Money].\n \nGerry Gilbert\n01:28:44\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nGerry Gilbert\n01:29:04\nReads [final section of “Babyland Blues from Money].\n \nEND\n01:29:19\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:\\n\\nIn 1971, at the time of the reading, David McFadden was a reporter for the Hamilton Spectator, and his collection of poems, Poems Worth Knowing was to be published the same year. His novel, The Great Canadian Sonnet was published the year before, in 1970.\\n\\nIn 1971, Gerry Gilbert published And a place in mind... (Hesheitworks, 1971), Apr. 35, 1978 (Hesheitworks, 1971), And (Blewointmentpress, 1971), Money (York Street Commune, 1971), and Lease (Coach House Press, 1971).\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nMcFadden was heavily invested in Canadian writing, and lived his whole life in Ontario and British Columbia. He had connections with George Bowering, as Bowering published an interview with McFadden in 1971. McFadden and Bowering had met while Bowering was at the University of Western Ontario, between 1966 and 1967.\\n\\nGerry Gilbert was an important avant-garde poet and publisher in Vancouver in the 60’s through to today. His press, Blewointmentpress published poetry by other Canadian poets such as Maxine Gadd, bill bissett and bp Nichol. His direct connections to Sir George Williams University are unknown, however George Bowering or Roy Kiyooka might have known Gilbert from the Vancouver scene.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"Reel-to-reel tape>2 CDs>digital file\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/contemporary-canadian-poem-anthology/oclc/476332314&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Bowering, George, ed. The Contemporary Canadian Poem Anthology. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1984\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-twentieth-century-poetry-in-english/oclc/1229534811&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Berry, Reg. \\\"McFadden, David\\\".  The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in        English. Ian Hamilton. Oxford University Press, 1996. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-canadian-literature/oclc/858858596&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Davey, Frank. \\\"McFadden, David\\\", The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Eugene Benson and William Toye. Oxford University Press 2001. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/from-there-to-here-a-guide-to-english-canadian-literature-since-1960-ii-our-nature-our-voices/oclc/878901819&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Davey, Frank. “Gerry Gilbert”. From There to Here: A Guide to English-Canadian Literature Since 1960, Our Nature-Our Voices II. Erin, Ontario: Press Porcepic, 1974. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/from-there-to-here-a-guide-to-english-canadian-literature-since-1960-ii-our-nature-our-voices/oclc/878901819&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Davey, Frank. “David McFadden”. From There to Here: A Guide to English-Canadian Literature Since 1960, Our Nature-Our Voices II. Erin, Ontario: Press Porcepic, 1974.\\n\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/money/oclc/427223207&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Gilbert, Gerry. Money. Vancouver: York Street Commune Press, 1971.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/phone-book/oclc/92241&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Gilbert, Gerry. Phone Book. Toronto: Weed/Flower Press, 1969. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/white-lunch-poems/oclc/869020598&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Gilbert, Gerry. White Lunch, Poems. Vancouver: Periwinkle Press, 1964. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/grounds-poems/oclc/1087483441&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Gilbert, Gerry. Grounds. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1976. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/lease/oclc/729960668?referer=di&ht=edition\",\"citation\":\"Gilbert, Gerry. Lease. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1972. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/and/oclc/1005955202&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Gilbert, Gerry. And. Vancouver: Blewointmentpress, 1971.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/great-canadian-sonnet/oclc/301438651&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"McFadden, David. The Great Canadian Sonnet. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1970. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/great-canadian-sonnet-the-great-canadian-sonnet/oclc/15750598&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"McFadden, David. The Great Canadian Sonnet. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1974. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/great-lakes-suite/oclc/37490622?referer=di&ht=edition\",\"citation\":\"McFadden, David. Great Lakes Suite. Vancouver, Talonbooks, 1997. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/intense-pleasure/oclc/421732872&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"McFadden, David. Intense Pleasure. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972. \\n\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/poems-worth-knowing/oclc/422697370&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"McFadden, David. Poems Worth Knowing. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1971. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/why-are-you-so-sad/oclc/899150333&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"McFadden, David. Why Are You So Sad? Toronto: Insomniac Press, 2007. \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry Readings”. OP-ED. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 6 October 1967, page 6. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670548930822144,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0019_tape.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0019_tape.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"McFadden and Gilbert Tape Box - Reel\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0019_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0019_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"McFadden and Gilbert 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_0019_back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0019_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"McFadden and Gilbert 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_0019_side.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0019_side.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"McFadden and Gilbert Tape Box - Spine\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/david_mcfadden_gerry_gilbert_i006-11-019.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\" david_mcfadden_gerry_gilbert_i006-11-019.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"01:29:19\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"214.4 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"George Bowering\\n00:00:08\\nWe have two readers tonight, both Canadian poets, as you know, and, but in most cases when we have two poets as we did last time, we generally have one poet read for a while, then have a break, and then have the other poet read for a while, but we're not going to do it that way tonight. We're just going to throw the thing open to both David McFadden [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5237344] and Gerry Gilbert [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5552756] and they will work it out as it seems to work out for them. This makes a lot of sense, although they've never read together before, they're both published by the same publishing house, and published in the same magazines and know each other as they used to say in the old days in the ivy league by reputation. Gerry Gilbert is, as a lot of people we've had this year, is from the West Coast and has been involved for quite a while with an outfit in the coast that gobbles up your tax money called Intermedia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39079179], that's why the screen is there, something might happen there occasionally. Gerry was at one time the editor of a seminal West Coast publishing venture called Radio Free Rain Forest, and is the author of a series of books and things that are like books, as for instance, White Lunch which came out several years ago in Vancouver [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24639] and Telephone Book which is published by Coach House Press, I think, no, Weed/Flower, sorry. David's also been published by Weed/Flower and the Coach House Press, and his forthcoming book is the second volume of the Big/Little Book novel, called The Great Canadian Sonnet with illustrations by a little-known London [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q92561] artist named Greg Curnoe [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5605459]. His next book is going to be called Poems Worth Knowing, a title that anyone from Ontario [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1904] or British Columbia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1974] will know. What we're going to do is they're going to operate for a little while, and then when they feel the need for a break there will be a short intermission, like about ten minutes, then we'll proceed again with what, as they say, the second set. So I'm not going to be able to say that somebody's reading first and somebody's reading second but what I will be able to say is that the readers will be David McFadden and Gerry Gilbert.\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:02:39\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n\\nDavid McFadden\\n00:02:40\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n\\nUnknown\\n00:06:02\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:06:03\\nReads \\\"Her white face where I have seen Her ride the last bus, before\\\" [from Money].\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:07:14\\nReads \\\"A moving picture moves, it's the truth about movies\\\" [from Money].\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:07:33\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:08:20\\nReads \\\"I REMEMBER TOOTSIE ROLLS when they were only in American comic books\\\" [from Money].\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:09:46\\nReads [“The Slippery Wig” published later in Intense Pleasure and collected in Why Are You So Sad?]. \\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:10:38\\nReads \\\"London 1964\\\" [from Money]\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:12:28\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:13:37\\nReads \\\"waitress calls the man in the corner, HARRY” [from Money].\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:14:30\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:14:53\\nReads \\\"the pleasure. I said” [from Money].\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:16:14\\nReads [“Titles I Have Heard Of But Not Read” published later in Intense Pleasure and collected in Why Are You So Sad?].\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:18:26\\nReads [\\\"Single Mens Unit\\\" from Money].\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:19:05\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:21:03\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:23:13\\nReads \\\"Goodness and mercy are following me across the lake\\\" [from Money].\\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:24:10\\nReads \\\"Bicycle\\\" [from Money].\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:24:55\\nReads \\\"on the bed” [from Money].\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:25:32\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:26:05\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:26:18\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:26:49\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:28:03\\nReads \\\"bone ring on my finger\\\" [from Money].\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:28:34\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:31:05\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:32:10\\nWe're reading Canadian history. A few of the poems from Phone Book.\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:32:28\\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:33:05\\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:33:42\\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:34:31\\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:35:25\\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:36:37\\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:36:58\\nReads untitled poem from Phone Book.\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:37:29\\nThis poem's called \\\"Garden\\\".\\n \\nGerry Gilbert \\n00:37:35\\nReads \\\"Garden\\\" [from Money].\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:38:38\\nReads [“Journey To Love” published later in Poems Worth Knowing].\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:39:21\\nReads [“A Poem Without A Title Is Like A Letter Without A Stamp” published later in Poems Worth Knowing].\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:39:50\\nReads \\\"find your birds\\\" [from Money].\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:41:32\\nReads [“Art’s Variety” published later in Poems Worth Knowing].\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:42:04\\nReads \\\"sometimes I miss\\\" [from Money].\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:42:18\\nReads [“Another Revolution” published later in Poems Worth Knowing].\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:42:57\\nReads [“Chapter One” from The Great Canadian Sonnet].\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:47:06\\nDid I hear you say 'boiled skunks'? This is a little tale. \\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:49:24\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:49:45\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:51:42\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:53:02\\nReads \\\"Vital Statistics: Distances from Hamilton To...\\\" [from The Great Canadian Sonnet]. \\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:54:52\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:54:52\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n00:55:52\\nReads unnamed poem [audience laughter throughout]. \\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:56:52\\nReads [“SQUEEZE THRU THE TUBE” from And].\\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:57:08\\nReads [“24.11.70. TORONTO” from And].\\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:57:59\\nThe following is a Rochdale College [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14875408] council meeting. 23rd of November, 1970.\\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n00:58:08\\nReads [“ROCHDALE COUNCIL MEETING 23.11.70” and other untitled sections from And].\\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n01:01:24\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nDavid McFadden\\n01:01:39\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n\\nUnknown\\n01:09:59\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n01:10:01\\nReads [“QUIET” from And].\\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n01:10:28\\nReads untitled poem [from And].\\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n01:10:41\\nReads [“THE WEST IS ALONE SEA” from And].\\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n01:10:57\\nReads “TICKET” [from And].\\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n01:11:33\\nReads [“2.1.71” from And]. \\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n01:12:44\\nReads [“49th week 1970” from And].\\n\\nGerry Gilbert\\n01:12:49\\nReads “FRIED EGG SANDWICH ON BROWN” [from And].\\n\\nDavid McFadden\\n01:13:54\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n01:23:26\\nReads [first section of “Babyland Blues” from Money]. \\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n01:27:05\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n01:27:52\\nReads [section of “Babybland Blues from Money].\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n01:28:44\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nGerry Gilbert\\n01:29:04\\nReads [final section of “Babyland Blues from Money].\\n \\nEND\\n01:29:19\\n\",\"notes\":\"David McFadden reads from The Great Canadian Sonnet (Coach House Press, 1970), as well as poems published later in Poems Worth Knowing (Coach House Press, 1971) and Intense Pleasure (McClelland and Stewart, 1972). Gerry Gilbert reads from Money (York Street Commune, 1971) and Phone Book (Weed/Flower, 1969) and And (Blewointmentpress, 1971) as well as some poems from unknown sources.\\n00:00- Unknown Male introduces David McFadden and Gerry Gilbert [INDEX: Gerry Gilbert: West Coast, radiofreerainforest, Intermedia, White Lunch, Vancouver, Phone Book published by Weed/Flower Press. David McFadden: Coach House Press, Weed/Flower Press, Big Little Book novel, The Great Canadian Sonnet with illustrations by Greg Curnoe, Poems Worth Knowing, Ontario, British Columbia]\\n02:40- David McFadden reads first line “They try to teach you things so fast in school...”\\n06:03- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Her right face, where I have seen her ride the last bus before...”\\n07:14- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “A moving picture moves...” [INDEX: in the section “For Crying Out Loud” in Money]\\n07:33- David McFadden reads first line “At the vending machine, Garfield got a bag of...”\\n08:20- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “I remember tootsie rolls were only in American comic books...” [INDEX: in the section “For Crying Out Loud” in Money]\\n09:46- David McFadden reads first line “I sat next to her on the bus. She kept adjusting her black wig...”\\n10:38- Gerry Gilbert reads “London 1964” [INDEX: in the section “For Crying Out Loud”, in Money]\\n12:28- David McFadden reads “Received your postcard today and dropped it...”\\n13:37- Gerry Gilbert reads “The waitress calls the man in the corner Harry...” [INDEX: in the section “For Crying Out Loud” in Money]\\n14:30- David McFadden reads first line “Nine inches from navel to vulva...”\\n14:53- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “The pleasure, I said, I dreamed I was in    Vietnam...” [INDEX: in the section “For Crying Out Loud” in Money]\\n16:14- David McFadden reads first line “Dreams have become so full of intricate detail...”\\n18:26- Gerry Gilbert reads “Single Mens Unit” [INDEX: in Money]\\n19:05- David McFadden reads first line “The Bursby Police are a fine group of men...”\\n21:03- David McFadden reads first line “Napanee home for the aged Japanese Canadians...”\\n23:13- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Goodness and Mercy are following me...” [INDEX: in the section “For Crying Out Loud” in Money]\\n24:10- Gerry Gilbert reads “Bicycle” [INDEX: in Money]\\n24:55- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “On the bed, we held, two hands a pot...”\\n25:32- David McFadden reads first line “The successful young alderman of ambition...”\\n26:05- David McFadden reads first line “The tub was dirty so I washed it out...”\\n26:18- David McFadden reads first line “I’m leaving on Saturday, Harry the sweeper talking...”\\n26:49- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Blow by blow, solid, solid, short...”\\n28:03- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Bone, ring on my finger, bell...” [INDEX: in section “For Crying Out Loud” in Money]\\n28:34- David McFadden reads first line “Spitting out the used up toothpaste...”\\n31:05- David McFadden reads first line “If you’re lucky enough to be there when your name is called...”\\n32:28- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Mirror, mirror from Middle English...” [INDEX: in    \\tPhone Book]\\n33:05- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Stabit, she’s big, her mom sed...” [INDEX: in Phone    Book]\\n33:42- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Conductor, CN Conductor...” [INDEX: in Phone Book]\\n35:25- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “It began to rain, we sat on the hill...” [INDEX: in Phone Book]\\n36:37- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “The killer is at the top window...” [INDEX: in Phone    Book]\\n36:58- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Can’t see the key, you have to reach...” [INDEX: in     Phone Book]\\n37:29- Gerry Gilbert reads “Garden” [INDEX: in Money]\\n38:38- David McFadden reads first line “No one knows his own potential for evil...”\\n39:21- David McFadden reads first line “I made a left turn from Houston onto King...”\\n39:50- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Find your birds, ladies and gentlemen...” [INDEX: in the section “For Crying Out Loud” in Money]\\n41:32- David McFadden reads first line “She was small and pretty, my heart broke...”\\n42:04- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Sometimes I miss the times I miss...” [INDEX: in the   section “For Crying Out Loud” in Money]    \\n42:18- David McFadden reads first line “Elege [sp?] expands to fill the vacuum left by loss of spirit...”\\n42:57- David McFadden reads first line “I’m Alabama-bound, my brain is firming round...”\\n47:24- END OF RECORDING\\n\\n00:02- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “I rolled down the slime trail after slug...”\\n01:59- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Semitic origin, these etymological discussions...”\\n02:21- Gerry Gilbert reads “Spadina Salvation Army, December 1969”\\n04:27- David McFadden reads first line “Vital statistics, distances from Hamilton to \\tBoston...”\\n05:38- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “A place in mind clicks, switch...”\\n07:27- David McFadden reads first line “Joan was telling me how she was driving...”\\n08:28- David McFadden reads first line “The dog across the street is a little Pekinese...”\\n09:28- Gerry Gilbert reads series of poems starting with first lines “I was in Ottawa...” and “Matches, I never saw Eddie...”\\n10:09- Gerry Gilbert reads series of poems starting with first lines “I can’t find the sky...” and “I see you and baby...” and “9 or 10 council men and women...”\\n14:00- David McFadden reads first line “Collier's Encyclopedia says...”\\n14:15- David McFadden reads first line “Joan said she was miserable that day...”\\n22:35- Gerry Gilbert reads of series of short poems with first lines “Buddha, somebody stole...”, “I jacked-off..”, “We’ve been having technical...”, “Go sooner than you   expect...”. “If you like lots of food...”, “Ticket, way West...”, “Pictures of windows...”, “Pencil, don’t dry out...”, “Each a life, eat your wife...”, “Fried egg sandwich...”, “The world is so young...”, “Your own, a better night...”, “She loved me...”, “Hair, hooked behind my ears...”, “Your first is something nobody...”