[{"id":"1256","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":["Phyllis Webb and Gwendolyn MacEwen at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 18 November 1966"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["“PHYLLIS WEBB. Recorded November 18, 1966 with Gwedolyn MacEwan. 3.75 its, 1/2 track on 1. mil tape” written on sticker on the back of the tape box. Gwendolyn MacEwen's name is misspelled. “PHYLLIS WEBB I006/SR130” written on sticker on the spine of tape box. “i006-11-130” written on sticker on the reel.\n\n\"GWENDOLYN MacEWAN I066/SR161\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. MacEwen is misspelled. \"I006-11-161\" written on sticker on the reel."],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 1"],"item_identifiers":["[I006-11-130, I006-11-161]"],"access":["Streaming"],"creator_names":["MacEwen, Gwendolyn","Webb, Phyllis"],"creator_names_search":["MacEwen, Gwendolyn","Webb, Phyllis"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/115290827\",\"name\":\"MacEwen, Gwendolyn\",\"dates\":\"1941-1987\",\"notes\":\"Poet, novelist and short story writer Gwendolyn MacEwen was born in Toronto in 1941, and spent her childhood there and in Winnipeg. Her first poem was published in The Canadian Forum, and a year later, when she was eighteen, she left school to pursue a career in writing. She self-published her first two collections of poetry, Selah and The drunken clock in 1961 (Aleph Press). In 1962, she briefly married fellow poet Milton Acorn, published her first novel, Julian the magician (Macmillan, 1963), and a collection of poetry, The rising fire (Contact Press, 1963), which established her reputation on the Canadian scene at the age of twenty-two. That same year, her work was published in Jacques Godbout and John Robert Colombo’s anthology Poetry 64/Poesie 64 (Ryerson Press/ Editions du jour, 1963). MacEwen followed this success with poetry collections A Breakfast for Barbarians (Ryerson Press, 1966), The Shadow-Maker (Macmillan, 1969) which won a Governor General’s Award for poetry, The Armies of the Moon (Macmillan, 1972), which won the A.J.M. Smith Poetry Award, Magic Animals: Selected Poems (Macmillan, 1975), The Fire-Eaters (Oberon Press, 1976), The T.E. Lawrence Poems (Mosaic Press/Valley Editions, 1982) and Earthlight: Selected Poems (General Publisher, 1982). She was re-married to Greek singer Nikos Tsingos, who introduced her to worlds Mediterranean. MacEwen published in other genres, including a CBC verse play Terror and Erebus (reprinted as Afterworlds in 1987), novel King of Egypt, King of Dreams (Macmillan, 1971), collections of short stories Norman (Oberon Press, 1972) and Norman’s Land (1985), travel book Mermaids and Ikons: A Greek Summer (Anansi, 1978), a translation of Euripides’ The Trojan Women: A Play (Playwright’s Co-op, 1979), and two children’s books, The chocolate moose (New Canada Publications, 1981) and The honey drum (Mosaic Press, Flatiron Books, 1983).  Her last publication, Afterworlds (McClelland and Stewart, 1987) won a Governor General’s Award, and was published shortly before her death in 1987. Two volumes of selected work appeared posthumously, The poetry of Gwendolyn MacEwen: the early years (Exile Editions, 1993) and The poetry of Gwendolyn MacEwen: the later years (Exile Editions, 1994) edited by Margaret Atwood and Barry Callaghan.\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Author\",\"Performer\"]},{\"url\":\" http://viaf.org/viaf/29847238\",\"name\":\"Webb, Phyllis\",\"dates\":\"1927-2021\",\"notes\":\"Poet Phyllis Webb was born in Victoria, British Columbia in 1927. She completed a B.A. in Philosophy and English at University of British Columbia and at the young age of twenty-two, she ran as a CCF candidate for the B.C. legislature. She finished one year of graduate studies at McGill University in 1950 in Montreal. She traveled and lived in San Francisco, Paris and England before settling back in B.C. where she taught at UBC for four years. Her first poems were published in Trio (Contact Press) in 1954 with Eli Mandel and Gael Turnbull, and in Even your right eye in 1956 (McClelland and Stewart). The Sea is Also a Garden (Ryerson Press) was published in 1952, and Naked poems (Periwinkle Press) was published in 1965. While in Toronto, Phyllis Webb conceived and was executive producer of the CBC radio program “Ideas” from 1966 to 1969. Two years later in 1971, Webb published Selected Poems (Talon Books). Webb’s many publications also include Wilson’s bowl (Coach House Press, 1980), Sunday water: thirteen anti ghazals (Island Writing Series, 1982), The vision tree: selected poems (Talon Books, 1982) which won the Governor General’s Award and Hanging fire (Coach House Press, 1990). Along with poetry, Phyllis Webb also collected her essays, reviews and radio discussions in Taking (1982), Nothing but brush strokes: selected prose (NeWest, 1995). She was the writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and taught at University of Victoria and the Banff Centre. Phyllis Webb has also won the Canada Council Senior Arts Award in 1981 and 1987, as well as being awarded an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1992. She lives on Saltspring Island, B.C.\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Author\",\"Performer\"]}]"],"contributors_names":["Kiyooka, Roy"],"contributors_names_search":["Kiyooka, Roy"],"contributors":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/30784426\",\"name\":\"Kiyooka, Roy\",\"dates\":\"1926-1994\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Presenter\",\"Series organizer\"]}]"],"Presenter_name":["Kiyooka, Roy"],"Series_organizer_name":["Kiyooka, Roy"],"Performance_Date":[1966],"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\":\"\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"\",\"sound_quality\":\"\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"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\":\"1966 11 18\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Date written on sticker on the tape box. Date is also referenced but not specified in \\\"Georgantics\\\" by Bob Simco\",\"source\":\"Accompanying Material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building Basement Theatre\",\"notes\":\"Location specified in printed announcement \\\"Georgantics\\\" by Bob Simco (Supplemental material)\",\"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 Basement Theatre"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Phyllis Webb reads from The Sea is Also a Garden (Ryerson Press, 1962), Even Your Right Eye (McClelland & Stewart, 1956), and Naked Poems (Periwinkle Press, 1965). Gwendolyn MacEwen reads from Breakfast for Barbarians (Ryerson Press, 1966) and poems published later in The Shadow-Maker (Macmillan, 1969) and a few unknown poems."],"contents":["phyllis_webb_i006-11-130.mp3 [File 1 of 2]\n\nRoy Kiyooka\n00:00:00\nNow perhaps some of you are wondering what these readings are all about and how the choices made, I have here a slight commentary on that which I would like to read to you. Our answer to this is that we have not attempted to make the series an exhaustive coverage of any particular school or faction of poetry. Nor has our concern been an attempt to seek out the so-called \"great poets\". Our choices have been made with the desire to present to you, hopefully, the possibilities of utterance that is more than parochial. In short, this is our attempt to sound just that diversity that so much characterizes the North American Poetry scene. Now tonight it is my very great pleasure to introduce to you two poets whose distinctiveness is more than the fact of their sex. I want to introduce each poet in turn, Phyllis Webb [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7188637] will begin the readings and after the intermission, I shall introduce to you Gwendolyn MacEwen [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4276487]. Now Phyllis Webb has published three books of poems, they are Even Your Right Eye in 1956, The Sea is Also a Garden in ‘62 and Naked Poems in ‘65. Her earlier work appeared in Trio along with Eli Mandel [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3050883] and Gael Turnbull [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5516589]. She is currently a program organizer for CBC's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q461761] Ideas Series [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5988057]. Ladies and Gentleman, Ms. Phyllis Webb.\n \nUnknown\n00:02:20\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:02:21\nI'd like to begin with a found poem, in that it was simply given to me by a child behaving in my presence. It's called \"Alec\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:02:35\nReads \"Alec\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:04:07\nReads \"Rilke\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:05:58\nThis next poem is called \"Continuum\" and it's not a very extraordinary or terribly good poem even, I don't think, but it came out of a rather extraordinary experience, which was television. And it was simply a news clip from Vietnam [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q881], but this one had soundtrack on it, which made it rather more touching and inspired me to wire the Prime Minister. And shortly after that and I didn't know I was getting to the wire in the middle of it until I got there and it has to do with the almost totally impossibility of separating out objective events  that happen out there in history and in time and one's own private history. \"Continuum\".\n\nPhyllis Webb\n00:07:04\nReads \"Continuum\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:08:34\nI'm afraid I am suffering from the Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172] plague which may be rampant here too. The next poem has a title longer than the poem. The title is \"A Loaf of Sliced Bread Wrapped in Cellophane and Bought at the Supermarket Where the Doors Open Without Pushing\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:09:04\nReads \"A Loaf of Sliced Bread Wrapped in Cellophane and Bought at the Supermarket Where the Doors Open Without Pushing\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:09:13\nAnd the next poem is dedicated to Paul Goodman [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q943567], and there is a quotation embedded in the poem which you will probably catch when I come to it. It's a short poem.\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:09:32\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:10:06\nReads \"Poetry\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:11:54\nI will read now from my volume The Sea is Also a Garden. \"Propositions\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:12:16\nReads \"Propositions\" from The Sea is Also a Garden.\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:13:28\nThe next poem is one that seems to elicit negative vibrations from an audience in the first three quarters, so go ahead and zoom them at me.\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:13:43\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:16:02\nI don't think I have the voice to read both sides of this poems tonight, there are two poems, one called \"Breaking\" and one called \"Making\". They're about the creative process that involves both those things, but \"Making\" is rather long and a little hard to read, so I'll read \"Breaking\" which is better probably as a poem.\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:16:47\nReads \"Breaking\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:19:04\nThe next poem is called \"The Time of Man\" and had a rather interesting genesis. I was reading an article in Horizon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3786777] by Dr. Loren Eiseley [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2634723], which he was putting forward some ideas on evolution and it was very beautifully written this Dr. Eiseley's an excellent stylist as well as a good scientist and I discovered that as I was going through I was marking the sentences and a few days later I began writing a poem and picked up the book and listed the sentences, so this poem takes off from the Eiseley article which is called \"The Time of Man\" in which Eiseley says we must live evolution forward amongst many other interesting things and it is started with quotations, which you will get some of the time and some of the time you won't. I sent it to him for confirmation about the scientific aspects of it, he said okay, I used to write poetry too. \"The Time of Man\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:20:24\nReads \"The Time of Man\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:21:38\nReads \"Sitting\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:22:08\nI want to read an old poem now, which I wrote in Dublin [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1761], long years ago, if I can find it. It's called \"Poems of Dublin\", where I'd gone on a sort of literary pilgrimage in search of the spirit of Yeats [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q40213] and Joyce [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6882] among others, it's a very down to earth sort of poem, in four parts.\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:22:45\nReads \"Poems of Dublin\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:25:33\nI want to move on now to my latest book called Naked Poems and which one of your local critics, or at least he wrote for the Montreal Star [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3521910] at this particular point, exclaimed of the price because there are so few words in the book. It's 2.25$. These poems are very small, and therefore very expensive and came at a bitter price, I may say, to me. They came quite as a surprise, I didn't know what I was doing when I wrote them, the first fourteen or so I thought, my goodness, what are these little things doing here, and I couldn't quite take them seriously and then I began to see the order that really was intrinsic in them, and realized that here was something, almost a new form for me to work on, and it's very bare, naked, undecorated and I wanted to get rid of all my affectations. And so I decided to write a couple hundred of them, and I wrote about a hundred and then got hung up on a technical problem, and finally reduced them to, I don't know, forty or so that are in this book. So this is a distillation, let's say. I'm going to read the first fourteen which comprise a total poem, in a sense the whole book is a poem. And then I'll read a few more as long as my voice and your patience will hold out. \"Suite I\".\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:27:56\nReads \"Suite I\" from Naked Poems.\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:28:53\nReads \"Flies\" from Naked Poems.\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:29:10\nReads \"Your Blouse\" from Naked Poems.\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:29:41\nReads \"Suite II\" from Naked Poems.\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:31:27\nOne of the things I was interested in doing in these poems is again this subjective and the objective, here the subject and the object relationship, so that I use objects just to speak for themselves, in a sense, and yet they are all prismed in the way I see them. And again this impossibility of the dichotomy of subjective-objective.\n \nPhyllis Webb\n00:32:09\nReads unnamed poem from Naked Poems.\n \nEND\n00:32:43\n\n\ngwendolyn_macewan_i006-11-161.mp3 [File 2 of 2]\n\nRoy Kiyooka\n00:00:00\nSecond half of our program...on the second half of our program we will have Gwendolyn MacEwen reading for us. I have notes in my hand concerning her, but on the back of this album, here, a CBC [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q461761] publications release of...is it eight Canadian poets? One, two, three, four… [Audience laughter]. Yes, eight Canadian poets, this album is about to be released very shortly. There's a much more comprehensive biography of her, so I shall read this as an introduction to her. Born in Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172] in 1941, began publishing poetry in the Canadian Forum [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5030045] at age fifteen. She left school at eighteen, a high school dropout, as the sociologists would say [audience applause and laughter] to devote herself to writing. She has published three books of poetry, The Drunken Clock, The Rising Fire, and most recently, A Breakfast for Barbarians. She has also published a novel called Julian the Magician. In 1965, she was awarded the prize for poetry in the CBC's new writing contest. With the aid of a Canada Council [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2993809] grant, she is currently at work on a novel on the, how do you pronounce the guy's name? [whispers off-mic to MacEwen]...Pharaoh Akhenaten [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q81794] [laughter] of the eighteenth dynasty in Egypt [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79]. Ladies and gentlemen, Gwendolyn MacEwen.\n \nUnknown\n00:01:47\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:01:47\nSo listen, I had a great idea that if our voices gave out we were just going to open up the record and bring a recorder up on a stage and place the needle in the proper groove, and then just let the record speak for itself. However, I guess the voice is intact. I'm reading first from my latest work, poems from the last year. The first is called \"The Zoo\".\n  \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:02:22\nReads \"The Zoo\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:03:38\nNot feeling that I'd sufficiently exploited beasts and things, I wrote another called \"The Taming of the Dragon\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:03:49\nReads \"The Taming of the Dragon\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:04:57\nStill not having exploited the animal kingdom, I wrote a poem which, well, is not connected with the animal kingdom at all, really. It's called \"The Horse-head Nebula\".\n  \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:05:12\nReads \"The Horse-head Nebula\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:06:19.86\nReads \"Wheels\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:07:18\nThis is a poem which, oddly enough, came out in a Mexican magazine in Spanish not too long ago, looking completely unrecognizable to me. It's called \"I Should Have Predicted\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:07:38\nReads \"I Should Have Predicted\" [published later in The Shadow-Maker].\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:08:47\nSome people have asked me if that poem was about Toronto, and I'm at a loss to answer, not having seen horses, riders, chariots, or anything remotely similar in Toronto. Plus the fact, I'm sure many people have predicted the death of Toronto, as far as that goes. I recall Phyllis reading a poem on perhaps an evolutionary theme, and I have one here called \"The Heel\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:09:32\nReads \"The Heel\" [published later in The Shadow-Maker].\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:11:16\nNow, I think I can safely move into Breakfast for Barbarians. It needs a little preparation, a little cushioning, perhaps. This is a poem called \"The Garden of Square Roots: An Autobiography\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:12:01\nReads \"The Garden of Square Roots: An Autobiography\" from A Breakfast for Barbarians.\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:13:33\nI think all poets should have some suffering poems, poems of great anguish. So feeling I was somewhat deficient in this area [audience laughter], I made use of a very opportune situation, recovering from an appendectomy in hospital. [Audience laughter]. Deciding that surely this was my moment, if I was ever going to write a painful poem it must be now. [Audience laughter]. So this is \"Appendectomy\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:14:20\nReads \"Appendectomy\".\n \nUnknown\n00:14:22\n[High-pitched sound. Possible damage to recording].\n \nUnknown\n00:14:57\n[High-pitched sound. Possible damage to recording].\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:15:20\nAlthough I can't say that I'm convinced that that suffering was valid, either. But. The next poem is called \"The Self Assumes\", and I rarely talk about how a poem gets written because it seems mostly irrelevant, but I would remark that the last line of this poem was one of those very strange, surprising things that comes to one almost instantaneously, and one plucks it out of the air. I was very delighted with it. \"The Self Assumes\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:16:08\nReads \"The Self Assumes\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:18:01\nThe next poem is one of a group of poems toward the end of this book where the, I think the tone or the voice takes a somewhat radical departure from the poems in the rest of the book. It's called \"The Caravan\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:18:23\nReads \"The Caravan\" from A Breakfast for Barbarians. \n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:20:29\nI'm trying to locate a poem in this book which I realized doesn't exist. It's somewhere else altogether. I'd like to end this reading with a trilogy of poems. Which are also toward the end of Breakfast for Barbarians. Poems which, for me, represent a stage in my own growth as a poet. They are called the Arcanum poems, I believe they're on the record which Roy Kiyooka [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3445789] was showing you. \n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:21:15\nReads \"Arcanum One\" from A Breakfast for Barbarians.\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:22:35\nBefore I go into \"Arcanum Two\", in case anyone is mystified with beetles and suns and various creatures like that, let me say that the book is, the poem, rather, is of an Egyptian theme. A royal house. And the events taking place within it. So we move on: \"Arcanum Two\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:23:05\nReads \"Arcanum Two\" from A Breakfast for Barbarians.\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:24:33\nAnd finally, \"Arcanum Three\".\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:24:39\nReads \"Arcanum Three\" from A Breakfast for Barbarians.