\\n26:29- David McFadden reads first line “The car was running very well...”\\n36:01- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “I know what I’m doing...”\\n39:40- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Eagle, hear me coming...”\\n40:28- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Water the garden after...”\\n41:19- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Each size, big places...”\\n41:40- Gerry Gilbert reads first line “Sweet, sweet babyland bird...”\\n41:55.46- END OF RECORDING\\n \\n*Note about Transcript: because both readers read their work without any extra-poetic speech, there are no ‘annotated’ notes. The text that is spoken by the poets is marked by quotation marks. Poem titles are indicated, when available, in the [Indexed] sections. \",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"Yes\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/david-mcfadden-and-gerry-gilbert-at-sgwu-1971/\"}]"],"score":2.9270062},{"id":"1294","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":["Kenneth Koch at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 19 February 1971"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer "],"item_title_note":["\"KENNETH KOCH Recorded February 19, 1971 3.75 ips on 1 mil. tape, 1/2 track Fair quality\" written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. KENNETH KOCH I006/SR39 written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. I006-11-039 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 5"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"creator_names":["Koch, Kenneth"],"creator_names_search":["Koch, Kenneth"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/110467351\",\"name\":\"Koch, Kenneth\",\"dates\":\"1925-2002\",\"notes\":\"Poet, playwright, author and teacher Kenneth Koch was born on February 27, 1925 in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1943, after completing high school, Koch served in the United States Army until 1945. He then enrolled at Harvard University, and received his B.A. degree in 1948 in English literature and writing. Koch then entered the Ph.D. program at Columbia University in New York City, through which he traveled on a Fulbright scholarship to France to study avant-garde poetry. In New York, he met poets John Ashbery and Frank O’Hara, the three of whom would be coined the New York School of Poets. Koch published his first collection of poetry, Poems (Tibor de Nagy Gallery, 1953), and wrote a play, Little Red Riding Hood (1953), followed by Ko; or, A Season on Earth (Grove Press, 1959).  During this time Koch taught at Rutgers and Brooklyn Colleges before he completed his Ph.D. in 1959. Koch’s second play, Bertha, debuted in 1960, along with a third collection of poetry, Permanently (Tiber Press, 1960). In the early 60’s, Koch published plays, including George Washington Crossing the Delaware, The Construction of Boston (both in 1962), Guinevere; or, The Death of the Kangaroo, (1964). Koch was also a brilliant teacher, creating poetry and reading programs for grade school students in New York City public schools, which he won a Harbison Award for teaching. He published his experiences in Wishes, Lies and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry (Chelsea House, 1970) and Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?: Teaching Great Poetry to Children (Random House, 1973), which won a Ohioana Book Award and a Christopher Book Award. He also launched a similar program for the elderly, as described in I Never Told Anybody: Teaching Poetry Writing in a Nursing Home (Random House, 1977). During this time Koch published numerous books of verse, namely The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969), When the Sun Tries to Go On (Black Sparrow, 1969), Sleeping with Women (Black Sparrow Press, 1969), the highly praised The Art of Love (Random House, 1975) which won the National Institute of Arts and Letters award in 1976, The Burning Mystery of Anna in 1951 (Random House, 1979). A prolific writer, Koch wrote over forty books and plays, including Days and Nights (Random House, 1982), On the Edge (Alfred A. Knopf, 1986) which won an Award of Merit for Poetry from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Selected Poems, 1950-1982 (Random House, 1985), a book of short dramatic selections One Thousand Avant-garde Plays (Knopf, 1988) won a National Book Critic’s Circle nomination, Selected Poems, (Carcanet, 1991), On the Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems, 1950-1988 (Knopf, 1994) and his last book, New Addresses (Knopf, 2000). 1995 was a big year for Koch, as he was awarded the Bollingen Prize for a lifetime achievement to poetry, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Subsequently, Koch received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry in 1996, the Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres in France in 1999, and the Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Award. Kenneth Koch died of leukemia on July 6, 2002 in New York City.\",\"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":[1971],"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\":\"\",\"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\":\"1971 2 19\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Date written on sticker on the back of the tape's box and in written announcement \\\"What Goes On!\\\"\\n\",\"source\":\"Accompanying Material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building Room H-651\",\"notes\":\"\",\"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 Room H-651"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Kenneth Koch reads from Thank You and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1962), The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969), works published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973) and from other unknown sources."],"contents":["kenneth_koch_i006-11-039.mp3\n\nGeorge Bowering\n00:00:00\nMost people will have seen, probably, the little promo sheet that went out about Kenneth [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2708628] talking about all his various books et cetera, so I'll keep this very short. Those that have been involved in reading American poetry over the past few years will naturally know who Kenneth Koch is, that he along with Frank O'Hara [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q951010] probably invented modern American poetry in New York City [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60], and it's, and he's also been in the news lately in the various, Slick magazine in the United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30] as a teacher of poetry, a very important teacher of poetry to kids in schools. And he's the only man I know who's been able to write what I think is probably an epic in the American language. So I'd like to make this as fast as I can and introduce Mr. Kenneth Koch.\n \nAudience\n00:00:58\nApplause.\n \nUnknown\n00:01:03\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:01:04\nThe first poem I'll read is called \"Spring\". \n \nKenneth Koch\n00:01:08\nReads \"Spring\" [from Thank You and Other Poems].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:02:36\nThe next poem I want to read is called \"Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams\". I love Williams' [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q178106] work, and I usually only write parodies of people whose work I like a lot. This parody is based on a poem of Williams, well, actually, on a certain characteristic I saw in Williams' work for a long time which I like, which is sort of, the idea that if you really like something enough and if you want to do it enough, it's okay to do it. And I saw certain insane possibilities of this viewpoint. This is specifically a parody of a poem which goes, \"This is just to say I've eaten the plums in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me, they were so cold and so delicious\". It's really a nice poem, but it seemed to me there was a little streak of insanity running through it. It's called, \"Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:03:28\nReads \"Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams\" [from Thank You and Other Poems].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:04:33\nI'd like to read another short poem, this is called \"You Were Wearing\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:04:38\nReads \"You Were Wearing\" [from Thank You and Other Poems].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:06:37\nI'm trying to find the ideal lights still, it’s--okay, I think that's probably a bit better. The next thing that I want to read is a play called \"E.KOLOGY\". It's...E.KOLOGY is the name of the hero, it's like capital \"E,\" period, capital \"KOLOGY.\" I'd like to say something about this play. I read it at the University of Chicago [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q131252] last year, and some students thought that I was making fun of the ecology movement. I'm not, and I would see to it that if it were produced that that was not the case. It just seemed to me that the ecology movement was such a, like a natural cause for pleasure that it wouldn't really do to be totally solemn about it. The, I wrote this to be performed on Earth Day [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q124473], in New York last year in April, but they were supposed to have all these things in Union Square [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110007] and it just ended up being a lot of light shows and speeches, I think, because they couldn't get the actors together and the lights and the stage and everything. It was done in Philadelphia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1345], did anyone see it, by any chance? Probably not. I didn't see it. I didn't even know it was done. In any case. E.KOLOGY. \n \nKenneth Koch\n00:07:44\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act One, Scene One [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:09:38\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act One, Scene Two [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:11:19\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act One, Scene Three [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:12:06\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act Two [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:13:54\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act Three, Scene One [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:14:24\nReads E.KOLGOY - Act Three, Scene Two [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:16:04\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act Four [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:17:30\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act Five [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nAudience\n00:19:34\nApplause.\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:19:44\nWhile you're in the mood for theatre, I'll read a film script I wrote which I'd be delighted if someone would do. No one's ever done it. Apparently it would cost a great deal to do this, although it's very simple. It's called “Youth”.\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:19:57\nReads \"Youth\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:21:36\nI don't hear any takers unless...Let's see. This is a very short poem called, \"Poem\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:21:53\nReads \"Poem\" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:22:11\nThis, this poem is called \"Ma Provence\", and my interest in writing it was the different way that French and English sound to me. \"Ma Provence\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:22:23\nReads \"Ma Provence\" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:22:52\nI usually translate the French, but I guess here I don't really have to. I'll read a...the French is very banal, it means, \"In my Provence the wheat is always green, the girls are pretty, they love me madly, they never die in my Provence\". This poem is called \"Great Beauty\". \n \nKenneth Koch\n00:23:14\nReads \"Great Beauty\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:23:31\nThis poem is called \"Little Known Historical Fact\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:23:35\nReads \"Little Known Historical Fact\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:23:48\nCharlemagne [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3044] is an Italian. [Audience laughter]. This is called...\"Getting Back on Land\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:24:06\nReads \"Getting Back on Land\".\n \nAudience\n00:24:22\nLaughter. \n \nKenneth Koch\n00:24:29\nThis, the next thing I want to read is part of a long poem I've been writing in the last year. George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280] mentioned an epic poem I wrote called “Ko”, which I wrote about, oh twelve or fourteen years ago, and it's a poem...that's “Ko”, there it is, and it's about a hundred and twenty pages, it's in ottava rima, which is a stanza that Ariosto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q48900] used in Orlando Furioso [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q48922] and it's also the stanza that Byron [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5679] used in Don Juan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1245187]. It rhymes ABABABCC. And...I really like “Ko” a lot. It's a poem about a, the main character is a Japanese baseball player, a pitcher, who throws the ball so hard he knocks the grandstand down with every pitch. And there are a lot of other characters in it. When I wrote the poem I really was very happy, I was living in Florence [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2044], in a villino, and, sort of outside of town on the Viale Michelangelo, and what I tried to do in “Ko” is like to put in every pleasant thing I'd ever experienced in my life, and the poem is kind of happy and optimistic. And I always wanted to continue it, because I liked writing that way. And I never could, because the continuation was always sort of in the style of “Ko” exactly and not as good. It sort of lost that particular feeling. Then I finally was able to start doing it again, recently, but I noticed as I went on writing the poem that it had changed a good deal, that my idea about life and the world was not quite the same, naturally, partly because it changes in me, and partly because it changes in the world, but I don't want to get into metaphysical questions. In any case, the first thing I want to read from this poem is the, like the “Prologue”, which explains my problems in continuing this very happy poem fourteen years afterwards. The only, I think the only thing that needs explaining that I haven't explained is that “Ko” ends with the line, \"Huddle, meanwhile, was flaking at the knees.\" Now Huddle is a, like an Englishman in “Ko” who dies of mold fever in Rome [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q220], and when he dies he turns into a statue which is set up near the Villa Giulia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q964499] in Rome. And all of the other characters that have been killed sort of turn into statues and start coming back to life, and this is a sign that Huddle is coming back to life but he's flaking at the knees. In any case, that's referred to at the beginning of the “Prologue”.\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:27:00\nReads \"Prologue\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:34:08\nThat's the end of the “Prologue”. I want to read the first episode in the poem, now. I realize there was another, perhaps incomprehensible thing in the “Prologue”. Pana Grady...Pana Grady's apartment was a place on...Central Park West [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2738041] where a lot of parties were held for Upper and Lower Bohemia in the days...well, it was about five or six years ago. Anyway. That's the end of the “Prologue”, which I'm not sure I'm finally going to attach to the poem, since I usually eliminate prologues. And this is the beginning of the poem. \n \nKenneth Koch\n00:34:55\nReads [\"Episode I”].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:41:07\nThat's the end of the first part. To tell you what happens in this poem would take as long as reading the whole poem, which I don't have time to do. I think I'd like to read some brief, improvisational plays. I wrote these plays to be done at The Living Theatre [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1202416], though I knew they wouldn't do them. Somebody asked me to write some improvisational plays, it's really, it's really great, you know, writes it with some actors that want to do it, and I'd, I'd seen some improvisational plays and it seemed to me that the only emotions that actors could improvise were...let's see, passion, nostalgia, self-hatred, anxiety, and then make narcissism and then make topical references, and I decide to really throw sort of a curve at actors and give them something that would really be hard to improvise. My penalty has been that these plays have never been done. The first one I'd like to read...I'd be very glad if they were, could be given a premiere here in Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16]. \"Mexico City\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:42:18\nReads \"Mexico City\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:43:13\nThe next one is called \"The Lost Feed\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:43:16\nReads \"The Lost Feed\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:44:12\nThe next play is called \"Coil Supreme\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:44:17\nReads \"Coil Supreme\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:44:48\nThe last improvisational play I'll read is the one that has always moved me the most at the thought of production. It's called \"The Gold Standard\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:44:57\nReads \"The Gold Standard\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:45:54\nI think I'd like to read a rather long poem called...my present plan, which--I don't want to really ruin people's evening, since I didn't start until 9:30, I think the poems that I would like to read will last until 11. So, it's twenty-five after ten now, I don't want to keep anybody up to late or anything. [Audience laughter]. If...Don't feel bad about leaving if you have to go, I want to read these two rather long poems. This is called \"The Pleasures of Peace\". I should say something about this poem, I wrote it...I started to write it, oh, three years ago, or whenever it was, maybe it was four years ago, but it took me a long time to write it. I guess about three years ago I started. It was at the moment of the, when there really was a lot of happiness in the peace movement in the United States. And it was like the first Peace Marches on Fifth Avenue, and people were jumping up and down for peace, and dancing for peace, and it really seemed as though what people were doing was going to do some good. And I remember feeling very excited in the first set of mass peace activities I was in because, being a poet, and having been brought up in America and everything and like almost all the other poets and artists I knew I sort of felt like a social outcast a little bit. And then I found, in the midst of the peace movement, like there were hundreds of thousands of people who sort of felt the same way about a lot of things, it was nice. And there was something very sort of grand and exciting about the peace movement which does not have anything to do with the issues at all, it was just a lot of fun. In a way it was sort of...it was very pleasant. There were a few other things that motivated this poem. One was I was very annoyed at a lot of my fellow-poets who were going around, giving, in groups to colleges, giving poetry readings for peace. Now there were two things about this that annoyed me, three things. One was that I wasn't doing it. But that, I think, was a minor thing  A second thing was that...who did they really think they were trying to convert, like college students who came to poetry readings? I mean, college students who come to poetry readings are not usually in favour of war. And in the second-place, all the poems they read for peace were the sort of things that would make you want to go out and kill people, like \"Lyndon Johnson [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9640], you, fuck the pregnant woman who's lying with her guts streaming out,\" [audience laughter] and they weren't, they didn't really...they didn't really seem like peace poems to me. It...And I felt it was sort of exploitative on their part to do that. So I wanted to write a--I'd never written a political poem and I wanted very much to write a poem, I had very strong feelings about the Vietnam War [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8740], and I wanted to write a poem against the war but which really, was really a poem, a positive poem about peace. I found it terribly hard to do, and I never worked so long on any poem. The fact that I worked so long on it does not mean that it's any better than anything else I ever wrote, but it was just hard, because I kept trying to put in sort of, things about suffering and so on, and they would jump out of the poem the way an artificial heart, I mean the way a transferred heart is sometimes rejected by the body. And I realized I was sort of stuck with writing a poem that was, like, one of my poems, it was really sort of a positive poem about peace. Another problem is that if you write a poem about the pleasures of peace it means you're writing a poem about the pleasures of life. And it's endless, in any case. That's about enough of that for now. It took me over a year to write, it was mainly the last part I couldn't write, since I didn't want to have sort of a literary copout at the end, and I didn't want to sort of end up, oh well, anyway. It's just a poem. The only thing--I got varied reactions to the poem. One...some dopey poet friend of mine came over and said, \"Boy, you really put the peace movement down\". And I haven't spoken to him very much since then. But then, a better reaction was that I got, some guy called me up and asked me if he could use this poem as his draft resistance statement. And I said you're going to languish in prison for a long time because, you know, judges don't like poetry. But anyway. Now just forget everything I've said [audience laughter] and I'll read this poem. And there's a pause. \"The Pleasures of Peace\". Oh! Another thing. [Audience laughter]. I read this poem in London [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q84] last year, and I got this dopey review in the Times [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q50008] by, who was it....I'm not sure. And he said, \"Kenneth Koch's 'Pleasures of Peace' is a very interesting poem but since he mentions the name of all his friends which we can't be expected to know”--like about 90% of the people in this poem are imaginary. They, they're not my friends. [Audience laughter]. Okay. Like Georgio Finogo is not a real person, okay?. \"The Pleasures of Peace\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n00:51:15\nReads \"The Pleasures of Peace\" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].