\n \nGwendolyn MacEwen\n00:25:31\nThank you very much. \n \nUnknown\n00:25:34\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \n \nRoy Kiyooka\n00:25:34\n...everybody here, I want to thank Gwendolyn MacEwen. Our night three is on December the second. Thank you very much. \n \nEND\n00:25:42\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:\\n\\n In 1966, Phyllis Webb was executive producer of CBC’s “Ideas” radio show in Toronto. She had just published Naked Poems in 1965.\\n\\nIn 1966, Gwendolyn MacEwen published Breakfast for Barbarians (Ryerson Press).\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"\\nLocal Connections:\\n\\nWhile studying at McGill in the early 50’s, she became involved with the literary circle that included F.R. Scott, Louis Dudek and Irving Layton. Her work was published by Toronto’s Coach House Press, McClelland and Stewart, Ryerson University Press and Vancouver’s Talonbooks. She also kept correspondences with George Bowering (Archives Canada).\\n\\nThe direct connection between Sir George Williams University and Gwendolyn MacEwen is unknown. However, MacEwen was an important emerging poet from Toronto, associated with poets Margaret Atwood, and husband Milton Acorn.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"I006-11-130:\\nOriginal transcript, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones \\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\\n\\nI006-11-161:\\nOriginal 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\":\"2 reel-to-reel tapes>2 CDs>2 digital files\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/encyclopedia-of-post-colonial-literatures-in-english-vol-1/oclc/32566813&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Atwood, Margaret. “MacEwen, Gwendolyn (1941-87)”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Post- Colonial Literatures in English. Eugene Benson & L.W. Connolly (eds). London: Routledge, 1994\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/poetry-of-gwendolyn-macewen-volume-one-the-early-years/oclc/1127735121&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Atwood, Margaret and Barry Callaghan (eds). The Poetry of Gwendolyn MacEwen; Volume One: The Early Years. Toronto: Exile Editions, 1993. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/encyclopedia-of-post-colonial-literatures-in-english-vol-1/oclc/32566813&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Beddoes, Julie. “Webb, Phyllis (1927-)”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. Eugene Benson and L.W. Conolly (eds). London: Routledge, 1994. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/contemporary-canadian-poem-anthology/oclc/988192362&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Bowering, George, ed. The Contemporary Canadian Poetry Anthology. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1994. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/margaret-atwood-a-biography/oclc/398000144&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Cooke, Nathalie. Margaret Atwood: A Biography. Toronto: ECW Press, 1998. \"},{\"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. “Gwendolyn MacEwen”. From There to Here. Erin, Ontario: Press Porcepic, 1974. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/15-canadian-poets-x2/oclc/977756354&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Geddes, Gary. “Gwendolyn MacEwen (1941-1987)”. Fifteen Canadian Poets Times Two. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-canadian-literature/oclc/605246871&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Geddes, Gary. \\\"Webb, Phyllis\\\". The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Eugene Benson and William Toye (eds). Oxford University Press, 2001. \"},{\"url\":\"http://www.ccca.ca/history/ozz/english/authors/macewen_gwendolyn.html\",\"citation\":\"“Gwendolyn MacEwen (1941-1987)”. One Zero Zero: A Virtual Library of English Canadian Small Press 1945-2044. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/breakfast-for-barbarians/oclc/468766375&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"MacEwen, Gwendolyn. A Breakfast for Barbarians. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1966. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/magic-animals-selected-poems-old-and-new/oclc/643604498&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"MacEwen, Gwendolyn. Magic Animals: Selected Poems Old and New. Toronto: Macmillan, 1974. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/poets-of-contemporary-canada-1960-1970/oclc/659470&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Mandel, Eli. “Gwendolyn MacEwen”. Poets of Contemporary Canada 1960-1970. Montreal: McClelland and Stewart, 1972. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-twentieth-century-poetry-in-english/oclc/807465072&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Manhire, Bill.\\\"MacEwen, Gwendolyn\\\". The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Ian Hamilton (ed). Oxford University Press, 1996. \\n\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/archives-literary/Pages/list-fonds-collections.aspx#p\",\"citation\":\"“Phyllis Webb fonds”. Library and Archives Canada. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/sea-is-also-a-garden/oclc/422686224&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Webb, Phyllis. The Sea is Also a Garden. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1962. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/even-your-right-eye/oclc/654581694&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Webb, Phyllis. Even Your Right Eye. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1956. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/naked-poems/oclc/423359678&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Webb, Phyllis. Naked Poems. Vancouver: Periwinkle Press, 1965. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-canadian-literature/oclc/605246871&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Woodcock, George & Rosemary Sullivan. \\\"MacEwen, Gwendolyn\\\". The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Eugene Benson and William Toye (eds). Oxford University Press, 2001. \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"MacEwen, Gwendolyn. The Shadow-Maker. Toronto: Macmillan, 1969.\"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry Readings”. OP-ED. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 6 October 1967, page 6. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670548660289536,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.264Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0130_back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"My Drive>Sir George Williams TIme-Stamped Transcripts>Spokenweb Tape Case Photos taken by Drew Bernet\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0130_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Phyllis Webb 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_0130_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"My Drive>Sir George Williams TIme-Stamped Transcripts>Spokenweb Tape Case Photos taken by Drew Bernet\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0130_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Phyllis Webb 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/phyllis_webb_i006-11-130.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"phyllis_webb_i006-11-130.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:32:43\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"78.5 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"phyllis_webb_i006-11-130.mp3 [File 1 of 2]\\n\\nRoy Kiyooka\\n00:00:00\\nNow perhaps some of you are wondering what these readings are all about and how the choices made, I have here a slight commentary on that which I would like to read to you. Our answer to this is that we have not attempted to make the series an exhaustive coverage of any particular school or faction of poetry. Nor has our concern been an attempt to seek out the so-called \\\"great poets\\\". Our choices have been made with the desire to present to you, hopefully, the possibilities of utterance that is more than parochial. In short, this is our attempt to sound just that diversity that so much characterizes the North American Poetry scene. Now tonight it is my very great pleasure to introduce to you two poets whose distinctiveness is more than the fact of their sex. I want to introduce each poet in turn, Phyllis Webb [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7188637] will begin the readings and after the intermission, I shall introduce to you Gwendolyn MacEwen [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4276487]. Now Phyllis Webb has published three books of poems, they are Even Your Right Eye in 1956, The Sea is Also a Garden in ‘62 and Naked Poems in ‘65. Her earlier work appeared in Trio along with Eli Mandel [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3050883] and Gael Turnbull [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5516589]. She is currently a program organizer for CBC's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q461761] Ideas Series [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5988057]. Ladies and Gentleman, Ms. Phyllis Webb.\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:02:20\\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:02:21\\nI'd like to begin with a found poem, in that it was simply given to me by a child behaving in my presence. It's called \\\"Alec\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:02:35\\nReads \\\"Alec\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:04:07\\nReads \\\"Rilke\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:05:58\\nThis next poem is called \\\"Continuum\\\" and it's not a very extraordinary or terribly good poem even, I don't think, but it came out of a rather extraordinary experience, which was television. And it was simply a news clip from Vietnam [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q881], but this one had soundtrack on it, which made it rather more touching and inspired me to wire the Prime Minister. And shortly after that and I didn't know I was getting to the wire in the middle of it until I got there and it has to do with the almost totally impossibility of separating out objective events  that happen out there in history and in time and one's own private history. \\\"Continuum\\\".\\n\\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:07:04\\nReads \\\"Continuum\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:08:34\\nI'm afraid I am suffering from the Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172] plague which may be rampant here too. The next poem has a title longer than the poem. The title is \\\"A Loaf of Sliced Bread Wrapped in Cellophane and Bought at the Supermarket Where the Doors Open Without Pushing\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:09:04\\nReads \\\"A Loaf of Sliced Bread Wrapped in Cellophane and Bought at the Supermarket Where the Doors Open Without Pushing\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:09:13\\nAnd the next poem is dedicated to Paul Goodman [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q943567], and there is a quotation embedded in the poem which you will probably catch when I come to it. It's a short poem.