\n \nAudience\n01:11:09\nApplause. \n \nKenneth Koch\n01:11:15\nThank you. \n \nKenneth Koch\n01:11:22\nI want to read another poem which will take about seven minutes, but just to rest up I'll read a short poem...I can't find one short enough...Oh, this is called \"An X-Ray of Utah\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n01:12:00\nReads \"An X-Ray of Utah\" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].\n \nKenneth Koch\n01:12:08\nWell that's the shortest poem I ever wrote. [Audience laughter]. Except, there's one that's not in any of my books which is called \"Tennis\", which is the same length. \n \nKenneth Koch\n01:12:19\nReads \"Tennis\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n01:12:29\nOh, I think I'll read a few movie scripts. I'll just read a few. This is really for, this is from something called \"Ten Films\", but I'll just read a few of them, which are my favourites. One of the films is called \"Sheep Harbour\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n01:12:44\nReads \"Sheep Harbour\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n01:12:57\nLike, the camera could sort of show this for a long time.\n \nKenneth Koch\n01:13:03\nReads \"Oval Gold\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n01:13:19\nI'll just read one more of these films. This is called \"The Cemetery\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n01:13:24\nReads \"The Cemetery\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\n \nKenneth Koch\n01:13:49\nI'll read this one last poem which is called \"Sleeping with Women”.  \"Sleeping with Women\".\n \nKenneth Koch\n01:13:54\nReads \"Sleeping with Women\" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].\n\nEND\n01:22:37\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:\\n\\nDuring this time, Koch published Wishes, Lies and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry (Chelsea House, 1970) and Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?: Teaching Great Poetry to Children (Random House, 1973), recounting his teaching experiences.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nDirect connections to Kenneth Koch and Sir George Williams University are unknown, but Koch was an important and influential New York poet and educator.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript by Rachel Kyne\\n\\nOriginal print catalogue, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\\n\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"Reel-to-reel tape>2 CDs>digital file\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/change-of-hearts-plays-films-and-other-dramatic-works/oclc/469682283&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Koch, Kenneth. A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films and Other Dramatic Works, 1951-1971. New York: Random House, 1973. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/pleasures-of-peace-and-other-poems/oclc/256034641&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Koch, Kenneth. The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems. New York: Grove Press, Inc, 1969. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/thank-you-and-other-poems/oclc/256035573&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Koch, Kenneth. Thank You and Other Poems. New York: Grove Press, Inc, 1962. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-american-literature/oclc/54356940&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"\\\"Koch, Kenneth [Jay]\\\". The Oxford Companion to American Literature. James D. Hart (ed.), Phillip W. Leininger (rev.). Oxford University Press 1995.\"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/kenneth-koch-at-sgwu-1971/\",\"citation\":\"“What Goes On!”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 18 February 1971.\"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Koch, Kenneth, 1925-”. Literature Online Biography. Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, Proquest, 2005.\"}]"],"_version_":1853670548932919296,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0039_tape.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0039_tape.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Kenneth Koch Tape Box - Reel\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0039_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0039_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Kenneth Koch 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_0039_back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0039_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Kenneth Koch 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_0039_side.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0039_side.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Kenneth Koch Tape Box - Spine\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/kenneth_koch_i006-11-039.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"kenneth_koch_i006-11-039.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"01:22:37\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"103.7 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"George Bowering\\n00:00:00\\nMost people will have seen, probably, the little promo sheet that went out about Kenneth [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2708628] talking about all his various books et cetera, so I'll keep this very short. Those that have been involved in reading American poetry over the past few years will naturally know who Kenneth Koch is, that he along with Frank O'Hara [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q951010] probably invented modern American poetry in New York City [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60], and it's, and he's also been in the news lately in the various, Slick magazine in the United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30] as a teacher of poetry, a very important teacher of poetry to kids in schools. And he's the only man I know who's been able to write what I think is probably an epic in the American language. So I'd like to make this as fast as I can and introduce Mr. Kenneth Koch.\\n \\nAudience\\n00:00:58\\nApplause.\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:01:03\\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:01:04\\nThe first poem I'll read is called \\\"Spring\\\". \\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:01:08\\nReads \\\"Spring\\\" [from Thank You and Other Poems].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:02:36\\nThe next poem I want to read is called \\\"Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams\\\". I love Williams' [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q178106] work, and I usually only write parodies of people whose work I like a lot. This parody is based on a poem of Williams, well, actually, on a certain characteristic I saw in Williams' work for a long time which I like, which is sort of, the idea that if you really like something enough and if you want to do it enough, it's okay to do it. And I saw certain insane possibilities of this viewpoint. This is specifically a parody of a poem which goes, \\\"This is just to say I've eaten the plums in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me, they were so cold and so delicious\\\". It's really a nice poem, but it seemed to me there was a little streak of insanity running through it. It's called, \\\"Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:03:28\\nReads \\\"Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams\\\" [from Thank You and Other Poems].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:04:33\\nI'd like to read another short poem, this is called \\\"You Were Wearing\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:04:38\\nReads \\\"You Were Wearing\\\" [from Thank You and Other Poems].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:06:37\\nI'm trying to find the ideal lights still, it’s--okay, I think that's probably a bit better. The next thing that I want to read is a play called \\\"E.KOLOGY\\\". It's...E.KOLOGY is the name of the hero, it's like capital \\\"E,\\\" period, capital \\\"KOLOGY.\\\" I'd like to say something about this play. I read it at the University of Chicago [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q131252] last year, and some students thought that I was making fun of the ecology movement. I'm not, and I would see to it that if it were produced that that was not the case. It just seemed to me that the ecology movement was such a, like a natural cause for pleasure that it wouldn't really do to be totally solemn about it. The, I wrote this to be performed on Earth Day [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q124473], in New York last year in April, but they were supposed to have all these things in Union Square [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110007] and it just ended up being a lot of light shows and speeches, I think, because they couldn't get the actors together and the lights and the stage and everything. It was done in Philadelphia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1345], did anyone see it, by any chance? Probably not. I didn't see it. I didn't even know it was done. In any case. E.KOLOGY. \\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:07:44\\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act One, Scene One [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:09:38\\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act One, Scene Two [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:11:19\\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act One, Scene Three [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:12:06\\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act Two [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:13:54\\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act Three, Scene One [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:14:24\\nReads E.KOLGOY - Act Three, Scene Two [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:16:04\\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act Four [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:17:30\\nReads E.KOLOGY - Act Five [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nAudience\\n00:19:34\\nApplause.\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:19:44\\nWhile you're in the mood for theatre, I'll read a film script I wrote which I'd be delighted if someone would do. No one's ever done it. Apparently it would cost a great deal to do this, although it's very simple. It's called “Youth”.\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:19:57\\nReads \\\"Youth\\\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:21:36\\nI don't hear any takers unless...Let's see. This is a very short poem called, \\\"Poem\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:21:53\\nReads \\\"Poem\\\" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:22:11\\nThis, this poem is called \\\"Ma Provence\\\", and my interest in writing it was the different way that French and English sound to me. \\\"Ma Provence\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:22:23\\nReads \\\"Ma Provence\\\" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:22:52\\nI usually translate the French, but I guess here I don't really have to. I'll read a...the French is very banal, it means, \\\"In my Provence the wheat is always green, the girls are pretty, they love me madly, they never die in my Provence\\\". This poem is called \\\"Great Beauty\\\". \\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:23:14\\nReads \\\"Great Beauty\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:23:31\\nThis poem is called \\\"Little Known Historical Fact\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:23:35\\nReads \\\"Little Known Historical Fact\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:23:48\\nCharlemagne [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3044] is an Italian. [Audience laughter]. This is called...\\\"Getting Back on Land\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:24:06\\nReads \\\"Getting Back on Land\\\".\\n \\nAudience\\n00:24:22\\nLaughter. \\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:24:29\\nThis, the next thing I want to read is part of a long poem I've been writing in the last year. George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280] mentioned an epic poem I wrote called “Ko”, which I wrote about, oh twelve or fourteen years ago, and it's a poem...that's “Ko”, there it is, and it's about a hundred and twenty pages, it's in ottava rima, which is a stanza that Ariosto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q48900] used in Orlando Furioso [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q48922] and it's also the stanza that Byron [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5679] used in Don Juan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1245187]. It rhymes ABABABCC. And...I really like “Ko” a lot. It's a poem about a, the main character is a Japanese baseball player, a pitcher, who throws the ball so hard he knocks the grandstand down with every pitch. And there are a lot of other characters in it. When I wrote the poem I really was very happy, I was living in Florence [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2044], in a villino, and, sort of outside of town on the Viale Michelangelo, and what I tried to do in “Ko” is like to put in every pleasant thing I'd ever experienced in my life, and the poem is kind of happy and optimistic. And I always wanted to continue it, because I liked writing that way. And I never could, because the continuation was always sort of in the style of “Ko” exactly and not as good. It sort of lost that particular feeling. Then I finally was able to start doing it again, recently, but I noticed as I went on writing the poem that it had changed a good deal, that my idea about life and the world was not quite the same, naturally, partly because it changes in me, and partly because it changes in the world, but I don't want to get into metaphysical questions. In any case, the first thing I want to read from this poem is the, like the “Prologue”, which explains my problems in continuing this very happy poem fourteen years afterwards. The only, I think the only thing that needs explaining that I haven't explained is that “Ko” ends with the line, \\\"Huddle, meanwhile, was flaking at the knees.\\\" Now Huddle is a, like an Englishman in “Ko” who dies of mold fever in Rome [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q220], and when he dies he turns into a statue which is set up near the Villa Giulia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q964499] in Rome. And all of the other characters that have been killed sort of turn into statues and start coming back to life, and this is a sign that Huddle is coming back to life but he's flaking at the knees. In any case, that's referred to at the beginning of the “Prologue”.\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:27:00\\nReads \\\"Prologue\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:34:08\\nThat's the end of the “Prologue”. I want to read the first episode in the poem, now. I realize there was another, perhaps incomprehensible thing in the “Prologue”. Pana Grady...Pana Grady's apartment was a place on...Central Park West [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2738041] where a lot of parties were held for Upper and Lower Bohemia in the days...well, it was about five or six years ago. Anyway. That's the end of the “Prologue”, which I'm not sure I'm finally going to attach to the poem, since I usually eliminate prologues. And this is the beginning of the poem. \\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:34:55\\nReads [\\\"Episode I”].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:41:07\\nThat's the end of the first part. To tell you what happens in this poem would take as long as reading the whole poem, which I don't have time to do. I think I'd like to read some brief, improvisational plays. I wrote these plays to be done at The Living Theatre [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1202416], though I knew they wouldn't do them. Somebody asked me to write some improvisational plays, it's really, it's really great, you know, writes it with some actors that want to do it, and I'd, I'd seen some improvisational plays and it seemed to me that the only emotions that actors could improvise were...let's see, passion, nostalgia, self-hatred, anxiety, and then make narcissism and then make topical references, and I decide to really throw sort of a curve at actors and give them something that would really be hard to improvise. My penalty has been that these plays have never been done. The first one I'd like to read...I'd be very glad if they were, could be given a premiere here in Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16]. \\\"Mexico City\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:42:18\\nReads \\\"Mexico City\\\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:43:13\\nThe next one is called \\\"The Lost Feed\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:43:16\\nReads \\\"The Lost Feed\\\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:44:12\\nThe next play is called \\\"Coil Supreme\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:44:17\\nReads \\\"Coil Supreme\\\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:44:48\\nThe last improvisational play I'll read is the one that has always moved me the most at the thought of production. It's called \\\"The Gold Standard\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:44:57\\nReads \\\"The Gold Standard\\\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:45:54\\nI think I'd like to read a rather long poem called...my present plan, which--I don't want to really ruin people's evening, since I didn't start until 9:30, I think the poems that I would like to read will last until 11. So, it's twenty-five after ten now, I don't want to keep anybody up to late or anything. [Audience laughter]. If...Don't feel bad about leaving if you have to go, I want to read these two rather long poems. This is called \\\"The Pleasures of Peace\\\". I should say something about this poem, I wrote it...I started to write it, oh, three years ago, or whenever it was, maybe it was four years ago, but it took me a long time to write it. I guess about three years ago I started. It was at the moment of the, when there really was a lot of happiness in the peace movement in the United States. And it was like the first Peace Marches on Fifth Avenue, and people were jumping up and down for peace, and dancing for peace, and it really seemed as though what people were doing was going to do some good. And I remember feeling very excited in the first set of mass peace activities I was in because, being a poet, and having been brought up in America and everything and like almost all the other poets and artists I knew I sort of felt like a social outcast a little bit. And then I found, in the midst of the peace movement, like there were hundreds of thousands of people who sort of felt the same way about a lot of things, it was nice. And there was something very sort of grand and exciting about the peace movement which does not have anything to do with the issues at all, it was just a lot of fun. In a way it was sort of...it was very pleasant. There were a few other things that motivated this poem. One was I was very annoyed at a lot of my fellow-poets who were going around, giving, in groups to colleges, giving poetry readings for peace. Now there were two things about this that annoyed me, three things. One was that I wasn't doing it. But that, I think, was a minor thing  A second thing was that...who did they really think they were trying to convert, like college students who came to poetry readings? I mean, college students who come to poetry readings are not usually in favour of war. And in the second-place, all the poems they read for peace were the sort of things that would make you want to go out and kill people, like \\\"Lyndon Johnson [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9640], you, fuck the pregnant woman who's lying with her guts streaming out,\\\" [audience laughter] and they weren't, they didn't really...they didn't really seem like peace poems to me. It...And I felt it was sort of exploitative on their part to do that. So I wanted to write a--I'd never written a political poem and I wanted very much to write a poem, I had very strong feelings about the Vietnam War [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8740], and I wanted to write a poem against the war but which really, was really a poem, a positive poem about peace. I found it terribly hard to do, and I never worked so long on any poem. The fact that I worked so long on it does not mean that it's any better than anything else I ever wrote, but it was just hard, because I kept trying to put in sort of, things about suffering and so on, and they would jump out of the poem the way an artificial heart, I mean the way a transferred heart is sometimes rejected by the body. And I realized I was sort of stuck with writing a poem that was, like, one of my poems, it was really sort of a positive poem about peace. Another problem is that if you write a poem about the pleasures of peace it means you're writing a poem about the pleasures of life. And it's endless, in any case. That's about enough of that for now. It took me over a year to write, it was mainly the last part I couldn't write, since I didn't want to have sort of a literary copout at the end, and I didn't want to sort of end up, oh well, anyway. It's just a poem. The only thing--I got varied reactions to the poem. One...some dopey poet friend of mine came over and said, \\\"Boy, you really put the peace movement down\\\". And I haven't spoken to him very much since then. But then, a better reaction was that I got, some guy called me up and asked me if he could use this poem as his draft resistance statement. And I said you're going to languish in prison for a long time because, you know, judges don't like poetry. But anyway. Now just forget everything I've said [audience laughter] and I'll read this poem. And there's a pause. \\\"The Pleasures of Peace\\\". Oh! Another thing. [Audience laughter]. I read this poem in London [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q84] last year, and I got this dopey review in the Times [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q50008] by, who was it....I'm not sure. And he said, \\\"Kenneth Koch's 'Pleasures of Peace' is a very interesting poem but since he mentions the name of all his friends which we can't be expected to know”--like about 90% of the people in this poem are imaginary. They, they're not my friends. [Audience laughter]. Okay. Like Georgio Finogo is not a real person, okay?. \\\"The Pleasures of Peace\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n00:51:15\\nReads \\\"The Pleasures of Peace\\\" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].