\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:09:32\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:10:06\\nReads \\\"Poetry\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:11:54\\nI will read now from my volume The Sea is Also a Garden. \\\"Propositions\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:12:16\\nReads \\\"Propositions\\\" from The Sea is Also a Garden.\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:13:28\\nThe next poem is one that seems to elicit negative vibrations from an audience in the first three quarters, so go ahead and zoom them at me.\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:13:43\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:16:02\\nI don't think I have the voice to read both sides of this poems tonight, there are two poems, one called \\\"Breaking\\\" and one called \\\"Making\\\". They're about the creative process that involves both those things, but \\\"Making\\\" is rather long and a little hard to read, so I'll read \\\"Breaking\\\" which is better probably as a poem.\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:16:47\\nReads \\\"Breaking\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:19:04\\nThe next poem is called \\\"The Time of Man\\\" and had a rather interesting genesis. I was reading an article in Horizon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3786777] by Dr. Loren Eiseley [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2634723], which he was putting forward some ideas on evolution and it was very beautifully written this Dr. Eiseley's an excellent stylist as well as a good scientist and I discovered that as I was going through I was marking the sentences and a few days later I began writing a poem and picked up the book and listed the sentences, so this poem takes off from the Eiseley article which is called \\\"The Time of Man\\\" in which Eiseley says we must live evolution forward amongst many other interesting things and it is started with quotations, which you will get some of the time and some of the time you won't. I sent it to him for confirmation about the scientific aspects of it, he said okay, I used to write poetry too. \\\"The Time of Man\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:20:24\\nReads \\\"The Time of Man\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:21:38\\nReads \\\"Sitting\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:22:08\\nI want to read an old poem now, which I wrote in Dublin [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1761], long years ago, if I can find it. It's called \\\"Poems of Dublin\\\", where I'd gone on a sort of literary pilgrimage in search of the spirit of Yeats [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q40213] and Joyce [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6882] among others, it's a very down to earth sort of poem, in four parts.\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:22:45\\nReads \\\"Poems of Dublin\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:25:33\\nI want to move on now to my latest book called Naked Poems and which one of your local critics, or at least he wrote for the Montreal Star [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3521910] at this particular point, exclaimed of the price because there are so few words in the book. It's 2.25$. These poems are very small, and therefore very expensive and came at a bitter price, I may say, to me. They came quite as a surprise, I didn't know what I was doing when I wrote them, the first fourteen or so I thought, my goodness, what are these little things doing here, and I couldn't quite take them seriously and then I began to see the order that really was intrinsic in them, and realized that here was something, almost a new form for me to work on, and it's very bare, naked, undecorated and I wanted to get rid of all my affectations. And so I decided to write a couple hundred of them, and I wrote about a hundred and then got hung up on a technical problem, and finally reduced them to, I don't know, forty or so that are in this book. So this is a distillation, let's say. I'm going to read the first fourteen which comprise a total poem, in a sense the whole book is a poem. And then I'll read a few more as long as my voice and your patience will hold out. \\\"Suite I\\\".\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:27:56\\nReads \\\"Suite I\\\" from Naked Poems.\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:28:53\\nReads \\\"Flies\\\" from Naked Poems.\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:29:10\\nReads \\\"Your Blouse\\\" from Naked Poems.\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:29:41\\nReads \\\"Suite II\\\" from Naked Poems.\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:31:27\\nOne of the things I was interested in doing in these poems is again this subjective and the objective, here the subject and the object relationship, so that I use objects just to speak for themselves, in a sense, and yet they are all prismed in the way I see them. And again this impossibility of the dichotomy of subjective-objective.\\n \\nPhyllis Webb\\n00:32:09\\nReads unnamed poem from Naked Poems.\\n \\nEND\\n00:32:43\\n\",\"notes\":\"Phyllis Webb reads from The Sea is Also a Garden (Ryerson Press, 1962), Even Your Right Eye (McClelland & Stewart, 1956), and Naked Poems (Periwinkle Press, 1965). \\n\\n00:00- Roy Kiyooka Introduction [INDEX: Kiyooka explains decisions behind Reading Series Poets, North American Poetry scene, Phyllis Webb, Gwendolyn MacEwan, Even Your Right Eye in 1956, The Sea is Also a Garden in 1962 and Naked Poems in 1965 by Phyllis Webb, Trio with Eli Mandel and Gael Turnbull, CBC’s Ideas Series]\\n02:21- Phyllis Webb introduces “Alec” [INDEX: found poem]\\n02:35- Reads “Alec”\\n04:07- Reads “Rilke”\\n05:58- Introduces “Continuum” [INDEX: Television clip from Vietnam, Prime Minister,        objective events and private history]\\n07:04- Reads “Continuum”\\n08:34- Introduces “A Loaf of Sliced Bread Wrapped in Cellophane and Bought at the         Supermarket Where the Doors Open Without Pushing” [INDEX: Toronto]\\n09:04- Reads “A Loaf of Sliced Bread Wrapped in Cellophane and Bought at the   \\tSupermarket Where the Doors Open Without Pushing”\\n09:13- Introduces first line “What decides the vision...” [INDEX: Paul Goodman]\\n09:32- Reads first line “What decides the vision...”\\n10:06- Reads “Poetry”\\n11:54- Introduces “Propositions” [INDEX: from The Sea is Also a Garden]\\n12:16- Reads “Propositions”\\n13:28- Introduces first line “To friends who have also considered suicide...”\\n13:43- Reads first line “To friends who have also considered suicide...”\\n16:02- Introduces “Breaking” [INDEX: “Making”, creative process]\\n16:47- Reads “Breaking”\\n19:04- Introduces “The Time of Man” [INDEX: article in Horizon by Dr. Loren Eiseley,         evolution]\\n20:24- Reads “The Time of Man”\\n21:38- Reads “Sitting”\\n22:08- Introduces “Poems of Dublin” [INDEX: pilgrimage to Dublin, Yeats, Joyce]\\n22:45- Reads “Poems of Dublin”\\n25:33- Reads “Suite I” [INDEX: from Naked Poems, critic from the Montreal Star, writing     process of Naked Poems]\\n28:53- Reads “Flies” [INDEX: not in Howard Fink List of poems]\\n29.10- Reads “Your Blouse” [INDEX: not in Howard Fink List of poems]\\n29:41- Reads “Suite II” [INDEX: not in Howard Fink List of poems]\\n31:27- Introduces first line “An instant of white roses...” [INDEX: in section “Non Linear” in Naked Poems, subject-object relationship; not in Howard Fink List of Poems]\\n32:43.57- END OF RECORDING\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/phyllis-webb-at-sgwu-1966-roy-kiyooka/\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/gwendolyn_macewen_i006-11-161.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"gwendolyn_macewan_i006-11-161.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:25:42\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"61.7 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"gwendolyn_macewan_i006-11-161.mp3 [File 2 of 2]\\n\\nRoy Kiyooka\\n00:00:00\\nSecond half of our program...on the second half of our program we will have Gwendolyn MacEwen reading for us. I have notes in my hand concerning her, but on the back of this album, here, a CBC [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q461761] publications release of...is it eight Canadian poets? One, two, three, four… [Audience laughter]. Yes, eight Canadian poets, this album is about to be released very shortly. There's a much more comprehensive biography of her, so I shall read this as an introduction to her. Born in Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172] in 1941, began publishing poetry in the Canadian Forum [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5030045] at age fifteen. She left school at eighteen, a high school dropout, as the sociologists would say [audience applause and laughter] to devote herself to writing. She has published three books of poetry, The Drunken Clock, The Rising Fire, and most recently, A Breakfast for Barbarians. She has also published a novel called Julian the Magician. In 1965, she was awarded the prize for poetry in the CBC's new writing contest. With the aid of a Canada Council [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2993809] grant, she is currently at work on a novel on the, how do you pronounce the guy's name? [whispers off-mic to MacEwen]...Pharaoh Akhenaten [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q81794] [laughter] of the eighteenth dynasty in Egypt [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79]. Ladies and gentlemen, Gwendolyn MacEwen.\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:01:47\\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:01:47\\nSo listen, I had a great idea that if our voices gave out we were just going to open up the record and bring a recorder up on a stage and place the needle in the proper groove, and then just let the record speak for itself. However, I guess the voice is intact. I'm reading first from my latest work, poems from the last year. The first is called \\\"The Zoo\\\".\\n  \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:02:22\\nReads \\\"The Zoo\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:03:38\\nNot feeling that I'd sufficiently exploited beasts and things, I wrote another called \\\"The Taming of the Dragon\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:03:49\\nReads \\\"The Taming of the Dragon\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:04:57\\nStill not having exploited the animal kingdom, I wrote a poem which, well, is not connected with the animal kingdom at all, really. It's called \\\"The Horse-head Nebula\\\".\\n  \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:05:12\\nReads \\\"The Horse-head Nebula\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:06:19.86\\nReads \\\"Wheels\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:07:18\\nThis is a poem which, oddly enough, came out in a Mexican magazine in Spanish not too long ago, looking completely unrecognizable to me. It's called \\\"I Should Have Predicted\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:07:38\\nReads \\\"I Should Have Predicted\\\" [published later in The Shadow-Maker].\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:08:47\\nSome people have asked me if that poem was about Toronto, and I'm at a loss to answer, not having seen horses, riders, chariots, or anything remotely similar in Toronto. Plus the fact, I'm sure many people have predicted the death of Toronto, as far as that goes. I recall Phyllis reading a poem on perhaps an evolutionary theme, and I have one here called \\\"The Heel\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:09:32\\nReads \\\"The Heel\\\" [published later in The Shadow-Maker].\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:11:16\\nNow, I think I can safely move into Breakfast for Barbarians. It needs a little preparation, a little cushioning, perhaps. This is a poem called \\\"The Garden of Square Roots: An Autobiography\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:12:01\\nReads \\\"The Garden of Square Roots: An Autobiography\\\" from A Breakfast for Barbarians.\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:13:33\\nI think all poets should have some suffering poems, poems of great anguish. So feeling I was somewhat deficient in this area [audience laughter], I made use of a very opportune situation, recovering from an appendectomy in hospital. [Audience laughter]. Deciding that surely this was my moment, if I was ever going to write a painful poem it must be now. [Audience laughter]. So this is \\\"Appendectomy\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:14:20\\nReads \\\"Appendectomy\\\".\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:14:22\\n[High-pitched sound. Possible damage to recording].\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:14:57\\n[High-pitched sound. Possible damage to recording].\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:15:20\\nAlthough I can't say that I'm convinced that that suffering was valid, either. But. The next poem is called \\\"The Self Assumes\\\", and I rarely talk about how a poem gets written because it seems mostly irrelevant, but I would remark that the last line of this poem was one of those very strange, surprising things that comes to one almost instantaneously, and one plucks it out of the air. I was very delighted with it. \\\"The Self Assumes\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:16:08\\nReads \\\"The Self Assumes\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:18:01\\nThe next poem is one of a group of poems toward the end of this book where the, I think the tone or the voice takes a somewhat radical departure from the poems in the rest of the book. It's called \\\"The Caravan\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:18:23\\nReads \\\"The Caravan\\\" from A Breakfast for Barbarians. \\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:20:29\\nI'm trying to locate a poem in this book which I realized doesn't exist. It's somewhere else altogether. I'd like to end this reading with a trilogy of poems. Which are also toward the end of Breakfast for Barbarians. Poems which, for me, represent a stage in my own growth as a poet. They are called the Arcanum poems, I believe they're on the record which Roy Kiyooka [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3445789] was showing you. \\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:21:15\\nReads \\\"Arcanum One\\\" from A Breakfast for Barbarians.\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:22:35\\nBefore I go into \\\"Arcanum Two\\\", in case anyone is mystified with beetles and suns and various creatures like that, let me say that the book is, the poem, rather, is of an Egyptian theme. A royal house. And the events taking place within it. So we move on: \\\"Arcanum Two\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:23:05\\nReads \\\"Arcanum Two\\\" from A Breakfast for Barbarians.\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:24:33\\nAnd finally, \\\"Arcanum Three\\\".\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:24:39\\nReads \\\"Arcanum Three\\\" from A Breakfast for Barbarians.\\n \\nGwendolyn MacEwen\\n00:25:31\\nThank you very much. \\n \\nUnknown\\n00:25:34\\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \\n \\nRoy Kiyooka\\n00:25:34\\n...everybody here, I want to thank Gwendolyn MacEwen. Our night three is on December the second. Thank you very much. \\n \\nEND\\n00:25:42\\n\",\"notes\":\"Gwendolyn MacEwen reads from Breakfast for Barbarians (Ryerson Press, 1966) and poems published later in The Shadow-Maker (Macmillan, 1969) and a few unknown poems.\\n\\n00:00- Roy Kiyooka introduces Gwendolyn MacEwen. [INDEX: second half of reading, CBC recording of eight Canadian poets (Phyllis Webb, Earle Birney, John Newlove, Al Purdy, Irving Layton, Leonard Cohen, George Bowering and Gwendolyn MacEwen (CBC, 1966), biography, born in Toronto in 1941, publishing poetry at age 15, high school dropout, sociologists, three poetry books: The Drunken Clock, The Rising Fire and Breakfast for Barbarians, novel Julian and the Magician, 1965 award from CBC’s\\nwriting contest, Canada Council grant, Pharaoh Akhenaton and the eighteenth dynasty in Egypt, (perhaps King of Egypt, King of Dreams (Macmillan, 1971)].\\n01:47- Gwendolyn MacEwen introduces reading and “The Zoo”. [INDEX: loss of voice,\\nrecording, record, latest work].\\n02:22- Reads “The Zoo”.\\n03:38- Introduces “The Taming of the Dragon”. [INDEX: exploited beasts].\\n03:49- Reads “The Taming of the Dragon”.\\n04:57- Introduces “The Horse-head Nebula”. [INDEX: exploited the animal kingdom].\\n05:12- Reads “The Horse-head Nebula”.\\n06:19- Reads “Wheels”.\\n07:18- Introduces “I Should Have Predicted”. [INDEX: published in Mexican magazine in\\nSpanish; later published in The Shadow-Maker (Macmillan, 1969)].\\n07:38- Reads “I Should Have Predicted”.\\n08:47- Explains “I Should Have Predicted” and introduces “The Heel”. [INDEX: about\\nToronto, horses, riders, chariots, death of Toronto, Phyllis [Webb] poem, evolutionary\\ntheme; later published in The Shadow-Maker (Macmillan, 1969)].\\n09:32- Reads “The Heel”.\\n11:16- Introduces Breakfast for Barbarians. [INDEX: preparation, cushioning].\\n11:52- Introduces “The Garden of Square Roots: An Autobiography”. [INDEX: from\\nBreakfast for Barbarians].\\n12:01- Reads “The Garden of Square Roots: An Autobiography”.\\n13:33- Introduces “Appendectomy”. [INDEX: suffering poem, poets, appendectomy in hospital,painful poem; from Breakfast for Barbarians].\\n14:20- Reads “Appendectomy”.\\n14:22- Damage to recording\\n14:57- Damage to recording\\n15:20- Explains “Appendectomy”, introduces “The Self Assumes”. [INDEX: suffering,\\nvalidity, how a poem gets written, irrelevant, last line, strange surprise, instantaneous, out of air; from Breakfast for Barbarians].\\n16:08- Reads “The Self Assumes”.\\n18:01- Introduces “The Caravan”. [INDEX: group of poems, tone, voice, radical departure; from Breakfast for Barbarians].\\n18:23- Reads “The Caravan”.\\n20:29- Introduces “Arcanum One”. [INDEX: poem that doesn’t exist, trilogy of poems, at the end of Breakfast for Barbarians, stage in growth as a poet, Arcanum poems, on record, Roy Kiyooka].\\n21:15- Reads “Arcanum One”.\\n22:35- Introduces “Arcanum Two”. [INDEX: beetles, sun, creatures, Egyptian theme, royal house].\\n23:05- Reads “Arcanum Two”.\\n24:33- Reads “Arcanum Three”.\\n25:31- Gwendolyn MacEwen thanks the audience.\\n25:34- Roy Kiyooka thanks Gwendolyn MacEwen, announces date of next reading. [INDEX: next reading December 2].\\n25:42.80- END OF RECORDING.\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/gwendolyn-macewen-at-sgwu-1966/\"}]"],"score":5.6714616},{"id":"1258","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":["Henry Beissel and Mike Gnarowski at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 13 January 1967"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"Henry Beissel Reading in The Poetry Series at Sir George Williams University, 1967-01-13\" handwritten on the back of the tape's box. Spelling mistakes and Mike Gnarwoski's name scratched over with pen. \n\n\"I086-11-003\" and \"RT 516\" also written. \n\n\"GNAROWSKI & BISSEL I006/SR122\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. Gnarowski refers to Michael Gnarowski. Bissel refers to Henry Beissel. Biessel is mispelled "],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 1"],"item_identifiers":["[I086-11-003, I006-11-122]"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Gnarowski, Michael","Beissel, Henry"],"creator_names_search":["Gnarowski, Michael","Beissel, Henry"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/115582508\",\"name\":\"Gnarowski, Michael\",\"dates\":\"1934-\",\"notes\":\"Michael Gnarowski was born on September 27, 1934 in Shanghai, China. He attended several universities: McGill University, B.A. in 1956, Indiana University in 1959, University of Montreal, M.A. in 1960 and University of Ottawa, Ph.D. in 1967. While at McGill, he published his poetry in Yes, which he co-edited. Gnarowski was heavily involved in several presses and magazines throughout his career, which include Le Chien d’or/The Golden Dog, Delta, Golden Dog Press, the Tecumseh Press, Arc Poetry Magazine and McGraw-Hill Ryerson’s Critical Views on Canadian Writers Series (Ryerson Press, 1970), and Canadian Poetry. Along with Ron Everson, Raymond Souster and Louis Dudek, he founded the League of Canadian Poets in 1966. He taught English at the University of Sherbrooke from 1961-62; at Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay), Ontario from 1962-65; was an assistant professor of English at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) from 1966-72; Carleton University from 1972 onwards. He published a book of his own poetry, Postscript for St. James Street in 1965 (Delta Press), and has since edited and compiled over fifteen other books.\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Performer\",\"Author\"]},{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/5489879\",\"name\":\"Beissel, Henry\",\"dates\":\"1929-\",\"notes\":\"Poet Henry Beissel was born in 1929 in Cologne, Germany. Beissel studied philosophy at universities in Cologne and in London before emigrating to Canada in 1951 where he graduated with an M.A. in English from the University of Toronto in 1960. He taught at the University of Edmonton, the University of Alberta as well as Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) in Montreal. Beissel served as editor for the controversial literary and political journal Edge from 1963 (in Edmonton) until 1969 (in Montreal). He translated the poetry of German-Canadian Walter Bauer, called The Price of Morning in 1968 (Prism International Press). His first book, New Wings for Icarus was published in 1966 (Coach House Press), followed by Face on the Dark in 1970. Beissel later published The Salt I Taste (D.C. Books, 1975), The Cantos North (Penumbra Press, 1982), Season of Blood (Mosaic Press,1984), Poems new and selected (Grove Press, 1987), Across the Sun’s Warp (BuschekBooks, 2003). He later wrote and published several plays; Inook and the Sun was performed at the Stratford Festival in 1973. In 1980-1, Henry Beissel acted as President of the League of Canadian Poets.