\\n \\nAudience\\n01:11:09\\nApplause. \\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n01:11:15\\nThank you. \\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n01:11:22\\nI want to read another poem which will take about seven minutes, but just to rest up I'll read a short poem...I can't find one short enough...Oh, this is called \\\"An X-Ray of Utah\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n01:12:00\\nReads \\\"An X-Ray of Utah\\\" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n01:12:08\\nWell that's the shortest poem I ever wrote. [Audience laughter]. Except, there's one that's not in any of my books which is called \\\"Tennis\\\", which is the same length. \\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n01:12:19\\nReads \\\"Tennis\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n01:12:29\\nOh, I think I'll read a few movie scripts. I'll just read a few. This is really for, this is from something called \\\"Ten Films\\\", but I'll just read a few of them, which are my favourites. One of the films is called \\\"Sheep Harbour\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n01:12:44\\nReads \\\"Sheep Harbour\\\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n01:12:57\\nLike, the camera could sort of show this for a long time.\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n01:13:03\\nReads \\\"Oval Gold\\\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n01:13:19\\nI'll just read one more of these films. This is called \\\"The Cemetery\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n01:13:24\\nReads \\\"The Cemetery\\\" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n01:13:49\\nI'll read this one last poem which is called \\\"Sleeping with Women”.  \\\"Sleeping with Women\\\".\\n \\nKenneth Koch\\n01:13:54\\nReads \\\"Sleeping with Women\\\" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].\\n\\nEND\\n01:22:37\\n\",\"notes\":\"Kenneth Koch reads from Thank You and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1962), The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969), works published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973) and from other unknown sources.\\n\\n00:00- George Bowering introduces Kenneth Koch. [INDEX: ‘promo sheet’, American poetry, Frank O’Hara, modern American poetry in New York City, Slick magazine, teacher of poetry, epic in the American Language.]\\n01:04- Kenneth Koch introduces “Spring”. [INDEX: from Thank You and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1962).]\\n01:08- Reads “Spring”.\\n02:36- Introduces “Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams”. [INDEX: parodies, Williams poem “This is Just to Say”, insanity; from Thank You and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1962).]\\n03:28- Reads “Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams”.\\n04:33- Introduces “You Were Wearing”. [INDEX: short poem from Thank You and Other    Poems (Grove Press, 1962).]\\n04:38- Reads “You Were Wearing”.\\n06:37- Introduces “E. KOLOGY”. [INDEX: play, hero, capital letters, read at the University of Chicago, ecology movement, performed on Earth Day in New York in April, Union Square, Philadelphia; from A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]\\n07:44- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 1 Scene 1.\\n09:38- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 1 Scene 2.\\n11:19- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 1 Scene 3.\\n12:06 -Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 2.\\n13:54- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 3 Scene 1.\\n14:24- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 3 Scene 2.\\n16:04- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 4.\\n17:30- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 5.\\n19:44- Introduces “Youth”. [INDEX: theatre, film script, costly to produce; from  A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]\\n19:57- Reads “Youth”.\\n21:36- Introduces “Poem”. [INDEX: short poem; perhaps from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969)]\\n21:53- Reads “Poem”.\\n22:11- Introduces “Ma Provence”. [INDEX: interest in writing, English and French sound; from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969).]\\n22:23- Reads “Ma Provence”.\\n22:52- Explains “Ma Provence”, introduces “Great Beauty”. [INDEX: translate to english,  here he reads in french; from unknown source.]\\n23:14- Reads “Great Beauty”.\\n23:31- Introduces “Little Known Historical Fact”. [INDEX: from unknown source]\\n23:35- Reads “Little Known Historical Fact”.\\n23:48- Explains “Little Known Historical Fact”, introduces “Getting Back on Land”. [INDEX: Charlemagne, Italian, from unknown source.]          \\n24:06- Reads “Getting Back on Land”.\\n24:29- Introduces “Prologue”. [INDEX: George Bowering, epic poem “Ko”, written 12-14    years before, 120 pages, ottava rima: stanza Ariosto used in Orlando Furioso, Byron’s   Don Juan, rhyme scheme ABABABCC, main character Japanese baseball player, pitcher, ball, grandstand, pitch, characters, happy, living in Florence, villino, town outside the Viale Michelangelo, happy and optimistic poem, continuation, change, life, end lie of “Ko”: “Huddle, meanwhile, was flaking at the knees”, Englishman, mold fever, Rome, killed, statues; from unknown source.]\\n27:00- Reads “Prologue”.\\n34:08- Explains “Prologue”, introduces beginning of “Long poem, episode 1”. [INDEX: Pana Grady’s apartment on Central Park West, parties for Upper and Lower Bohemia, \\tuncertainty about publishing “Prologue”; from unknown source.]\\n34:55- Reads “Long Poem, Episode 1”.\\n41:07- Introduces “Mexico City”. [INDEX: long poem, improvisational plays, Living Theatre, actors, emotions, passion, nostalgia, self-hatred, anxiety, narcissism, penalty, premiere in Canada; from “Six Inspirational Plays” in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]\\n42:18- Reads “Mexico City”.\\n43:13.69- END OF RECORDING.\\n\\n00:00- Kenneth Koch introduces “The Lost Feed”. [INDEX: play; in “Six Improvisational     Plays”, from A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 \\t(Random House, 1973).]\\n00:03- Reads “The Lost Feed”.\\n00:59- Introduces “Coil Supreme”. [INDEX: play; in “Six Improvisational Plays”, from A     Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973.]\\n01:03- Reads “Coil Supreme”.\\n01:34- Introduces “The Gold Standard”. [INDEX: improvisational play, production; in “Six        Improvisational Plays” from A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]\\n01:43- Reads selection from “The Gold Standard”.\\n02:41- Introduces “The Pleasures of Peace”. [INDEX: reading started at 9:30, reading last until 11pm, started writing 3 or 4 years ago, peace movement in the United States, Peach Marches on Fifth Avenue, social outcast, fun, poetry readings for peace, college students, poems read like “Lyndon Johnson, you, fuck the pregnant woman who’s lying with her guts streaming out”, peace poems, exploitative, political poem, Vietnam War, positive poem about peace, working hard and long on a poem, suffering, artificial heart, rejected by the body, pleasures of life, literary copout, varied reactions, draft resistance statement, prison, London, review in the Times, made up names, Georgia Finogo; from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969).]\\n08:01- Reads “The Pleasures of Peace”.\\n28:09- Introduces “An X-Ray of Utah”. [INDEX: short poem; from the poem “Three Short   Poems” in The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969).]\\n28:46- Reads “An X-Ray of Utah”.\\n28:55- Explains “An X-Ray of Utah” introduces “Tennis”. [INDEX: shortest poem, “Tennis” not in any books.]\\n29:05- Reads “Tennis”.\\n29:15- Introduces “Sheep Harbor”. [INDEX: movie script, reads favourites; from “Ten Films” in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]\\n29:30- Reads “Sheep Harbour”. [INDEX: from “Ten Films” in A Change of Hearts: Plays,   Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]\\n29:49- Reads “Oval Gold”. [INDEX: from “Ten Films” in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, \\tand Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]\\n30:10- Reads “The Cemetery”. [INDEX: from “Ten Films” in A Change of Hearts: Plays,     Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]\\n30:40- Reads “Sleeping with Women” [INDEX: from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969).]\\n39:23.67- END OF RECORDING.\\n \\nHoward Fink List of Poems\\n“Kenneth Koch”\\nIntroduction by George Bowering\\nRecorded February 19, 1971.\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"Yes\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/kenneth-koch-at-sgwu-1971/\"}]"],"score":2.9270062},{"id":"1288","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":[" Al Purdy at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 13 March 1970"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"AL PURDY Recorded March 13, 1970 3.75 ips, 1/2 tracl on 1 mil. tape\" written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. \"AL PURDY I006/SR37.1\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. \n"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 4"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"creator_names":["Purdy, Alfred Wellington"],"creator_names_search":["Purdy, Alfred Wellington"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/7398775\",\"name\":\"Purdy, Alfred Wellington\",\"dates\":\"1918-2000\",\"notes\":\"Canadian poet Al Purdy was born on December 30, 1918, in Wooler, Ontario of United Empire Loyalists. Purdy attended Dufferin Public school in Trenton, Albert Collegiate in Belleville and Trenton Collegiate Institute, writing poems along the way. During the Second World War, Purdy enrolled in the RCAF, serving most at the remote base Woodcock, on the Skeena River in northern British Columbia. Purdy married Eurithe Mary Jane Parkurst in 1941, and they had a son, Alfred. His first collection of poems was The Enchanted Echo (Clarke & Stuart Company, 1944), but it was his second collection, Pressed on Sand (Ryerson Press, 1955) that showcased Purdy’s literary accomplishment. Despite this, he worked odd jobs across the country, and published poems and short stories in magazines like North and The Beaver. Purdy received his first Canada Council grant in 1960, and published Poems for all the Annettes (Contact Press, 1962) and The Cariboo horses (McClelland & Stewart, 1965) which won a Governor General’s Award. His next publication, North of summer: poems from Baffin Island (McClelland & Stewart, 1967) came out of a second Canada Council Grant, which he spent in the Baffin Islands, and was followed by Wild Grape Wine (McClelland & Stewart, 1968). That year, Purdy also became an editor for the Tamarack Review, an anthology, The New Romans, and Fifteen Winds. Purdy has published dozens more collections of poetry along with writing in other genres, including In search of Owen Roblin (McClelland & Stewart, 1974), autobiographical essays, No Other Country (McClelland & Stewart, 1977), Being alive: poems 1958-78 (McClelland & Stewart, 1978), a memoir, Morning and it’s summer (1983), a collection of letters, The Bukowski/Purdy letters 1964-1984 (Quadrant Editions, 1983), his only novel A Splinter in the Heart (McClelland & Stewart, 1990), a selection of prose recollections, Reaching for the Beaufort Sea: an autobiography (Harbour Publishing,1993), and Starting from Ameliasburgh: the collected prose of Al Purdy (Harbour Publishing, 1995). Purdy’s The Collected Poems of Al Purdy, 1956-1986 (McClelland & Stewart, 1986) won his second Governor General’s Award, and he was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1982 and the Order of Ontario in 1987. Dividing most of his time between North Saanich, B.C. and Roblin Lake, Ontario, Purdy supported himself through his poetry, guest lecturing, readings and editing. Al Purdy died in North Saanich, on April 21, 2000. His last collection of poetry, Beyond Remembering: The Collected Poems of Al Purdy (Harbour Publishing, 2000) was released posthumously. The Voice of the Land Award was created to honour Purdy’s contributions to Canadian poetry.\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Performer\",\"Author\"]}]"],"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":[1970],"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\":\"\",\"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\":\"1970 3 13\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Date written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. Date also specified in written announcement \\\"Poetry Four: Sir George Williams Poetry Series\\\"\\n\",\"source\":\"Accompanying Material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building Room H-651\",\"notes\":\"Location specified in written announcement \\\"Poetry Four: Sir George Williams Poetry Series\\\"\",\"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 Room H-651"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Al Purdy reads from a wide variety of his books, including Selected Poems (McClelland and Stewart, 1972), Love in a Burning Building (McClelland and Stewart, 1970), The Cariboo Horses (McClelland and Stewart, 1965), Poems for all the Annettes (Contact Press, 1962), and North of Summer (McClelland and Stewart, 1967)."],"contents":["al_purdy_i006-11-037-1.mp3\n\nGeorge Bowering\n00:00:00\nAs you know, the reader tonight is Al Purdy [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4704621], a man who's been described as, by Doug Featherling, as the most Canadian of all possible poets. And who has, as they say, paid his dues, and in that time, won all the prizes, like the President's Medal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39089691], and the Governor General's Award [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q283256], and countless numbers of Canada Council [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2993809] Grants and all those other things that come to you. [Laughter]. Currently, I don't know if whether or not I'm supposed to mention this or not, but currently making an excursion amongst the academics at...in other words, straightening people out at Simon Fraser University [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q201603]. And a very welcome addition to our series. Al Purdy. \n \nUnknown\n00:00:55\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \n \nAl Purdy\n00:00:56\nWhen I started to write poems about sixty-eight years ago, Bliss Carman [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3068116] was the only one writing. So I imitated Bliss Carman, and this first poem is a sort of imitation of Bliss Carman. [Audience laughter]. And there are hardly any new poems in there because it takes me two years to revise them for two years and then conclude them in a reading, and then besides which as George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280] said, I've joined the academics because all the American members of the department at Simon Fraser have guilty consciences so they wanted a Canadian on staff [audience laughter].  \"About being a member of our armed forces\". This is, this is thirty years after I started to write poems. Remember--Oh, I should say, there are two, three phrases in this that would not ordinarily be understood by you people. \"Zombies,\" who were conscripts in the last war, and well, the CWACs were women members, Canadian Women's Army Corp [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5030688]. And during the early part of the last war, there were no rifles. So they used wooden rifles to drill with. \n \nAl Purdy\n00:02:09\nReads \"About Being a Member of Our Armed Forces\" [from Selected Poems; audience laughter throughout].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:03:29\nAs I said, I've become an academic lately, and one of the students in this class has asked for all my cigar tubes, little metal tubes that, you know, I get cigars in. He wants to put poems in them and float them down the North Saskatchewan River [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2237] [audience laughter]. And for some reason or other, this, that became the title of this particular poem. \"Floating Down the North Saskatchewan River\". [Audience laughter].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:04:01\nReads \"Floating Down the North Saskatchewan River\" [audience laughter throughout].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:04:40\nFunny, eh? [Audience laughter]. Something called \"Jubilate\", and I'm going to leave that out of there. \"Flight 17 Eastbound\". Ah...I keep revising some of these and I'm reading now from manuscript because I revised a lot of the poems here and I can't remember which ones I revised, so if they're in manuscript I'm sure they're either revised or that there's some reason for them being there. \n \nAl Purdy\n00:05:13\nReads \"Flight 17 Eastbound\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:06:47\nI don't know what that means but it must be profound. [Audience laughter]. I'm getting together a collection of love poems, or I have gotten a collection of love poems together. They are, I am told, fairly hard-boiled love poems. Because when Jack McClelland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6113965], of McClelland and Stewart [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6800322], heard about them they thought it was a good idea that Harold Town [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q827127] should do some illustrations. But when they saw the poems, and of course it wasn't because they were bad poems, I'm sure, he didn't want to do the illustrations anymore, they said they were hard-boiled. As I said, they can't be bad poems. This was one of them. It's got...no, I don't think I'll read that anyway. I don't like it. However, here's another one along the same lines. [Audience laughter]. It's called \"With Words, Words\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:07:51\nReads \"With Words, Words\" [from Love in a burning building].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:10:49\nI lived in Vancouver [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24639] for a while, and up till 1955 or 6. The first play I wrote for CBC [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q461761] was accepted, and I thought I was a genius, and moved to Montreal  [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q340] in order to reap the rewards of my genius. For a year in Montreal I think my...I sold a couple of adaptations to CBC. And eventually we moved to Roblin Lake [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q22447801], near Ameliasburgh [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4742321] in Ontario [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1904], and built a house. And my wife having quit her job, she having decided that if I could get away without working she could too. So we sat down for a couple of years looking at each other, waiting for the other one, to see which one would break first. But this is a poem about that particular time, called \"One Rural Winter\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:11:50\nReads \"One Rural Winter\" [from Selected Poems; audience laughter throughout].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:15:22\nI was in the Arctic [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25322] in '65, but this is a poem written long after that about the Arctic. And I suppose...certainly about the Canadian Arctic. I called it \"Arctic Romance\", but I think it should be just \"Arctic\", or something like that.\n \nAl Purdy\n00:15:46\nReads \"Arctic Romance\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:17:13\nScrewed that up, I guess. You get tired of reading your own stuff, after a while. You forget what it sounded like the last time. This is a poem I kind of like but I keep revising it also, or have been several times in the last few years, called \"Dark Landscape\". It uses a couple of lines from an American poet who died thirty years ago called Vachel Lindsay [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1197667], whom probably nobody ever heard of. And it starts in a very prosy way, and is meant to sound that way, and then the rhythm quickens. \"Dark Landscape\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:18:07\nReads \"Dark Landscape\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:21:45\nIn case anybody is wondering about the particular Vachel Lindsay line, it was \"The spring comes on forever, and the Chinese nightingale\". And he also had \"Aladdin to the jinn\", except that Aladdin to the jinn, his jinn was J-I-N-N and mine was two J-I-N-N's, and one G-I-N. So that, always a little difficult to understand it without seeing it on the page. Kind of a sweet little poem, this was after we moved to Roblin Lake, and as I say, I sold a couple of plays and we bought a pile of used lumber with the proceeds and put the down payment on the lot and build this house. \n \nAl Purdy\n00:22:27\nReads \"Winter at Roblin Lake\" [from The Cariboo Horses].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:22:52\nAlso the same period, about building the house, or rather after the house was built. Trouble is, you can't, you can't smoke a cigar here, can you, something I...it always goes out. Anyway. \"Interruption\". \n \nAl Purdy\n00:23:13\nReads \"Interruption\" [from Selected Poems].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:24:49\nWhen I...when we first moved down to Ameliasburg, or to Roblin Lake, I should say, because Roblin Lake where we are is about a mile or so from Ameliasburg...I, after Montreal, and after the job I'd had in Vancouver, I suddenly had to become my own disciplinary straw boss, and it was quite difficult, and in other words, you know, I'd try to get up at a certain hour of the day and start writing. Which I could always, you know, I can always write prose, whenever I feel like it, but poems, I write them, well, I should say, I write poems whenever I feel like it, but you can, I can regimen my own prose, which I don't do much of these days. Anyway, when we moved to Roblin Lake, I wasn't physically regimented myself, so that I was waking up all hours of the day. And this is a short poem about that, but I also screwed up the poem, because I put lines at the end of, or words at the end of each line so that I don't know where the emphasis should be placed, even though I've read it dozens of times. It's called \"Late Rising at Roblin Lake\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:25:57\nReads \"Late Rising at Roblin Lake\" [from The Cariboo Horses].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:26:47\nAnother poem about the same particular period, called \"Wilderness Gothic\". Uh...don't think there's a thing to say about this particular poem at all. \n \nAl Purdy\n00:27:03\nReads \"Wilderness Gothic\" [from Selected Poems].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:29:33\nWhen you read a bunch of poems over several years, I think you pick out the ones that you think will read the best, which is certainly what I do, because there are many of my own poems that I rarely read, or never read at all. In fact I, I never read this one. It's called \"Love Poem\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:29:58\nReads \"Love Poem\" [from Poems for all the Annettes].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:31:40\nIn...This poem dates, the actual time of the poem dates about fifteen years ago. The poem itself was written about five years ago. At the time, a friend of mine was there also, which, other than his particular presence I might have acted a little bit differently than I did. You'll see what I mean in a, when I read the poem. Because nobody would take this chance in placing themselves in such a vulnerable position with a woman. \"Homemade Beer\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:32:12\nReads \"Homemade Beer\" [from The Cariboo Horses].\n \nAudience\n00:33:48\nLaughter.\n \nUnknown\n00:33:51\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:33:52\nOne called \"The Drunk Tank\". It's...Dates back two or three years ago when, after the time when I was in the Air Force [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25456], a friend of mine got out of the Air Force much later, so we celebrated. And...it was after quite a turbulent evening with my friend in Belleville [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34227], Ontario, we decided to get a couple of bottles of liquor and go out to the country where we wouldn't be disturbed, and drink it. But the farmer phoned the cops, and we were both thrown in jail. And this particular poem is about the first part of that experience, I mean the early part of being thrown in jail, more or less. But not the end of it, it turned into a sort of fantasy that means something other than I intended. \n \nAl Purdy\n00:34:43\nReads \"The Drunk Tank\" [from The Poems of Al Purdy].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:36:51\nThis is called \"Poem for Rita\", and about a couple of years ago in Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172], there was a couple of girls staying with myself, my wife and myself, and she kept asking me to write a poem. So after a while, I wrote this.\n \nAl Purdy\n00:37:10\nReads \"Poem for Rita\".\n \nAudience\n00:37:25\nLaughter.\n \nAl Purdy\n00:37:28\nThat's all. [Audience laughter]. I think it was actually kind of unkind on my part, because I was never sure whether she understood that or not, and I didn't know whether I wanted her to understand it. [Audience laughter]. There...when we first moved to Ameliasburg, as I mentioned, I was broke as hell. And after having lived in Vancouver, I learned how to make wine of one kind or another, and there was no way to, I didn't have enough money to make beer, so there were a lot of wild grapes around there and we made, I made wild grape wine, and one time, one particular season, I had about five hundred bottles. [Audience laughter]. I attribute the effects of this wine to having made me what I am today [audience laughter], if I could figure that out. But the poem eventually came out of it, called \"The Winemaker's Beatitude\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:38:39\nReads \"The Winemaker's Beatitude\" [from Selected Poems].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:41:16\nIn '65, I went up to Baffin Island [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q81178] on some government money, public money, rode a commercial airline plane from Montreal to Frobisher Bay [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1004067], hitchhiked a ride on what I thought was a DOT plane, but was a construction plane, a construction company charter, and then at Pangnirtung [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q631747], which is on the Arctic Circle, the original administrator there arranged that I go along with an Eskimo family in their canoe to some islands in Cumberland Sound [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q938327]. A year and a half after I got back from the Arctic, I got a bill for a hundred and ten dollars from the construction company that I thought I'd, whose plane I thought I'd hitchhiked on. Which I haven't paid. But anyway, all of these poems, except perhaps I think one or two, were written up there, written in the Arctic, except that after I got back from the Arctic I kept revising them. So you can make up your own mind whether they're written there or not. Among the poems here, there's one called \"At the Movies\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:42:37\nReads \"At the Movies\" [from North of Summer].\n\n Al Purdy\n00:44:55\nThe business about the caribou draining in the bilge water was one of the reasons, I suppose, I found it so extraordinary that, perhaps, that Eskimos should enjoy these shoot-em-up movies, was that they had just come a hundred miles or so after shooting caribou, bringing them back to Pang, Pangnirtung on the, on the Sound, on the...jeez, my memory's failing, I can't even remember the fjord it was. But anyway, they had just shot them and come a hundred miles back with them, and yet...and they were draining in their Peterhead boats, and yet they found these movies so exciting--I suppose I shouldn't find that so unusual, but I do. A crappy Hollywood [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34006] movie. And here's one called \"The Sculptors\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:45:50\nReads \"The Sculptors\" [from North of Summer].\n\nAl Purdy\n00:48:17\nI think I'm going to have about time for two more, so that I'd better...I could probably go on, oh I'd better make it three more  I'll give ya...this is, the trees in the Arctic are about, are very low, and well, this is treeless country on Baffin Island, where there, where practically nothing grows except moss and that, and the like of that, but I wrote a poem about trees at the Arctic Circle, and this is it....I see I'm getting, I'm only talking about the physical things about the Arctic, and I have some poems about the people, too, which, which I should read. Anyway, \"Trees at the Arctic Circle\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:49:05\nReads \"Trees at the Arctic Circle\" [from North of Summer].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:51:07\nI want to read at least one about, about, about people there, because I used to, when I was on these islands, [inaudible] Islands in Cumberland Sound, the Eskimo women used to come over every day and drink tea. They could not speak any English and I could speak no Eskimo, and I would feed them tea and we would sit there, myself feeling about as silly as I could, so eventually I grew a bit desperate and I would read them poems and I would sing songs or I'd do any damn thing. However, eventually there was some kind of, I think, positive liking on my part. But this poem may express it as well as anything. \"Wash Day\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:51:54\nReads \"Wash Day\" [from North of Summer].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:54:03\nTalking about shit, there's actually a poem that has a little bit to do with it here. The Arctic dogs have some qualities that are more pronounced and magnified in Arctic dogs than in southern dogs, that is, they like to eat the stuff. So that when you go, as all, everybody must go at some time or other in their lives, possibly once a day or not, one takes an Eskimo kid along to throw stones and keep the dogs off. When I came back from the Arctic I saw an hour-long film about the George River [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q966023] Eskimos, and one scene in it showed about fifty Eskimos trying to get into a tent, and the Eskimos beating them into the tent, and the next thing you showed the same dogs trying to get out of the tent and the Eskimos beating them out of the tent. And the announcer said not one single word. And then I remembered that whenever the Eskimos leave a campsite, they use it for a privy, and then send the dogs in to clean up. So, actually, this is a poem about that.  \"When I Sat Down to Play the Piano\". [Audience laughter].\n \nAl Purdy\n00:55:10\nReads \"When I Sat Down to Play the Piano\" [from North of Summer; audience laughter throughout].\n\nAl Purdy\n00:58:23\nI've got one more poem if my voice can hold out. When Robert Kennedy  [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25310] was shot...I always think about anything that I'm interested and emotionally moved by, always, at least I have in the past, till I got to Simon Fraser, think about writing a poem about it. So the same thing was happening after Kennedy was shot and died, and I was thinking about writing a poem about it, and then the Star Weekly [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17112122] phoned up and asked me to write a poem about it. So this poem eventually got written. \"A Lament for Robert Kennedy\".\n \nAl Purdy\n00:59:06\nReads \"A Lament for Robert Kennedy\".\n\nAudience\n01:04:39\nApplause.\n \nEND\n01:04:55\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Original transcript and print catalogue by Rachel Kyne\\n\\nOriginal print catalogue, introduction, research and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\\n\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:\\n\\nIn 1970, Al Purdy published Love in a Burning Building (McClelland and Stewart). George Bowering’s study on Al Purdy came out that year, Al Purdy (Copp Clarke Co).\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nAl Purdy became an important figure in Canadian poetry, and was known as a “people’s poet”. He published over thirty books of poetry, but also published in dozens of other genres. Purdy was known as a generous mentor, and his work received several Governor General's Awards as well as other high Canadian honours. He lived in Vancouver, Montreal, and several locations in Ontario, and his poetry reflected Canadian landscape themes. Over the years he has been called the ‘most’ Canadian poet, the ‘first’ Canadian poet and the ‘last’ Canadian poet. In 1963, George Bowering convinced the University of British Columbia to invite Al Purdy to give a reading, where the two poets first met. Later on, Purdy was in contact with George Bowering, as he was completing a book about Purdy.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Reel-to-reel tape>CD>digital file\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.cbc.ca/archives/topic/al-purdy-an-uncommon-poet\",\"citation\":\"“Al Purdy, An Uncommon Poet”. CBC Digital Archives. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, \\t2008.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/al-purdy/oclc/469555161&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"“Al Purdy- The Voice of the Land”. Save Al Purdy’s Home. Harbour Publishing, 2009. \\nBowering, George. Al Purdy. Studies in Canadian Literature. Hugo McPherson and Gary Geddes (eds). Toronto: Copp Clarke Publishing Company, 1970. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-canadian-literature/oclc/605246871&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Brown, Russel and George Woodcock. \\\"Purdy, Al\\\". 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\",\"citation\":\"Geddes, Gary. “Al Purdy”. Fifteen Canadian Poets Times Two. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/al-purdy-at-sgwu-1970-george-bowering\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry Four: Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Ninth Reading, Al Purdy”. Montreal, Quebec: Sir George Williams University, 1970. Found in “The Stephen Morrissey Papers, 1963 - 1998”, McGill McLennan Library, Special Collections and Rare Books, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/splinter-in-the-heart/oclc/47271421&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Purdy, Al. A Splinter in the Heart. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2000.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/in-search-of-owen-roblin/oclc/245733376&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Purdy, Al. In Search of Owen Roblin. McClelland and Stewart, 1974. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/north-of-summer-poems-from-baffin-island/oclc/457913&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Purdy, Al. North of Summer. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/poems-for-all-the-annettes/oclc/819106789&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Purdy, Al. Poems for all the Annettes. Toronto: Contact Press, 1962. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/selected-poems/oclc/637245&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Purdy, Al. Selected Poems. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/cariboo-horses/oclc/869024275&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Purdy, Al. The Cariboo Horses. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/poems-of-al-purdy/oclc/490247728&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Purdy, Al. The Poems of Al Purdy. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-twentieth-century-poetry-in-english/oclc/807465072&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Steele, James. \\\"Purdy, Al(fred) (Wellington)\\\". The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Ian Hamilton (ed). Oxford University Press, 1996. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670548980105216,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0037-1_tape.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0037-1_tape.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"\",\"title\":\"Al Purdy Tape Box - Reel\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0037-1_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0037-1_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Al Purdy 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_0037-1_back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0037-1_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Al Purdy 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_0037-1_side.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0037-1_side.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Al Purdy Tape Box - Spine\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/al_purdy_i006-11-037-1.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"al_purdy_i006-11-037-1.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"01:04:55\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"155.8 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"George Bowering\\n00:00:00\\nAs you know, the reader tonight is Al Purdy [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4704621], a man who's been described as, by Doug Featherling, as the most Canadian of all possible poets. And who has, as they say, paid his dues, and in that time, won all the prizes, like the President's Medal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39089691], and the Governor General's Award [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q283256], and countless numbers of Canada Council [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2993809] Grants and all those other things that come to you. [Laughter]. Currently, I don't know if whether or not I'm supposed to mention this or not, but currently making an excursion amongst the academics at...in other words, straightening people out at Simon Fraser University [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q201603]. And a very welcome addition to our series. Al Purdy. \\n \\nUnknown\\n00:00:55\\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:00:56\\nWhen I started to write poems about sixty-eight years ago, Bliss Carman [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3068116] was the only one writing. So I imitated Bliss Carman, and this first poem is a sort of imitation of Bliss Carman. [Audience laughter]. And there are hardly any new poems in there because it takes me two years to revise them for two years and then conclude them in a reading, and then besides which as George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280] said, I've joined the academics because all the American members of the department at Simon Fraser have guilty consciences so they wanted a Canadian on staff [audience laughter].  \\\"About being a member of our armed forces\\\". This is, this is thirty years after I started to write poems. Remember--Oh, I should say, there are two, three phrases in this that would not ordinarily be understood by you people. \\\"Zombies,\\\" who were conscripts in the last war, and well, the CWACs were women members, Canadian Women's Army Corp [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5030688]. And during the early part of the last war, there were no rifles. So they used wooden rifles to drill with. \\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:02:09\\nReads \\\"About Being a Member of Our Armed Forces\\\" [from Selected Poems; audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:03:29\\nAs I said, I've become an academic lately, and one of the students in this class has asked for all my cigar tubes, little metal tubes that, you know, I get cigars in. He wants to put poems in them and float them down the North Saskatchewan River [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2237] [audience laughter]. And for some reason or other, this, that became the title of this particular poem. \\\"Floating Down the North Saskatchewan River\\\". [Audience laughter].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:04:01\\nReads \\\"Floating Down the North Saskatchewan River\\\" [audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:04:40\\nFunny, eh? [Audience laughter]. Something called \\\"Jubilate\\\", and I'm going to leave that out of there. \\\"Flight 17 Eastbound\\\". Ah...I keep revising some of these and I'm reading now from manuscript because I revised a lot of the poems here and I can't remember which ones I revised, so if they're in manuscript I'm sure they're either revised or that there's some reason for them being there. \\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:05:13\\nReads \\\"Flight 17 Eastbound\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:06:47\\nI don't know what that means but it must be profound. [Audience laughter]. I'm getting together a collection of love poems, or I have gotten a collection of love poems together. They are, I am told, fairly hard-boiled love poems. Because when Jack McClelland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6113965], of McClelland and Stewart [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6800322], heard about them they thought it was a good idea that Harold Town [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q827127] should do some illustrations. But when they saw the poems, and of course it wasn't because they were bad poems, I'm sure, he didn't want to do the illustrations anymore, they said they were hard-boiled. As I said, they can't be bad poems. This was one of them. It's got...no, I don't think I'll read that anyway. I don't like it. However, here's another one along the same lines. [Audience laughter]. It's called \\\"With Words, Words\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:07:51\\nReads \\\"With Words, Words\\\" [from Love in a burning building].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:10:49\\nI lived in Vancouver [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24639] for a while, and up till 1955 or 6. The first play I wrote for CBC [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q461761] was accepted, and I thought I was a genius, and moved to Montreal  [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q340] in order to reap the rewards of my genius. For a year in Montreal I think my...I sold a couple of adaptations to CBC. And eventually we moved to Roblin Lake [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q22447801], near Ameliasburgh [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4742321] in Ontario [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1904], and built a house. And my wife having quit her job, she having decided that if I could get away without working she could too. So we sat down for a couple of years looking at each other, waiting for the other one, to see which one would break first. But this is a poem about that particular time, called \\\"One Rural Winter\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:11:50\\nReads \\\"One Rural Winter\\\" [from Selected Poems; audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:15:22\\nI was in the Arctic [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25322] in '65, but this is a poem written long after that about the Arctic. And I suppose...certainly about the Canadian Arctic. I called it \\\"Arctic Romance\\\", but I think it should be just \\\"Arctic\\\", or something like that.\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:15:46\\nReads \\\"Arctic Romance\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:17:13\\nScrewed that up, I guess. You get tired of reading your own stuff, after a while. You forget what it sounded like the last time. This is a poem I kind of like but I keep revising it also, or have been several times in the last few years, called \\\"Dark Landscape\\\". It uses a couple of lines from an American poet who died thirty years ago called Vachel Lindsay [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1197667], whom probably nobody ever heard of. And it starts in a very prosy way, and is meant to sound that way, and then the rhythm quickens. \\\"Dark Landscape\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:18:07\\nReads \\\"Dark Landscape\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:21:45\\nIn case anybody is wondering about the particular Vachel Lindsay line, it was \\\"The spring comes on forever, and the Chinese nightingale\\\". And he also had \\\"Aladdin to the jinn\\\", except that Aladdin to the jinn, his jinn was J-I-N-N and mine was two J-I-N-N's, and one G-I-N. So that, always a little difficult to understand it without seeing it on the page. Kind of a sweet little poem, this was after we moved to Roblin Lake, and as I say, I sold a couple of plays and we bought a pile of used lumber with the proceeds and put the down payment on the lot and build this house. \\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:22:27\\nReads \\\"Winter at Roblin Lake\\\" [from The Cariboo Horses].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:22:52\\nAlso the same period, about building the house, or rather after the house was built. Trouble is, you can't, you can't smoke a cigar here, can you, something I...it always goes out. Anyway. \\\"Interruption\\\". \\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:23:13\\nReads \\\"Interruption\\\" [from Selected Poems].