\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Author\",\"Performer\"]}]"],"contributors_names":["Kiyooka, Roy","Dudek, Louis"],"contributors_names_search":["Kiyooka, Roy","Dudek, Louis"],"contributors":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/30784426\",\"name\":\"Kiyooka, Roy\",\"dates\":\"1926-1994\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Series organizer\",\"Speaker\"]},{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/49240132\",\"name\":\"Dudek, Louis\",\"dates\":\"1918-2001\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Presenter\"]}]"],"Presenter_name":["Dudek, Louis"],"Series_organizer_name":["Kiyooka, Roy"],"Speaker_name":["Kiyooka, Roy"],"Performance_Date":[1967],"material_description":["[{\"side\":\"\",\"image\":\"\",\"other\":\"\",\"extent\":\"\",\"AV_types\":\"Audio\",\"tape_brand\":\"Scotch\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"\",\"sound_quality\":\"Excellent\",\"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\":\"Kodak\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"3 3/4 ips\",\"sound_quality\":\"Excellent\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"Popped strands\",\"track_configuration\":\"2 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\":\"1967 1 13\",\"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 Basement Theatre\",\"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 Basement Theatre"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Henry Beissel reads largely from New Wings for Icarus (Coach House Press, 1966). Mike Gnarowski reads from Postscript for St. James Street (Delta, 1965) and from other unknown sources."],"contents":["Henry_beissel_i086-11-003.mp3 [File 1 of 2]\n\nRoy Kiyooka\n00:00:00\nLadies and Gentleman, um, let's see, what am I going to say? [Audience laughter and applause]...Well, glad to see y’all here. So, Professor Louis Dudek []https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3261787] from McGill University [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q201492] will introduce the two poets who’re reading this evening. \n\nAudience\n00:00:31\nApplause.\n\nLouis Dudek\n00:00:40\nI expected a longer introduction than that, it will be very fine. There are two kinds of readings that I like to attend very much, one kind is the sort that they're having tonight at McGill University, where a well-established poet who has been on the scene for forty or fifty years comes to read. Over there, it's A.J.M. Smith [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4647944] from Michigan State [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q270222], Canadian anthologist and well-known poet. With a poet like that, really makes no difference what he reads or how he reads it's just important to see him and even the tottering saint can perform miracles on occasions. The other kinds of poets I do like to hear very much are the sort that we'll hear tonight, Gnarowski and Beissel [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1606507]. The McGill publicity department sent out a notice about A.J.M. Smith and described him as well-known Anthropologist of Canadian poetry. Actually, they corrected it in ink, they made the mistake twice though, probably a typist error. But they didn't know how correct they were, with the current scene in Canadian writing, there are primitive types around that are hard to classify and we need anthropologists...Well, Beissel and Gnarowski are not of this breed of poets who seem to have lost all sense of poetic organization or form, where you think that conventions, poetic conventions have been abolished and what is left are chaotic bits of internal monologue on the page. Of course, that kind of school may be very interesting to watch to see what comes out of it but at present, having watched it now for a few years I'm a little impatient often and tired of the magazines where this material occurs because it seems so easy to turn out and anyone has these bits of chaotic monologue going on. On the other hand, there are many poets still writing who are not following the conventional forms of English metrics and rhyme and so forth, who are turning out poems or at least watching what happens what happens with the words on the page and both the poets we're listening to tonight are of this kind. They are very careful craftsmen. Henry Beissel has the long list of achievements to his credits already, but two on that list strike me very much. One is, amongst many of the posts where he's taught, one is the University of Alberta [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q640694] is the kind of political stir that was created on the campus when his magazine Edge was brought into the classroom by one of the professors. That is, his poetry contains, content that can make one think, that is morally committed to certain issues in today's world. He's very strongly a moral poet on one side, and the other item in his biography is his new book which has just appeared New Wings for Icarus, which is extremely aesthetic at the same time that it is meaningful in this way. His poetry seems to combine two things, one is a moral urgency and on the other hand, at the same time, a romantic sense of language and of imagery and of emotion that goes with that, which are all very, very promising characteristics for a beginning poet, but I think that this New Wings for Icarus book is his first considerable book. So, without more ado, I introduce to you Henry Beissel. \n\nHenry Beissel\n00:05:30\nWhen I considered the kind of poems that I might read this evening and the order in which to read them, I was thinking of the condition of this hall, as it was the last time I was here and I therefore chose two poems which I wrote in the West Indies [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q669037]. [Audience laughter]. They celebrate the sun in an ambiguous sort of way, I'm going to read them all the same, despite the fact that the conditions have changed. I don't know how much you need to know about the West Indies, I'm hoping—oh.\n\nAudience Member 1\n00:06:15\nAddresses Beissel [unintelligible].\n\nHenry Beissel\n00:06:17\nIs this any better? Is there someone in the hall who can attend please to all this? \n\nAudience Member 2\n00:06:28\nAddresses Beissel [unintelligible].\n\nAudience\n00:06:30\nLaughter.\n\nHenry Beissel\n00:06:39\nWell I'll try to speak a little louder on my own, in spite of the microphone. I was saying that I don't know how much one needs to know of the West Indies to respond to this sort of poem, I'm hoping something of the West Indies might be in the poems, the first is called \"Pans at Carnival\". Pan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6610630] is the expression for a steel drum. The imagery in the poem is taken entirely from the steel drum and its use at Carnival [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4618], a feast that is about to be celebrated in Trinidad [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q754] in about a month. Rhythmically, the poem tries to catch something of the rhythm of the steel pan. \n\nHenry Beissel\n00:07:28\nReads \"Pans at Carnival\".\n\nHenry Beissel\n00:10:18\nThe second poem celebrates something of the violence that the sun, with which the sun blesses those parts of the world from which it never really disappears.\n\nHenry Beissel\n00:10:34\nReads \"Where the Sun Only\".\n\nHenry Beissel\n00:12:49\nNext I want to read two parts from New Wings for Icarus. Time does not allow me to read the whole poem, because then I could read you nothing else. “Icarus” is a poem that is written in four parts, it is with some regret that I read only two, because to me it is like playing the second and fourth part of a symphony, but there is no alternative. \n\nHenry Beissel\n00:13:19\nReads \"New Wings for Icarus\", part 2 from New Wings for Icarus.\n\nHenry Beissel\n00:13:51\nSorry, I'll start again. This is a hard one to read and this print is very small. I better hold it closer.\n\nHenry Beissel\n00:13:59\nReads \"New Wings for Icarus\", part 2 from New Wings for Icarus.\n\nHenry Beissel\n00:19:41\nReads \"New Wings for Icarus\", part 4 from New Wings for Icarus.\n\nHenry Beissel\n00:26:39\nNow for a little sort of relaxation in-between, I find unrelieved serious poetry hard to bear myself, I'll read—unfortunately I do not write occasional poems terribly often, they always seem to grow into something much bigger than I can handle, but the next two poems I want to read you are occasional poems, poetry can come out of anything of course, and this one came out of an encounter in a house of Inquisition in Cartagena [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q657461], in Colombia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q739], it is really self-explanatory. It's called \"En la Casa de Inquisición\". \n\nHenry Beissel\n00:27:40\nReads \"En la Casa de Inquisición\".\n\nHenry Beissel\n00:29:23\nThe next poem leads me on to the last set of poems, but you won't discover that until you hear the last two poems. This poem is dedicated to my daughter, when she was 1 and a half, the first stanza deals with the circumstances of her birth, which were somewhat elaborate, there were firemen. The second stanza deals with her present—this would be the past from the time of the poem, the second deals with her present, and the third with her future. \n\nHenry Beissel\n00:30:07\nReads \"To My Daughter at Age 1 1/2\".\n\nHenry Beissel\n00:33:25\nAnd now I come to the final two poems. They belong together and are part of a— we agreed not to torture you and not to read for more than 30 minutes this evening and I am trying to stick to that. This is rather the beginning of something that I may never live to finish, the entire thing is supposed to have some 26 poems, of which you will hear the first two, one is a prologue and the other one is called \"Adam Enter Eve\". In the prologue, a character introduces himself who is to play his part in the rest of the poem. It's not really a dramatic poem, although it's, well I don't think of it as a drama, although it has dramatic qualities. Anyway, I don't like to be my own critic. I prefer just to read you the poem. The whole cycle will be called \"The Dancer from the Dance\" that is as you no doubt know, a quotation from Yeats [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q40213]. \n\nHenry Beissel\n00:34:45\nReads \"Prologue\" from \"The Dancer from the Dance\".\n\nHenry Beissel\n00:37:04\nReads \"Adam Enter Eve\".\n\nEND\n00:49:40\n[Recording continues on mike_gnarowski_i006-11-122.mp3].