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:24:49\\nWhen I...when we first moved down to Ameliasburg, or to Roblin Lake, I should say, because Roblin Lake where we are is about a mile or so from Ameliasburg...I, after Montreal, and after the job I'd had in Vancouver, I suddenly had to become my own disciplinary straw boss, and it was quite difficult, and in other words, you know, I'd try to get up at a certain hour of the day and start writing. Which I could always, you know, I can always write prose, whenever I feel like it, but poems, I write them, well, I should say, I write poems whenever I feel like it, but you can, I can regimen my own prose, which I don't do much of these days. Anyway, when we moved to Roblin Lake, I wasn't physically regimented myself, so that I was waking up all hours of the day. And this is a short poem about that, but I also screwed up the poem, because I put lines at the end of, or words at the end of each line so that I don't know where the emphasis should be placed, even though I've read it dozens of times. It's called \\\"Late Rising at Roblin Lake\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:25:57\\nReads \\\"Late Rising at Roblin Lake\\\" [from The Cariboo Horses].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:26:47\\nAnother poem about the same particular period, called \\\"Wilderness Gothic\\\". Uh...don't think there's a thing to say about this particular poem at all. \\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:27:03\\nReads \\\"Wilderness Gothic\\\" [from Selected Poems].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:29:33\\nWhen you read a bunch of poems over several years, I think you pick out the ones that you think will read the best, which is certainly what I do, because there are many of my own poems that I rarely read, or never read at all. In fact I, I never read this one. It's called \\\"Love Poem\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:29:58\\nReads \\\"Love Poem\\\" [from Poems for all the Annettes].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:31:40\\nIn...This poem dates, the actual time of the poem dates about fifteen years ago. The poem itself was written about five years ago. At the time, a friend of mine was there also, which, other than his particular presence I might have acted a little bit differently than I did. You'll see what I mean in a, when I read the poem. Because nobody would take this chance in placing themselves in such a vulnerable position with a woman. \\\"Homemade Beer\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:32:12\\nReads \\\"Homemade Beer\\\" [from The Cariboo Horses].\\n \\nAudience\\n00:33:48\\nLaughter.\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:33:51\\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:33:52\\nOne called \\\"The Drunk Tank\\\". It's...Dates back two or three years ago when, after the time when I was in the Air Force [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25456], a friend of mine got out of the Air Force much later, so we celebrated. And...it was after quite a turbulent evening with my friend in Belleville [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34227], Ontario, we decided to get a couple of bottles of liquor and go out to the country where we wouldn't be disturbed, and drink it. But the farmer phoned the cops, and we were both thrown in jail. And this particular poem is about the first part of that experience, I mean the early part of being thrown in jail, more or less. But not the end of it, it turned into a sort of fantasy that means something other than I intended. \\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:34:43\\nReads \\\"The Drunk Tank\\\" [from The Poems of Al Purdy].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:36:51\\nThis is called \\\"Poem for Rita\\\", and about a couple of years ago in Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172], there was a couple of girls staying with myself, my wife and myself, and she kept asking me to write a poem. So after a while, I wrote this.\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:37:10\\nReads \\\"Poem for Rita\\\".\\n \\nAudience\\n00:37:25\\nLaughter.\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:37:28\\nThat's all. [Audience laughter]. I think it was actually kind of unkind on my part, because I was never sure whether she understood that or not, and I didn't know whether I wanted her to understand it. [Audience laughter]. There...when we first moved to Ameliasburg, as I mentioned, I was broke as hell. And after having lived in Vancouver, I learned how to make wine of one kind or another, and there was no way to, I didn't have enough money to make beer, so there were a lot of wild grapes around there and we made, I made wild grape wine, and one time, one particular season, I had about five hundred bottles. [Audience laughter]. I attribute the effects of this wine to having made me what I am today [audience laughter], if I could figure that out. But the poem eventually came out of it, called \\\"The Winemaker's Beatitude\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:38:39\\nReads \\\"The Winemaker's Beatitude\\\" [from Selected Poems].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:41:16\\nIn '65, I went up to Baffin Island [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q81178] on some government money, public money, rode a commercial airline plane from Montreal to Frobisher Bay [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1004067], hitchhiked a ride on what I thought was a DOT plane, but was a construction plane, a construction company charter, and then at Pangnirtung [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q631747], which is on the Arctic Circle, the original administrator there arranged that I go along with an Eskimo family in their canoe to some islands in Cumberland Sound [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q938327]. A year and a half after I got back from the Arctic, I got a bill for a hundred and ten dollars from the construction company that I thought I'd, whose plane I thought I'd hitchhiked on. Which I haven't paid. But anyway, all of these poems, except perhaps I think one or two, were written up there, written in the Arctic, except that after I got back from the Arctic I kept revising them. So you can make up your own mind whether they're written there or not. Among the poems here, there's one called \\\"At the Movies\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:42:37\\nReads \\\"At the Movies\\\" [from North of Summer].\\n\\n Al Purdy\\n00:44:55\\nThe business about the caribou draining in the bilge water was one of the reasons, I suppose, I found it so extraordinary that, perhaps, that Eskimos should enjoy these shoot-em-up movies, was that they had just come a hundred miles or so after shooting caribou, bringing them back to Pang, Pangnirtung on the, on the Sound, on the...jeez, my memory's failing, I can't even remember the fjord it was. But anyway, they had just shot them and come a hundred miles back with them, and yet...and they were draining in their Peterhead boats, and yet they found these movies so exciting--I suppose I shouldn't find that so unusual, but I do. A crappy Hollywood [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34006] movie. And here's one called \\\"The Sculptors\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:45:50\\nReads \\\"The Sculptors\\\" [from North of Summer].\\n\\nAl Purdy\\n00:48:17\\nI think I'm going to have about time for two more, so that I'd better...I could probably go on, oh I'd better make it three more  I'll give ya...this is, the trees in the Arctic are about, are very low, and well, this is treeless country on Baffin Island, where there, where practically nothing grows except moss and that, and the like of that, but I wrote a poem about trees at the Arctic Circle, and this is it....I see I'm getting, I'm only talking about the physical things about the Arctic, and I have some poems about the people, too, which, which I should read. Anyway, \\\"Trees at the Arctic Circle\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:49:05\\nReads \\\"Trees at the Arctic Circle\\\" [from North of Summer].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:51:07\\nI want to read at least one about, about, about people there, because I used to, when I was on these islands, [inaudible] Islands in Cumberland Sound, the Eskimo women used to come over every day and drink tea. They could not speak any English and I could speak no Eskimo, and I would feed them tea and we would sit there, myself feeling about as silly as I could, so eventually I grew a bit desperate and I would read them poems and I would sing songs or I'd do any damn thing. However, eventually there was some kind of, I think, positive liking on my part. But this poem may express it as well as anything. \\\"Wash Day\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:51:54\\nReads \\\"Wash Day\\\" [from North of Summer].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:54:03\\nTalking about shit, there's actually a poem that has a little bit to do with it here. The Arctic dogs have some qualities that are more pronounced and magnified in Arctic dogs than in southern dogs, that is, they like to eat the stuff. So that when you go, as all, everybody must go at some time or other in their lives, possibly once a day or not, one takes an Eskimo kid along to throw stones and keep the dogs off. When I came back from the Arctic I saw an hour-long film about the George River [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q966023] Eskimos, and one scene in it showed about fifty Eskimos trying to get into a tent, and the Eskimos beating them into the tent, and the next thing you showed the same dogs trying to get out of the tent and the Eskimos beating them out of the tent. And the announcer said not one single word. And then I remembered that whenever the Eskimos leave a campsite, they use it for a privy, and then send the dogs in to clean up. So, actually, this is a poem about that.  \\\"When I Sat Down to Play the Piano\\\". [Audience laughter].\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:55:10\\nReads \\\"When I Sat Down to Play the Piano\\\" [from North of Summer; audience laughter throughout].\\n\\nAl Purdy\\n00:58:23\\nI've got one more poem if my voice can hold out. When Robert Kennedy  [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25310] was shot...I always think about anything that I'm interested and emotionally moved by, always, at least I have in the past, till I got to Simon Fraser, think about writing a poem about it. So the same thing was happening after Kennedy was shot and died, and I was thinking about writing a poem about it, and then the Star Weekly [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17112122] phoned up and asked me to write a poem about it. So this poem eventually got written. \\\"A Lament for Robert Kennedy\\\".\\n \\nAl Purdy\\n00:59:06\\nReads \\\"A Lament for Robert Kennedy\\\".\\n\\nAudience\\n01:04:39\\nApplause.\\n \\nEND\\n01:04:55\\n\",\"notes\":\"Al Purdy reads from a wide variety of his books, including Selected Poems (McClelland and Stewart, 1972), Love in a Burning Building (McClelland and Stewart, 1970), The Cariboo Horses (McClelland and Stewart, 1965), Poems for all the Annettes (Contact Press, 1962), and North of Summer (McClelland and Stewart, 1967).\\n\\n00:00- George Bowering introduces Al Purdy. [INDEX: Doug Featherling describes Purdy as“the most Canadian of all possible poets”, won the President’s Medal, Governor General’s award, Canada Council Grants, Simon Fraser University]\\n00:56- Al Purdy introduces the reading, and “About Being a Member of Our Armed Forces”. [INDEX: Bliss Carman as influence, Simon Fraser University, joining ‘academia’, conscripts in the war, CWAC: women members of the Canadian Women’s Army Corps, wooden drill rifles; from Selected Poems (McClelland and Stewart, 1972)].\\n02:09- Reads “About Being a Member of Our Armed Forces”.\\n03:29- Introduces “Floating Down the North Saskatchewan River”. [INDEX: student in his class, student’s poems in Purdy’s cigar tubes floating down the North Saskatchewan\\nRiver; read from unknown source].\\n04:01- Reads “Floating Down the North Saskatchewan River”.\\n04:40- Introduces “Flight 17 Eastbound”. [INDEX: revising his manuscript; from unknown source, could be known as “Jubilate on Flight 17, Eastbound”].\\n05:13- Reads “Flight 17 Eastbound”.\\n06:47- Introduces “With Words, Words”. [INDEX: collection of love poems, Jack McClelland and Stewart, Harold Town (illustrator); from Love in a burning building (McClelland and Stewart, 1970)].\\n07:51- Reads “With Words, Words”.\\n10:49- Introduces “One Rural Winter”. [INDEX: Vancouver, 1955-6, play for CBC accepted, moved to Montreal, Roblin Lake near Ameliasburg in Ontario, built house, *note that explanation is almost word-for-word identical as his explanation for the same poem, in the reading at the Vancouver Art Gallery (I086-11-042)*; from Selected Poems (1972)].\\n11:50- Reads “One Rural Winter”.\\n15:22- Introduces “Arctic Romance”. [INDEX: Arctic trip in 1965, naming of the poem; from unknown source; Howard Fink List “Arctic”].\\n15:46- Reads “Arctic Romance”.\\n17:13- Introduces “Dark Landscape”. [INDEX: reading, revising, lines from American pet\\nVachel Lindsay; from unknown source].\\n18:07- Reads “Dark Landscape”.\\n21:45- Explains Vachel Lindsay line, Introduces “Winter at Roblin Lake”. [INDEX: Vachel\\nLindsay line “The spring comes on forever, and the Chinese nightingale”, “Aladdin to the\\njinn”, changes Purdy made to the poem, Roblin lake, sold plays, building house of used\\nlumber; from The Cariboo Horses (McClelland and Stewart, 1965)].\\n22:27- Reads “Winter at Roblin Lake”.\\n22:52- Introduces “Interruption”. [INDEX: building house, smoking a cigar; from Selected\\nPoems (1972); not in Howard Fink List of poems].\\n23:13- Reads “Interruption”.\\n24:49- Introduces “Late Rising at Roblin Lake”. [INDEX: Ameliasburg, Montreal, Vancouver, discipline of writing, writing prose vs. writing poetry, process of reading many times; from The Cariboo Horses (1965)]\\n25:57- Reads “Late Rising at Roblin Lake”.\\n26:47- Introduces “Wilderness Gothic”. [INDEX: from Selected Poems (1972); Howard Fink List “One Ernest Gothic”].\\n27:03- Reads “Wilderness Gothic”.\\n29:33- Introduces “Love Poem”. [INDEX: preparing poems to be read, poems Purdy’s never read; from Poems for all the Annettes (Contact Press, 1962)].\\n29:58- Reads “Love Poem”.\\n31:40- Introduces “Homemade Beer”. [INDEX: poem dates five years prior; from The Cariboo Horses (1965)].\\n32:12- Reads “Homemade Beer”.\\n33:52- Introduces “The Drunk Tank”. [INDEX: Air Force, Belleville, Ontario, drinking with\\nfriend, cops called, thrown in jail, ending meaning something other than what was\\nintended; from The Poems of Al Purdy (McClelland and Stewart, 1976)].\\n34:43- Reads “The Drunk Tank”.\\n36:51- Introduces “Poem for Rita”. [INDEX: Toronto, girls staying with Purdy and his wife, girl asked him to write a poem; from unknown source, Howard Fink List “Poem for\\nEda”].\\n37:10- Reads “Poem for Rita”.\\n37:25- Introduces “The Winemaker’s Beat Etude”, and explains more about “Poem for Rita”. [INDEX: Ameliasburg, Vancouver, making homemade wine; from Selected Poems\\n(1972)].\\n38:39- Reads “The Winemaker’s Beat Etude”.\\n41:16- Introduces “At the Movies”. [INDEX: 1965, trip to Baffin Island on government money, plane from Montreal to Frobisher Bay, hitchhiked on DOT plane, construction company charter, Pangnirtung on Arctic Circle, “Eskimo” family’s canoe, bill for plane, Arctic poems; from North of Summer (McClelland and Stewart, 1967)].\\n42:36- Reads “At the Movies”.\\n44:55- Introduces “The Sculptors”. [INDEX: caribou draining, “Eskimos” shooting caribou then watching movies, Pangnirtung Sound, Peterhead boats, Hollywood movie; from North of Summer]\\n45:50- Reads “The Sculptors”.\\n48:17- Introduces “Trees at the Arctic Circle”. [INDEX: Trees on Baffin Island; from North of Summer].\\n49:05- Reads “Trees at the Arctic Circle”.\\n51:07- Introduces “Wash Day”. [INDEX: Cumberland Sound, Eskimo women, language\\nbarriers, tea, sing songs; from North of Summer].\\n51:54- Reads “Wash Day”.\\n54:03- Introduces “When I Sat Down to Play the Piano”. [INDEX: Arctic dogs, film about the George River Eskimos; from North of Summer].\\n55:10- Reads “When I Sat Down to Play the Piano”.\\n58:23- Introduces unknown poem “A Lament for Robert Kennedy”, perhaps actually “Death of John F. Kennedy”. [INDEX: Shooting of Robert Kennedy (John F?), Simon Fraser, writing poem about shooting, Star Weekly asked Purdy for a poem about it].\\n59:06- Reads “A Lament for Robert Kennedy”. [INDEX: perhaps “Death of John F.\\nKennedy”, found in The Cariboo Horses].\\n1:04:55- END OF RECORDING.\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"Yes\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/al-purdy-at-sgwu-1970-george-bowering/\"}]"],"score":2.9270062},{"id":"1289","cataloger_name":["Mahtab,Banihashemi"],"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":["Joel Oppenheimer at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 3 April 1970"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"JOEL OPPENHEIMER Recorded April 3, 1970 3.75 ips, 1/2 track on 1 mil tape\" written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. \"JOEL OPPENHEIMER I006/SR12\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. \"Speed 3 3/4 I006-11-012\" written on sticker on the reel"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 4"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"creator_names":["Oppenheimer, Joel"],"creator_names_search":["Oppenheimer, Joel"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/57449787\",\"name\":\"Oppenheimer, Joel\",\"dates\":\"1930-1988\",\"notes\":\"Born in 1930 in Yonkers, New York, Joel Oppenheimer lived in New York City until 1950 when he attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina. There, he was influenced by Charles Olson and colleagues such as Robert Creeley, Ed Dorn, Jonathan Williams and Fielding Dawson, forming the Black Mountain Poets. Visiting writer William Carlos Williams and e.e. cummings also greatly influenced Oppenheimer. Joel published The Dancer in 1951 (Sad Devil Press at Black Mountain College), The Dutiful Son in 1956 (Short Hills, Johnathan Cape), The Love Bit in 1962 (Totem Press) and Sirventes on a Sad Occasion in 1967 (The Perishable Press) while working in a printing shop. In 1966 he became the director of the Poetry Project at St Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, a New York City reading series and by 1969, Oppenheimer became a columnist for the Village Voice. He then published In Time: Poems 1962-1968 (Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), and in 1973 published On Occasion: Some Births, Deaths, Weddings, Birthdays, Holidays, and Other Events, a book of occasional poems (Bobbs-Merrill). The Woman Poems (Bobbs-Merrill) was published in 1975, and Names, Dates & Places (Saint Andrew’s Press, 1973) chronicled the New York Mets. He also wrote a popular book about Marilyn Monroe, called Marilyn Lives! (Delilah, 1981). In 1984 Oppenheimer taught creative writing at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire. His last published book of poetry was New Spaces: Poems 1975-1983 (Black Sparrow Press, 1985). Joel Oppenheimer died of lung cancer on October 11, 1988.\",\"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":[1970],"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\":\"Excellent\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"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\":\"1970 4 3\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Date written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. Date also specified in previous written announcement \\\"Poetry Four: Sir George Williams Poetry Series\\\"\",\"source\":\"Accompanying Material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building Room H-651\",\"notes\":\"Location specified in previous written announcement \\\"Poetry Four: Sir George Williams Poetry Series,\\\" but not confirmed\",\"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 Room H-651"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Joel Oppeheimer reads from In Time: Poems 1962-1968 (Bobbs-Merrill,1969) as well as poems from Just Friends/Friends and Lovers (Jargon Society) which was only published in 1980."],"contents":["joel_oppenheimer_i006-11-012.mp3\n\nGeorge Bowering\n00:00:00\nI suppose everybody knows everything that everybody would say in an introduction to Joel Oppenheimer [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6213806] anyway, the Black Mountain [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2413277] blah blah blah, and the director of the St. Mark's Poetry Project [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7207506] blah blah blah but what I would like to mention specifically is that there's a big fat book called In Time with about 225 pages of Joel's poetry from the 1960's published by Bobbs-Merrill [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4934692] distributed by McClelland & Stewart [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6800322] in Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16] if they ever get into bookstores in Montreal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q340]. Joel Oppenheimer, thank you.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:00:44\nI really didn't like, George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280], being referred to as being a Black Mountain blah blah blah. I happen to be the finest softball pitcher Black Mountain ever had. And so that none of you lose any sleep tonight, the uniform is genuine United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30] Merchant Marine [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q865132] uniform and the fifth stripe, the purple stripe denotes me as a chief poet, which I was appointed by three captains, two chief engineers and several assorted mates of United States lines and we invented the uniform one night and they threw in all the materials and my wife gave it to me for a Christmas present, so I am responsible for the moral, religious, emotional and sexual life of the crew while at sea. It's a very serious duty! The book that's out now is actually my fourth book of poems, the first to some of you may be familiar with some of the poems from The New American Poetry [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7753501]and so on, The Dutiful Son and The Love Bit. And In Time is the fourth book. The third book is a little known book because Jonathan Williams [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6274797] has been carrying it around in his briefcase for eight years and sends me postcards every six month saying he's bringing it out. I thought maybe since it probably will never get published I should read some poems from there, it's called Friends and Lovers and most of the poems have initialed inscriptions, some of which I will name to you, and some of which somebody going for his Master's thirty years from now will have to do a lot of research to figure out. It's divided into two parts, obviously in the first part is friends and in the second part is lovers. This is the dedicatory poem. \"Orpheus\" [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q174353].\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:02:52\nReads \"Orpheus\" [published later in Just Friends/Friends and Lovers].\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:03:20\nThis is a poem called \"Lesson I\" and it's for Charles Olson [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q922978]. It's also as sure you all recognize upon a parody on one of Pound's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q163366] Usury Cantos [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2701465] and it's based on an actual softball incident in which Charles was supposed to be coaching third base and instead was discussing Etruscan sculpture when I was rounding second on a long drive to left centre field.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:03:54\nReads \"Lesson I\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:04:30\nCharles got very upset about that. This is a poem for Franz Kline [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q374492]. Do I need to tell you who Franz was? Alright, if anybody doesn't know should ask the person next to them after the reading…”Pablo Nerruda--” It’s called “The Boys Whose Fathers\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:04:57\nReads \"The Boys Whose Fathers\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:08:31\nAnd this is for Cubby Selby [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q551487] who wrote Last Exit to Brooklyn [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1400274]. “A Poem In Tune With Its Time”.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:08:39\nReads “A Poem In Tune With Its Time”.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:09:13\nThis is for Phillip Guston [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q701952]. That's very strange, I find that now I can say the names. Philip is a still surviving member of the New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60] Abstract Expressionist school, or whatever they call it these days. And a marvelous painter.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:09:30\nReads \"A Grace for Painters\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:11:21\nThis is another poem for Charles Olson. It's called \"Okay\". This is a funny book because it was written about 1961, as I say literally, it's been carried around in manuscript form for eight years and why I never pulled it back except that those damn postcards kept coming in so I kept saying, okay, six months more and it just was a scene I got into where I, personal poems to people became a thing that I was doing at that time. It's called \"Okay\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:12:10\nReads \"Okay\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:13:54\nThank you. I don't know how many of you knew Charles, that was a visit to New York and we did have a marvelous meal in New York's Chinatown [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q866332] and I just said to the guy, you know, bring us so many dollars worth of food, and there were eleven of us, Ed Dorn [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5334756] and his wife were with us and LeRoi Jones [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q354783] and his wife and Charles, and we sat there and they kept bringing dishes out everybody stuffed themselves and we were all sitting there and Charles, as most of you know was about 6'7” and about 250 pounds and after all this food had come out and been consumed, the guy came out with a sea bass about this big, and everybody sorta looked and Charles said, \"Oh, thank you Joel\" and proceeded to demolish this thing. Well, everybody just sitting...[audience laughter]. Ah, yes! I have a Canadian poem for you. I didn't even know that. This is a poem for Ed Dorn and it's called \"The Fourth Ark Royal\". One night at a bar called Dylan's, Ed and I had seen each other for the first time for about six years and a couple of sailors came in and they had Ark Royal on their caps and Canadian badges and finally after a couple of drinks I asked one of them what the Ark Royal was, and to their shame and my chagrin, and they really were abashed when they said it, it turns out now that the Ark Royal is now a Corvette, uh, after a long distinguished history and not that--I'm sure that it's a great Corvette, but still, a Corvette is a Corvette, you know.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:16:03\nReads \"The Fourth Ark Royal\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:20:03\nDoes anybody know where the Fourth Ark Royal is anchored? I'll go see it tomorrow. I have to make a confession, I pulled a dreadful gaff yesterday and I'm sure that Stan and George are going to spread it around after I leave, so I'm going to confess it in public. I said \"Gee, we're going to be here for a couple of days and there's one thing I'd really like to see. And do you suppose somebody might, you know, give us a lift to the Plains of Abraham [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2726825]\", and they both looked at me and said \"It's 100 miles away in Quebec [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q176]\" and I said \"Oh my god, you're right\" and then I got home, to the hotel, and I was reading through, what's the name of that lovely magazine they give you at the hotel? Canada Today or something, and I was reading through, and when I saw them today, I said \"Oh well, I was wrong about the Plains of Abraham, but we guys captured Montreal once\" and it made me feel much better. Of course, we didn't hold it very long, I think a day we were here. This is a thing called \"Spring Poem\". And let's hope that it gets here.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:21:24\nReads \"Spring Poem\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:21:39\nAhah! Yes, gee, I don't know if you're liking these, but I'm so delighted, I really haven't looked at these poems in moons, and it's...this is a poem for Gil Sorrentino [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q326773] called \"The Aces\", and it starts with a quote from Antony and Cleopatra [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q606830]. And it's when, it's the speech that's always quoted where the death is announced to her, and everybody always quotes the crown he bestride the continents like [unintelligible] and crowns--the crown would drop from his pocket, but I always love the end of it, near the end, she says \"His delights were dolphin-like, they showed his back above the element they lived in\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:22:28\nReads \"The Aces\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:23:36\nFor J.C. Just to add a little mystery.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:23:56\nReads unnamed poem \"There are waterfalls pour straight down\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:24:48\n\"La Revolución\", for J.S.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:24:51\nReads \"La Revolución\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:25:55\nI think what I'll do is read one--this is kind of a long poem, are you up to a longish poem and then we'll call a break? \"A Little Mayan Head\", for E.W.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:26:23\nReads \"A Little Mayan Head\".\n\nUnknown\n00:30:22\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:30:23\nIt's titled \"N.B.\", but that isn't for a lady, that's Nota Bene, if I am correcting--if I am pronouncing that correctly, or correcting that pronouncedly.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:30:34\nReads \"N.B.\"\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:31:10\n\"Poem for New Children\", for E. and L.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:31:14\nReads \"Poem for New Children\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:31:35\n\"Peire Vidal at Thirty-Two\" and any of you who don't know Peire Vidal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5269] are instructed to report to George Bowering on Monday morning and he will give you a lecture on Peire Vidal. And George, if you don't have a lecture prepared, you better by then. Peire Vidal was the most marvelous poet in the world, his vida begins, Peire Vidal was the son of a rich fourrier in Toulouse [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7880], he sang better than any man in the world and he wrote good songs and he was the biggest fool the world has ever known because he believed that what a woman told him in love was true. He also [audience laughter] wrote a poem, this will get an even bigger hit when he was an old man he wrote a gorgeous poem that I can't quote, and you can thank me for that, he wrote a gorgeous poem in which in the first stanza, he avowed his eternal love to four different chicks [audience laughter]. \n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:32:4\nReads \"Peire Vidal at Thirty-Two\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:33:16\n\"The Truck Farmer\", for R. F.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:33:25\nReads \"The Truck Farmer\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:35:01\n\"Dutch Interior: Sewing\", also for R.F. R.F. was my first wife.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:35:07\nReads \"Dutch Interior: Sewing\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:35:36\n\"Clams on the Half-Shelf\" for M.M. And I must say I've been very disappointed, because everybody kept telling me what great seafood restaurants Montreal has and the only seafood I can really stand is fresh clams and every restaurant I go into says, \"Oh, yeah, we have oysters but we don't serve clams\". Does anyone know a restaurant where I can get fresh clams?...This is for M.M.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:36:09\nReads \"Clams on the Half-Shelf\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:36:48\nI must confess to the ladies in the audience that my book has been branded by women's lib in New York as insulting to women, and I have great fights with all of them, I praise their bosoms, and they sort of calm down then, but they still keep putting up stickers on my book jackets. It's amazing what you can do to a women's lib chick if you just tell her that she has very nice tits, really. Immediately they desert the movement. \"New Blues for the Moon\" for D.D.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:37:34\nReads \"New Blues for the Moon\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:38:10\nIt took me four years after, I got the rhyme line to \"I know your door better than my own\" but now it's too late to write the blues, but if anybody's interested, it's \"And if you won't have me I still ain't goin' home.\" \"A Love Poem\" for M.S.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:38:33\nReads \"A Love Poem\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:39:08\nOh yeah, that's a nice poem for today. \"Third of April\", for M.R.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:39:16\nReads \"Third of April\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:39:59\n\"A Five Act Play\" for B.J.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:40:02\nReads \"A Five Act Play\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:40:27\n\"Nature Boy\" for B.C. Helen, are you keeping notes on these initials?\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:40:41\nReads \"Nature Boy\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:41:22\n\"Flora\" for J.G.\n \nAnnotation\n00:41:31\nReads \"Flora\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:42:04\nI'm not sure I like this poem but the story behind it is funny. The really, the fairest break-up, for very strange reasons, and this one literally broke up because the first day that the chick made me sunny-side up eggs, she mashed the yolk with her fork. [Audience laughter]. I knew that no matter how beautiful the scene had been I couldn't stay there anymore. It's called \"Purple Flowers\" and it's for S.G., wherever you might be.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:42:54\nReads \"Purple Flowers\" [audience laughter throughout].\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:43:29\n\"The Apples\" for D.R.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:43:35\nReads \"The Apples\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:44:10\nI have--this is the last poem in the book and if you want to hear some stuff from--this is a longish one, why don't we call a stop after this, and if people want to split, split and if people want to stay I'll read a little bit more from the new book. \"When What You Dream\" for F.E.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:44:45\nReads \"When What You Dream\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:51:07\nThis book starts with a poem that was turned down by at least 37 little magazines, and I finally blackjacked it in as the introductory poem. It's called \"The Poem\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:51:36\nReads \"The Poem\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:51:45\nNobody liked it. Dan Rice is the only person in the world I know that likes that poem. And I think it's the best poem I ever wrote. This is a poem for the other poet I have to most love for, Li Po [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7071], the Chinese poet from 700, 800, roughly. It's called \"shooting the moon\". Li Po, his particular distinctions were that he seduced the emperor of China's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q148] favourite courtesan, and showed up two hours late for the date, bombed out of his skull, and fell asleep on her bosom before doing anything, and the emperor was not terribly amused by it but at the same time he was impressed by the enormity of the action so he exiled him to the mountains but he gave him like 50 thousand acres and bread for life, it's just he was not to show up in court ever again. While there, he did several notable things, one of which is writing the best lush poem that's ever been written cause he got up on a beautiful spring day and was sitting out on his terrace and his servant brought him breakfast and he ate it and he started drinking some sake and the next thing he knew it was nine o'clock at night and like he had sorta missed spring so he started drinking again, and the last line of the poem is something like \"two hours later I was dancing with the moon\". So, he worked it out. The only problem was, that he was literally in love with the moon, and this image runs through his poem, and one night on the way home from a wine tavern, he decided finally to make it with the moon and he sat down at the edge of the river, left it under a rock with his clothes and dove in to screw the moon, literally, the reflection in the water, and drowned. And one hopes that--I don't know what the autopsy showed, but one hopes that he did make it before he drowned, you know, like, you have to love, you know, a guy like that.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:54:28\nReads \"Shooting the Moon\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:56:37\nHelen, do you remember, by any chance, where the other moon poem is? Hold on one--I think I have it. Marvelous picture in the Times [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9684] one day, the first time they took a--the first time one of the things went around the moon, and I wrote a very funny poem about it I think, if I can find it here. Oh well, while I'm looking for it, I'll read you \"Zeus, in May, Reflects on a Recent Letter from Astarte\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:57:53\nReads \"Zeus, in May, Reflects on a Recent Letter from Astarte\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:58:37\nAm I allowed to read dirty poems here? Yeah? This is a poem called \"Poem in Praise of Perseverance\". And anybody who doesn't want to hear it should close their ears. This is another poem that was rejected by about 40 magazines.\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:59:05\nReads \"Poem in Praise of Perseverance\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:59:34\nI really do want to find that damn moon poem. Alright, \"The New Standard Simplified American Cabala for Home Use\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n00:59:53\nReads \"The New Standard Simplified American Cabala for Home Use\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n01:00:12\n\"The Three Old Ladies\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n01:00:24\nReads \"The Three Old Ladies\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n01:01:14\nThat poem incidentally was because of a little incident in a college in Brooklyn [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18419] because they had a lady faculty member as a cop and she listened to me read and she objected to only one word in the entire reading and that was 'hard-on' and I suggested gently to the woman who called me about it that that might be that lady's problem, if she could listen to my--I found the moon poem, thank god--if that was the only word she found to object to that I really thought she might need a little help somewhere from somebody. \"Wrong Again\".\n \nJoel Oppenheimer\n01:02:11\nReads \"Wrong Again\" [from In Time: 1962-1968; audience laughter throughout].\n \nEND\n01:03:25\n[Cut off abruptly]."],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:  \\n\\nIn Time: Poems 1962-1968 was published in 1969 while Joel Oppenheimer was writing columns for the Village Voice in New York City.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nNo direct connections to Montreal or Sir George Williams University are known, however Oppenheimer was an influential member of the Black Mountain group, and a director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery in New York. George Bowering’s name appears on the list of correspondences between 1969 and 1978, in Joel Oppenheimer’s Papers. (See Related Works).\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"Reel-to-reel tape>CD>digital file\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-twentieth-century-poetry-in-english/oclc/807465072&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Foster, Edward.\\\"Oppenheimer, Joel\\\". The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in  English. Ian Hamilton (ed). Oxford University Press, 1996. \"},{\"url\":\"http://doddcentre.uconn.edu/           \\tfindaids/Oppenheimer/MSS19900056.html\",\"citation\":\"“Joel Oppenheimer Papers”. Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Center, University of Connecticut, 2003.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/in-time-poems-1962-1968/oclc/48666?referer=di&ht=edition\",\"citation\":\"Oppenheimer, Joel. In Time: poems 1962-1968. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1969.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/just-friendsfriends-and-lovers-poems-1959-1962/oclc/869017166&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Oppenheimer, Joel. Just Friends/Friends and Lovers. Asheville: Jargon Society, 1980.\"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Oppenheimer, Joel”. Literature Online Biography. Proquest, 2008. \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry Four: Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Ninth Reading, Al Purdy”. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 1970. Found in “The Stephen Morrissey Papers, 1963 - 1998”, McGill McLennan Library, Special Collections and Rare Books, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.\"}]"],"_version_":1853670548984299520,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006-11-0012_tape.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006-11-0012_tape.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Joel Oppenheimer Tape Box - Reel\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006-11-0012_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006-11-0012_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Joel Oppenheimer 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/I0006-11-0012_back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006-11-0012_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Joel Oppenheimer 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/I0006-11-0012_side.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006-11-0012_side.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Joel Oppenheimer Tape Box - Spine\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/joel_oppenheimer_i006-11-012.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"joel_oppenheimer_i006-11-012.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"01:03:25\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"152.2 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"George Bowering\\n00:00:00\\nI suppose everybody knows everything that everybody would say in an introduction to Joel Oppenheimer [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6213806] anyway, the Black Mountain [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2413277] blah blah blah, and the director of the St. Mark's Poetry Project [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7207506] blah blah blah but what I would like to mention specifically is that there's a big fat book called In Time with about 225 pages of Joel's poetry from the 1960's published by Bobbs-Merrill [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4934692] distributed by McClelland & Stewart [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6800322] in Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16] if they ever get into bookstores in Montreal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q340]. Joel Oppenheimer, thank you.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:00:44\\nI really didn't like, George [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1239280], being referred to as being a Black Mountain blah blah blah. I happen to be the finest softball pitcher Black Mountain ever had. And so that none of you lose any sleep tonight, the uniform is genuine United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30] Merchant Marine [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q865132] uniform and the fifth stripe, the purple stripe denotes me as a chief poet, which I was appointed by three captains, two chief engineers and several assorted mates of United States lines and we invented the uniform one night and they threw in all the materials and my wife gave it to me for a Christmas present, so I am responsible for the moral, religious, emotional and sexual life of the crew while at sea. It's a very serious duty! The book that's out now is actually my fourth book of poems, the first to some of you may be familiar with some of the poems from The New American Poetry [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7753501]and so on, The Dutiful Son and The Love Bit. And In Time is the fourth book. The third book is a little known book because Jonathan Williams [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6274797] has been carrying it around in his briefcase for eight years and sends me postcards every six month saying he's bringing it out. I thought maybe since it probably will never get published I should read some poems from there, it's called Friends and Lovers and most of the poems have initialed inscriptions, some of which I will name to you, and some of which somebody going for his Master's thirty years from now will have to do a lot of research to figure out. It's divided into two parts, obviously in the first part is friends and in the second part is lovers. This is the dedicatory poem. \\\"Orpheus\\\" [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q174353].