\n\nmike_gnarowski_i006-11-122.mp3 [File 2 of 2]\n\nLouis Dudek\n00:00:00\nStrongly I was impressed and moved by that reading by Henry Beissel. Really several times after the poems I wanted to applaud, only we don't do that. They were magnificently organized forms with powerful language and very well read, I felt, I think I'm speaking for most people here when I say that. Mike Gnarowski who reads next is different perhaps in the extent to which his poetry is oriented towards reality. Not by implication because Beissel's also is very real and very down to earth and very much committed to the real world, but Gnarowski's poetry has a lot to do with Canadian poetry and the way it has turned towards the real world since about 1925 since A.J.M. Smith and Scott [F.R. Scott; https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3081656] and A.M. Klein [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2778027] began writing. Gnarowski's been very active as a student of Canadian literature, a scholar and a bibliographer and so forth of our literature looking into the sources of this modern poetry and to letters and documents. In this he has done some very valuable work, indexing little magazines that would be otherwise, less well known, preparing bibliographies and he is now working on a larger anthology of criticism introducing the backgrounds of modern Canadian poetry. All this kind of study which is very valuable on the academic side is also important to his poetry I feel, that it places him within the line of modern Canadian poets who have tried to interpret the real, the visible, the actual, directly in poetry. Somewhat in the way I suppose that all modern poetry in English does, including T.S. Eliot's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37767] \"Waste Land\" [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q581458] and Ezra Pound's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q163366] \"Cantos\" [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2701465] and e. e. cumming's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q298703] comedies and satires and Auden's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q178698] poetry also. That is the characteristic of twentieth-century poetry is that its extreme realism and the bringing of the romantic conceptions of the last century to bear upon the actual world and showing that the conflict, the intense conflict that exists in the poet between his conception of things and what he sees before him. That you find in Gnarowski very much. He as a writer he is a meticulous craftsman, I don't know if that's symbolic [audience laughter]... He's also a meticulous craftsman and his poems seem to grow by accretion, very gradually. He writes with a stubborn integrity and knows what he thinks and what he's trying to say in a poem, they aren't just momentary fusions. They're highly worked up pieces of writing. There's a strong element of rationality and reality in this poetry, less of the flight of the emotions and the fantasy that's in most other poets. There's a very strong formal organization in his poetry, a clean speech, straight as the Greeks as Ezra Pound used to say in the past. His first book is entitled Postscript for St. James Street which has to do with, in some part anyhow, with the business world in which we live and he has chosen that quite consciously as a subject that could be turned into poetry, to take the business man, the real in that sense, St. James Street [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1526237] and see what can be made out of that imaginatively. Most poets when they treat a subject like that turn it into satire, because what else can you make out of St. James Street, but Gnarowski wants to keep his vision clear and straight for the fact to see what it really is without elevating too much or perhaps without caricaturing the reality, and it's a very interesting experiment. I'm sure you'll all enjoy listening to his poetry.\n \nMike Gnarowski\n00:05:09\nA couple of years ago I had the occasion to go up into North Western Ontario [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1904], and I lived there for three or four years and more specifically on Port Arthur [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7230482] which is on the very shores of Lake Superior [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1066], and I kept looking at this magnificent and fantastic lake and it kept bothering me. It was too big and too vast and too meaningful and too ominous in many ways to be let off too easily. I also had a friend up there who was an anthropologist and archaeologist and a very good one, and he spent a lot of time going up into that country up around Lake Superior and he kept coming back with all sorts of wonderful thing, all sorts of relics of the past as it were. Gaffs and skulls and this and that which he kept finding and he told me that that part of the world had at one time had supported a pretty fantastic civilization of its own, a very peculiar civilization. And I looked at the lake, Lake Superior, and I decided I would try to write something about it, about the feelings that I think that this ominous body of water might have. A little poem I did for it is entitled \"Great Sea\".\n \nMike Gnarowski\n00:06:30\nReads \"Great Sea\".\n \nMike Gnarowski\n00:10:40\nAnd following along the same themes, a little poem entitled \"Amethyst Harbour\" which was occasioned by a visit of A.Y. Jackson [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3499926] and several friends who gathered in this quite magnificent place on the lake, just about this time of the year and you could look out across Thunder Bay [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9298873] and you saw nothing but ice-locked island and of course snow and ice continuing forever and ever. I always felt the nature, of course, there had not been overcome by man and that nature always threatened man and that there was a struggle, a conflict, a tension going on. So here is \"Amethyst Harbour\".\n \nMike Gnarowski\n00:11:31\nReads \"Amethyst Harbour\".\n \nMike Gnarowski\n00:13:20\nAs Louis Dudek pointed out, I've always been fascinated by those men who wheel and deal and who are responsible for much of the life of the nation, I suppose, of North America [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q49], the so-called businessman, much maligned most of the time. I normally try to deal as properly as I can and in this instance I think I'm probably being unkind. This is a poem entitled \"Portrait of a Man Come to Say Farewell\".\n \nMike Gnarowski\n00:13:55\nReads \"Portrait of a Man Come to Say Farewell\".\n\nAudience\n00:15:26\nApplause [one person].\n \nMike Gnarowski\n00:15:30\nUhh--Thank you. A little while ago, or a few years ago I should say, I had the occasion to go to a town south-east of here called Victoriaville [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q141731], I was there on business and I went through an old-age or an old-people's home and some of you may know what those places are like, I was profoundly affected by this experience and I tried to write something about it and I've called this little thing \"Provincia Nostra\".\n \nMike Gnarowski\n00:15:56\nReads \"Provincia Nostra”.\n \nMike Gnarowski\n00:16:50\nThis is for a friend who was lost in an automobile accident.\n \nMike Gnarowski\n00:16:54\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nMike Gnarowski\n00:17:31\nA very short thing, which I think fills the purpose of keeping me from becoming too serious.\n \nMike Gnarowski\n00:17:46\nReads unnamed poem. \n\nMike Gnarowski\n00:17:59\nThank you.\n \nAudience\n00:18:00\nLaughter and applause [cut off].\n\nIntroducer\n00:18:03\nWe'd like to express our thanks to Mike Gnarowski, Henry Beissel, and our special appreciation to Louis Dudek who made the supreme sacrifice of tearing himself away from McGill to come here and introduce them. [Audience applause]. Our next reading will be in two weeks, on Friday, January 27 Margaret Avison [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6759152] will be coming from Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172] to read her poetry and the following reading on Sat. Feb. 11, Paul Blackburn [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7149388] who is the Poet in Residence at the City College in New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1093910] and the author of, among other things, Brooklyn, Manhattan Transit will be coming here to read his poetry. Thank you.\n \nEND\n00:19:00\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-specific Information:\\n\\nHenry Beissel was teaching at Sir George Williams University in 1966. He also edited Edge: An Independent Periodical, no. 6, Spring 1967.\\n\\nMike Gnarowski received his Ph.D. from University of Ottawa in 1967, and was working as an associate professor at Sir George Williams University. He co-edited The Making of Modern Poetry in Canada with Louis Dudek, which was published by Ryerson Press in 1967. He was the editor of Yes magazine from 1956-69.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local connections:\\n\\nBeissel retired as Distinguished Emeritus Professor of English from Concordia University in 1996. Henry Beissel, Mike Gnarowski and Louis Dudek (also in this reading) organized the Montreal Committee, and organized The Emergency Symposium on the Americanization of Canadian Universities in May of 1969.\\n\\nMike Gnarowski is very involved in the effort to promote Canadian authors and writers, editing and publishing criticism and anthologies of Canadian poetry, specifically those of Leonard Cohen, Archibald Lampman and Raymond Knister as well as little known writers.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Faith Paré (2020) and Ali Barillaro (2021)\\n\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"2 reel-to-reel tapes>2 CDs>2 digital files\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/new-wings-for-icarus-a-poem-in-four-parts/oclc/1127807997&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Beissel, Henry. New Wings for Icarus. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1966. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/canadianization-movement-emergence-survival-and-success/oclc/1165482183&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Cormier, Jeffrey. The Canadianization movement: emergence, survival and success. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. \"},{\"url\":\"http://www.lac-bac.gc.ca/archiveslitteraires/027011-200.058-e.html\",\"citation\":\"“Gnarowski, Michael 1934-”. Michael Gnarowski fonds 1956-1985. Library and Archives       \\t\\nCanada\\n\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/postscript-for-st-james-street/oclc/2566553&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Gnarowski, Michael. Postscript for St. James Street. Montreal: Delta, 1965. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/mike-gnarowski-at-sgwu-1967-louis-dudek/\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry Readings Resume Tonight with Beissel and Gnarowski”. OP-ED. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 13 January 1967. \"},{\"url\":\"http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=O5UtAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4p8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=3951,6182119&dq=sir+george+williams+poetry&hl=en\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry Series Coming Up At University”. Montreal: The Gazette. 31 December 1966, page 39. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/mike-gnarowski-at-sgwu-1967-louis-dudek/\",\"citation\":\"Simco, Bob. “Georgiantics”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 9 January 1967. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-canadian-literature/oclc/865265719&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Stevens, Peter. \\\"Beissel, Henry\\\". The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, 2nd edition. \\nEugene Benson and William Toye (eds). Oxford University Press, 2006. \\n\"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/mike-gnarowski-at-sgwu-1967-louis-dudek/\",\"citation\":\"Thoms, Kathleen. “Professor Poets With Urgency and Imagery”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, January 1967.