\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:02:52\\nReads \\\"Orpheus\\\" [published later in Just Friends/Friends and Lovers].\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:03:20\\nThis is a poem called \\\"Lesson I\\\" and it's for Charles Olson [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q922978]. It's also as sure you all recognize upon a parody on one of Pound's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q163366] Usury Cantos [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2701465] and it's based on an actual softball incident in which Charles was supposed to be coaching third base and instead was discussing Etruscan sculpture when I was rounding second on a long drive to left centre field.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:03:54\\nReads \\\"Lesson I\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:04:30\\nCharles got very upset about that. This is a poem for Franz Kline [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q374492]. Do I need to tell you who Franz was? Alright, if anybody doesn't know should ask the person next to them after the reading…”Pablo Nerruda--” It’s called “The Boys Whose Fathers\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:04:57\\nReads \\\"The Boys Whose Fathers\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:08:31\\nAnd this is for Cubby Selby [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q551487] who wrote Last Exit to Brooklyn [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1400274]. “A Poem In Tune With Its Time”.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:08:39\\nReads “A Poem In Tune With Its Time”.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:09:13\\nThis is for Phillip Guston [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q701952]. That's very strange, I find that now I can say the names. Philip is a still surviving member of the New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60] Abstract Expressionist school, or whatever they call it these days. And a marvelous painter.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:09:30\\nReads \\\"A Grace for Painters\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:11:21\\nThis is another poem for Charles Olson. It's called \\\"Okay\\\". This is a funny book because it was written about 1961, as I say literally, it's been carried around in manuscript form for eight years and why I never pulled it back except that those damn postcards kept coming in so I kept saying, okay, six months more and it just was a scene I got into where I, personal poems to people became a thing that I was doing at that time. It's called \\\"Okay\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:12:10\\nReads \\\"Okay\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:13:54\\nThank you. I don't know how many of you knew Charles, that was a visit to New York and we did have a marvelous meal in New York's Chinatown [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q866332] and I just said to the guy, you know, bring us so many dollars worth of food, and there were eleven of us, Ed Dorn [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5334756] and his wife were with us and LeRoi Jones [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q354783] and his wife and Charles, and we sat there and they kept bringing dishes out everybody stuffed themselves and we were all sitting there and Charles, as most of you know was about 6'7” and about 250 pounds and after all this food had come out and been consumed, the guy came out with a sea bass about this big, and everybody sorta looked and Charles said, \\\"Oh, thank you Joel\\\" and proceeded to demolish this thing. Well, everybody just sitting...[audience laughter]. Ah, yes! I have a Canadian poem for you. I didn't even know that. This is a poem for Ed Dorn and it's called \\\"The Fourth Ark Royal\\\". One night at a bar called Dylan's, Ed and I had seen each other for the first time for about six years and a couple of sailors came in and they had Ark Royal on their caps and Canadian badges and finally after a couple of drinks I asked one of them what the Ark Royal was, and to their shame and my chagrin, and they really were abashed when they said it, it turns out now that the Ark Royal is now a Corvette, uh, after a long distinguished history and not that--I'm sure that it's a great Corvette, but still, a Corvette is a Corvette, you know.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:16:03\\nReads \\\"The Fourth Ark Royal\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:20:03\\nDoes anybody know where the Fourth Ark Royal is anchored? I'll go see it tomorrow. I have to make a confession, I pulled a dreadful gaff yesterday and I'm sure that Stan and George are going to spread it around after I leave, so I'm going to confess it in public. I said \\\"Gee, we're going to be here for a couple of days and there's one thing I'd really like to see. And do you suppose somebody might, you know, give us a lift to the Plains of Abraham [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2726825]\\\", and they both looked at me and said \\\"It's 100 miles away in Quebec [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q176]\\\" and I said \\\"Oh my god, you're right\\\" and then I got home, to the hotel, and I was reading through, what's the name of that lovely magazine they give you at the hotel? Canada Today or something, and I was reading through, and when I saw them today, I said \\\"Oh well, I was wrong about the Plains of Abraham, but we guys captured Montreal once\\\" and it made me feel much better. Of course, we didn't hold it very long, I think a day we were here. This is a thing called \\\"Spring Poem\\\". And let's hope that it gets here.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:21:24\\nReads \\\"Spring Poem\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:21:39\\nAhah! Yes, gee, I don't know if you're liking these, but I'm so delighted, I really haven't looked at these poems in moons, and it's...this is a poem for Gil Sorrentino [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q326773] called \\\"The Aces\\\", and it starts with a quote from Antony and Cleopatra [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q606830]. And it's when, it's the speech that's always quoted where the death is announced to her, and everybody always quotes the crown he bestride the continents like [unintelligible] and crowns--the crown would drop from his pocket, but I always love the end of it, near the end, she says \\\"His delights were dolphin-like, they showed his back above the element they lived in\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:22:28\\nReads \\\"The Aces\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:23:36\\nFor J.C. Just to add a little mystery.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:23:56\\nReads unnamed poem \\\"There are waterfalls pour straight down\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:24:48\\n\\\"La Revolución\\\", for J.S.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:24:51\\nReads \\\"La Revolución\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:25:55\\nI think what I'll do is read one--this is kind of a long poem, are you up to a longish poem and then we'll call a break? \\\"A Little Mayan Head\\\", for E.W.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:26:23\\nReads \\\"A Little Mayan Head\\\".\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:30:22\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:30:23\\nIt's titled \\\"N.B.\\\", but that isn't for a lady, that's Nota Bene, if I am correcting--if I am pronouncing that correctly, or correcting that pronouncedly.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:30:34\\nReads \\\"N.B.\\\"\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:31:10\\n\\\"Poem for New Children\\\", for E. and L.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:31:14\\nReads \\\"Poem for New Children\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:31:35\\n\\\"Peire Vidal at Thirty-Two\\\" and any of you who don't know Peire Vidal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5269] are instructed to report to George Bowering on Monday morning and he will give you a lecture on Peire Vidal. And George, if you don't have a lecture prepared, you better by then. Peire Vidal was the most marvelous poet in the world, his vida begins, Peire Vidal was the son of a rich fourrier in Toulouse [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7880], he sang better than any man in the world and he wrote good songs and he was the biggest fool the world has ever known because he believed that what a woman told him in love was true. He also [audience laughter] wrote a poem, this will get an even bigger hit when he was an old man he wrote a gorgeous poem that I can't quote, and you can thank me for that, he wrote a gorgeous poem in which in the first stanza, he avowed his eternal love to four different chicks [audience laughter]. \\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:32:4\\nReads \\\"Peire Vidal at Thirty-Two\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:33:16\\n\\\"The Truck Farmer\\\", for R. F.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:33:25\\nReads \\\"The Truck Farmer\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:35:01\\n\\\"Dutch Interior: Sewing\\\", also for R.F. R.F. was my first wife.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:35:07\\nReads \\\"Dutch Interior: Sewing\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:35:36\\n\\\"Clams on the Half-Shelf\\\" for M.M. And I must say I've been very disappointed, because everybody kept telling me what great seafood restaurants Montreal has and the only seafood I can really stand is fresh clams and every restaurant I go into says, \\\"Oh, yeah, we have oysters but we don't serve clams\\\". Does anyone know a restaurant where I can get fresh clams?...This is for M.M.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:36:09\\nReads \\\"Clams on the Half-Shelf\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:36:48\\nI must confess to the ladies in the audience that my book has been branded by women's lib in New York as insulting to women, and I have great fights with all of them, I praise their bosoms, and they sort of calm down then, but they still keep putting up stickers on my book jackets. It's amazing what you can do to a women's lib chick if you just tell her that she has very nice tits, really. Immediately they desert the movement. \\\"New Blues for the Moon\\\" for D.D.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:37:34\\nReads \\\"New Blues for the Moon\\\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:38:10\\nIt took me four years after, I got the rhyme line to \\\"I know your door better than my own\\\" but now it's too late to write the blues, but if anybody's interested, it's \\\"And if you won't have me I still ain't goin' home.\\\" \\\"A Love Poem\\\" for M.S.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:38:33\\nReads \\\"A Love Poem\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:39:08\\nOh yeah, that's a nice poem for today. \\\"Third of April\\\", for M.R.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:39:16\\nReads \\\"Third of April\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:39:59\\n\\\"A Five Act Play\\\" for B.J.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:40:02\\nReads \\\"A Five Act Play\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:40:27\\n\\\"Nature Boy\\\" for B.C. Helen, are you keeping notes on these initials?\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:40:41\\nReads \\\"Nature Boy\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:41:22\\n\\\"Flora\\\" for J.G.\\n \\nAnnotation\\n00:41:31\\nReads \\\"Flora\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:42:04\\nI'm not sure I like this poem but the story behind it is funny. The really, the fairest break-up, for very strange reasons, and this one literally broke up because the first day that the chick made me sunny-side up eggs, she mashed the yolk with her fork. [Audience laughter]. I knew that no matter how beautiful the scene had been I couldn't stay there anymore. It's called \\\"Purple Flowers\\\" and it's for S.G., wherever you might be.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:42:54\\nReads \\\"Purple Flowers\\\" [audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:43:29\\n\\\"The Apples\\\" for D.R.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:43:35\\nReads \\\"The Apples\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:44:10\\nI have--this is the last poem in the book and if you want to hear some stuff from--this is a longish one, why don't we call a stop after this, and if people want to split, split and if people want to stay I'll read a little bit more from the new book. \\\"When What You Dream\\\" for F.E.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:44:45\\nReads \\\"When What You Dream\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:51:07\\nThis book starts with a poem that was turned down by at least 37 little magazines, and I finally blackjacked it in as the introductory poem. It's called \\\"The Poem\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:51:36\\nReads \\\"The Poem\\\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:51:45\\nNobody liked it. Dan Rice is the only person in the world I know that likes that poem. And I think it's the best poem I ever wrote. This is a poem for the other poet I have to most love for, Li Po [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7071], the Chinese poet from 700, 800, roughly. It's called \\\"shooting the moon\\\". Li Po, his particular distinctions were that he seduced the emperor of China's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q148] favourite courtesan, and showed up two hours late for the date, bombed out of his skull, and fell asleep on her bosom before doing anything, and the emperor was not terribly amused by it but at the same time he was impressed by the enormity of the action so he exiled him to the mountains but he gave him like 50 thousand acres and bread for life, it's just he was not to show up in court ever again. While there, he did several notable things, one of which is writing the best lush poem that's ever been written cause he got up on a beautiful spring day and was sitting out on his terrace and his servant brought him breakfast and he ate it and he started drinking some sake and the next thing he knew it was nine o'clock at night and like he had sorta missed spring so he started drinking again, and the last line of the poem is something like \\\"two hours later I was dancing with the moon\\\". So, he worked it out. The only problem was, that he was literally in love with the moon, and this image runs through his poem, and one night on the way home from a wine tavern, he decided finally to make it with the moon and he sat down at the edge of the river, left it under a rock with his clothes and dove in to screw the moon, literally, the reflection in the water, and drowned. And one hopes that--I don't know what the autopsy showed, but one hopes that he did make it before he drowned, you know, like, you have to love, you know, a guy like that.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:54:28\\nReads \\\"Shooting the Moon\\\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:56:37\\nHelen, do you remember, by any chance, where the other moon poem is? Hold on one--I think I have it. Marvelous picture in the Times [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9684] one day, the first time they took a--the first time one of the things went around the moon, and I wrote a very funny poem about it I think, if I can find it here. Oh well, while I'm looking for it, I'll read you \\\"Zeus, in May, Reflects on a Recent Letter from Astarte\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:57:53\\nReads \\\"Zeus, in May, Reflects on a Recent Letter from Astarte\\\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:58:37\\nAm I allowed to read dirty poems here? Yeah? This is a poem called \\\"Poem in Praise of Perseverance\\\". And anybody who doesn't want to hear it should close their ears. This is another poem that was rejected by about 40 magazines.\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:59:05\\nReads \\\"Poem in Praise of Perseverance\\\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:59:34\\nI really do want to find that damn moon poem. Alright, \\\"The New Standard Simplified American Cabala for Home Use\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n00:59:53\\nReads \\\"The New Standard Simplified American Cabala for Home Use\\\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n01:00:12\\n\\\"The Three Old Ladies\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n01:00:24\\nReads \\\"The Three Old Ladies\\\" [from In Time: 1962-1968].\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n01:01:14\\nThat poem incidentally was because of a little incident in a college in Brooklyn [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18419] because they had a lady faculty member as a cop and she listened to me read and she objected to only one word in the entire reading and that was 'hard-on' and I suggested gently to the woman who called me about it that that might be that lady's problem, if she could listen to my--I found the moon poem, thank god--if that was the only word she found to object to that I really thought she might need a little help somewhere from somebody. \\\"Wrong Again\\\".\\n \\nJoel Oppenheimer\\n01:02:11\\nReads \\\"Wrong Again\\\" [from In Time: 1962-1968; audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nEND\\n01:03:25\\n[Cut off abruptly].\",\"notes\":\"Joel Oppeheimer reads from In Time: Poems 1962-1968 (Bobbs-Merrill,1969) as well as poems from Just Friends/Friends and Lovers (Jargon Society) which was only published in 1980.\\n\\n00:00- Introduction for Joel Oppeheimer, by George Bowering [INDEX: Black Mountain,       director of the St. Mark’s Poetry Project, In Time published by Bobbs-Merrill distributed   by McCaulin Stewart.]\\n00:44- Joel Oppenheimer speaks, introduces “Orpheus” [INDEX: Black Mountain Softball pitcher, United States Merchant Marine uniform. The New American Poetry, The Dutiful Son, Love Bit, Johnathan Williams, Friends and Lovers, initialed inscriptions explained]\\n02:52- Reads “Orpheus” from Friends and Lovers\\n03:20- Introduces “Lesson I” [INDEX: Charles Olson, Ezra Pound’s Usury Cantos, Etruscan sculpture]\\n03:54- Reads “Lesson I”\\n04:30- Introduces “The Boys Whose Fathers” [INDEX: Franz Klein]\\n04:57- Reads “The Boys Whose Fathers”\\n08:31- Introduces “A Poem In Tune With Its Time” [INDEX: Cubby Selby’s Last Exit to               Brooklyn]\\n08:39- Reads “A Poem In Tune With Its Time”\\n09:13- Introduces “New York Abstract Expressionist School: For Philip Guston”, published as “A Grace for Painters” [INDEX: Philip Guston, New York Abstract Expressionist school]\\n09:30- Reads “A Grace for Painters”\\n11:21- Introduces “Okay” [INDEX: Charles Olson, written in 1961, personal poems for friends]\\n12:10- Reads “Okay”\\n13:54- Introduces “The Fourth Ark Royal” [Howard Fink List “The Fourthork Royal”]         [INDEX: Charles Olson, New York’s China Town. Ed Dorn, LeRoi Jones, Dylan’s Bar,              Forth ArK Royal sailors, Corvette]\\n16:03- Reads “The Fourth Ark Royal” [INDEX: Stan[ley Hoffman], George [Bowering],     Plains of Abraham, Quebec City, Canada Today magazine]\\n20:03- Introduces “Spring Poem”\\n21:24- Reads “Spring Poem”\\n21:39- Introduces “The Aces” [INDEX: Gil[bert] Sorrentino, Shakespeare’s “Anthony and     Cleopatra”]\\n22:28- Reads “The Aces”\\n23:36- Introduces poem for J.C, first line “There are waterfalls pour straight down...”\\n23:56- Reads first line “There are waterfalls pour straight down...”\\n24:48- Introduces “La Revolucion”\\n24:51- Reads “La Revolucion”\\n25:55- Introduces “A Little Mayan Head”\\n26:23- Reads “A Little Mayan Head”\\n30:23- Introduces “N.B.” [INDEX: “Nota Bene”]\\n30:34- Reads “N.B.”\\n31:10- Introduces “Poem for New Children” [INDEX: poem for children]\\n31:14- Reads “Poem for New Children”\\n31:35- Introduces “Peire Vidal at Thirty-Two” [Howard Fink List “Pervy Dahl at 32”]         [INDEX: George Bowering, Peire Vidal, Toulouse]\\n32:44- Reads “Peire Vidal at Thirty-Two”\\n33:16- Introduces “The Truck Farmer”\\n33:25- Reads “The Truck Farmer”\\n35:01- Introduces “Dutch Interior: Sewing” [INDEX: R.F. initial is his first wife]\\n35:07- Reads “Dutch Interior: Sewing”\\n35:36- Introduces “Clams on a Half-Shelf”\\n36:09- Reads “Clams on a Half-Shelf”\\n36:48- Introduces “New Blues for the Moon” [INDEX: Women’s Liberation Movement        branded as insulting to women]\\n37:34- Reads “New Blues for the Moon”\\n38:10- Introduces “A Love Poem”\\n38:33- Reads “A Love Poem”\\n39:08- Introduces “Third of April”\\n39:16- Reads “Third of April”\\n39:59- Introduces “A Five Act Play”\\n40:02- Reads “A Five Act Play”\\n40:27- Introduces “Nature Boy”\\n40:41- Reads “Nature Boy”\\n41:22- Introduces “Flora”\\n41:31- Reads “Flora”\\n42:04- Introduces “Purple Flowers”\\n42:54- Reads “Purple Flowers”\\n43:29- Introduces “The Apples”\\n43:35- Reads “The Apples”\\n44:10- Introduces “When What You Dream”\\n44:45- Reads “When What You Dream”\\n51:07- Introduces “the poem” from In Time Poems\\n51:36- Reads “the poem”\\n51:45- Introduces “shooting the moon” [INDEX: Dan Rice, Li Po seducing the moon, moon imagery]\\n54:28- Reads “shooting the moon”\\n56:37- Introduces “zeus, in may, reflects on a recent letter from astarte” [Howard Fink List: Xertes] [INDEX: Times magazine picture of the moon]\\n57:53- Reads “zeus in may, reflects on a recent letter from astarte”\\n58:37- Introduces “poem in praise of perseverance” [INDEX: “dirty” poems]\\n59:05- Reads “poem in praise of perseverance”\\n59:34- Introduces “the new standard simplified american cabala for home use”\\n59:53- Reads “the new standard simplified american cabala for home use”\\n1:00:12- Introduces “the three old ladies”\\n1:00:24- Reads “the three old ladies”\\n1:01:14- Introduces “wrong again” [INDEX: reading at a college in Brooklyn]\\n1:02:11- Reads “wrong again”\\n1:03:25- END OF RECORDING\\n \\nHoward Fink List:\\nIntroduction by George Bowering\\nRecorded April 3, 1970\\npage 77\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"Yes\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/joel-oppenheimer-at-sgwu-1970/\"}]"],"score":2.9270062}]