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-canadian-literature/oclc/86526\",\"citation\":\"Toye, William. \\\"League of Canadian Poets, The\\\". The Oxford Companion to Canadian \\nLiterature, 2nd edition. Eugene Benson and William Toye (eds). Oxford University Press, \\n2006. \\n\"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"\\\"Michael Gnarowski.\\\" Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2009. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670548668678144,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.264Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0122_back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"My Drive>Sir George Williams TIme-Stamped Transcripts>Spokenweb Tape Case Photos taken by Drew Bernet\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0122_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Mike Gnarowski 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_0122_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"My Drive>Sir George Williams TIme-Stamped Transcripts>Spokenweb Tape Case Photos taken by Drew Bernet\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0122_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Mike Gnarowski Tape Box 1 - 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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/mike_gnarowski_i006-11-122.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"mike_gnarowski_i006-11-122.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:19:00\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"45.6 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"mike_gnarowski_i006-11-122.mp3 [File 2 of 2]\\n\\nLouis Dudek\\n00:00:00\\nStrongly I was impressed and moved by that reading by Henry Beissel. Really several times after the poems I wanted to applaud, only we don't do that. They were magnificently organized forms with powerful language and very well read, I felt, I think I'm speaking for most people here when I say that. Mike Gnarowski who reads next is different perhaps in the extent to which his poetry is oriented towards reality. Not by implication because Beissel's also is very real and very down to earth and very much committed to the real world, but Gnarowski's poetry has a lot to do with Canadian poetry and the way it has turned towards the real world since about 1925 since A.J.M. Smith and Scott [F.R. Scott; https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3081656] and A.M. Klein [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2778027] began writing. Gnarowski's been very active as a student of Canadian literature, a scholar and a bibliographer and so forth of our literature looking into the sources of this modern poetry and to letters and documents. In this he has done some very valuable work, indexing little magazines that would be otherwise, less well known, preparing bibliographies and he is now working on a larger anthology of criticism introducing the backgrounds of modern Canadian poetry. All this kind of study which is very valuable on the academic side is also important to his poetry I feel, that it places him within the line of modern Canadian poets who have tried to interpret the real, the visible, the actual, directly in poetry. Somewhat in the way I suppose that all modern poetry in English does, including T.S. Eliot's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37767] \\\"Waste Land\\\" [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q581458] and Ezra Pound's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q163366] \\\"Cantos\\\" [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2701465] and e. e. cumming's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q298703] comedies and satires and Auden's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q178698] poetry also. That is the characteristic of twentieth-century poetry is that its extreme realism and the bringing of the romantic conceptions of the last century to bear upon the actual world and showing that the conflict, the intense conflict that exists in the poet between his conception of things and what he sees before him. That you find in Gnarowski very much. He as a writer he is a meticulous craftsman, I don't know if that's symbolic [audience laughter]... He's also a meticulous craftsman and his poems seem to grow by accretion, very gradually. He writes with a stubborn integrity and knows what he thinks and what he's trying to say in a poem, they aren't just momentary fusions. They're highly worked up pieces of writing. There's a strong element of rationality and reality in this poetry, less of the flight of the emotions and the fantasy that's in most other poets. There's a very strong formal organization in his poetry, a clean speech, straight as the Greeks as Ezra Pound used to say in the past. His first book is entitled Postscript for St. James Street which has to do with, in some part anyhow, with the business world in which we live and he has chosen that quite consciously as a subject that could be turned into poetry, to take the business man, the real in that sense, St. James Street [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1526237] and see what can be made out of that imaginatively. Most poets when they treat a subject like that turn it into satire, because what else can you make out of St. James Street, but Gnarowski wants to keep his vision clear and straight for the fact to see what it really is without elevating too much or perhaps without caricaturing the reality, and it's a very interesting experiment. I'm sure you'll all enjoy listening to his poetry.\\n \\nMike Gnarowski\\n00:05:09\\nA couple of years ago I had the occasion to go up into North Western Ontario [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1904], and I lived there for three or four years and more specifically on Port Arthur [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7230482] which is on the very shores of Lake Superior [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1066], and I kept looking at this magnificent and fantastic lake and it kept bothering me. It was too big and too vast and too meaningful and too ominous in many ways to be let off too easily. I also had a friend up there who was an anthropologist and archaeologist and a very good one, and he spent a lot of time going up into that country up around Lake Superior and he kept coming back with all sorts of wonderful thing, all sorts of relics of the past as it were. Gaffs and skulls and this and that which he kept finding and he told me that that part of the world had at one time had supported a pretty fantastic civilization of its own, a very peculiar civilization. And I looked at the lake, Lake Superior, and I decided I would try to write something about it, about the feelings that I think that this ominous body of water might have. A little poem I did for it is entitled \\\"Great Sea\\\".\\n \\nMike Gnarowski\\n00:06:30\\nReads \\\"Great Sea\\\".\\n \\nMike Gnarowski\\n00:10:40\\nAnd following along the same themes, a little poem entitled \\\"Amethyst Harbour\\\" which was occasioned by a visit of A.Y. Jackson [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3499926] and several friends who gathered in this quite magnificent place on the lake, just about this time of the year and you could look out across Thunder Bay [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9298873] and you saw nothing but ice-locked island and of course snow and ice continuing forever and ever. I always felt the nature, of course, there had not been overcome by man and that nature always threatened man and that there was a struggle, a conflict, a tension going on. So here is \\\"Amethyst Harbour\\\".\\n \\nMike Gnarowski\\n00:11:31\\nReads \\\"Amethyst Harbour\\\".\\n \\nMike Gnarowski\\n00:13:20\\nAs Louis Dudek pointed out, I've always been fascinated by those men who wheel and deal and who are responsible for much of the life of the nation, I suppose, of North America [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q49], the so-called businessman, much maligned most of the time. I normally try to deal as properly as I can and in this instance I think I'm probably being unkind. This is a poem entitled \\\"Portrait of a Man Come to Say Farewell\\\".\\n \\nMike Gnarowski\\n00:13:55\\nReads \\\"Portrait of a Man Come to Say Farewell\\\".\\n\\nAudience\\n00:15:26\\nApplause [one person].\\n \\nMike Gnarowski\\n00:15:30\\nUhh--Thank you. A little while ago, or a few years ago I should say, I had the occasion to go to a town south-east of here called Victoriaville [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q141731], I was there on business and I went through an old-age or an old-people's home and some of you may know what those places are like, I was profoundly affected by this experience and I tried to write something about it and I've called this little thing \\\"Provincia Nostra\\\".\\n \\nMike Gnarowski\\n00:15:56\\nReads \\\"Provincia Nostra”.\\n \\nMike Gnarowski\\n00:16:50\\nThis is for a friend who was lost in an automobile accident.\\n \\nMike Gnarowski\\n00:16:54\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nMike Gnarowski\\n00:17:31\\nA very short thing, which I think fills the purpose of keeping me from becoming too serious.\\n \\nMike Gnarowski\\n00:17:46\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n\\nMike Gnarowski\\n00:17:59\\nThank you.\\n \\nAudience\\n00:18:00\\nLaughter and applause [cut off].\\n\\nIntroducer\\n00:18:03\\nWe'd like to express our thanks to Mike Gnarowski, Henry Beissel, and our special appreciation to Louis Dudek who made the supreme sacrifice of tearing himself away from McGill to come here and introduce them. [Audience applause]. Our next reading will be in two weeks, on Friday, January 27 Margaret Avison [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6759152] will be coming from Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172] to read her poetry and the following reading on Sat. Feb. 11, Paul Blackburn [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7149388] who is the Poet in Residence at the City College in New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1093910] and the author of, among other things, Brooklyn, Manhattan Transit will be coming here to read his poetry. Thank you.\\n \\nEND\\n00:19:00\\n\",\"notes\":\" Mike Gnarowski reads from Postscript for St. James Street (Delta, 1965) and from other unknown sources.\\n\\n00:00 - Introduction by Louis Dudek [INDEX: Henry Beissel’s reading, realism in poetry, Canadian poetry since 1925, A.J.M. Smith, F.R. Scott, A.M. Klein, bibliographer, indexing smaller magazines, T.S. Eliot’s “Wastel Land”, Ezra Pound’s “Cantos”, e e cumming’s satires and comedies, W.H. Auden, romantic conceptions of 19th century vs. extreme realism of 20th century, Postscript for St. James Street by Gnarowski]\\n05:09 - Mike Gnarowski introduces “Great Sea” [INDEX: North Western Ontario, Port Arthur, Lake Superior, archaeological artifacts]\\n06:30 - Reads “Great Sea”\\n10:40 - Introduces “Amethyst Harbour” [INDEX: A.Y. Jackson, Thunder Bay, man vs. nature]\\n11:31 - Reads “Amethyst Harbour”\\n13:20 - Introduces “Portrait of a Man Come to Say Farewell” \\n13:55 - Reads “Portrait of a Man Come to Say Farewell”\\n15:30 - Introduces “Provincia Nostra” [INDEX: Victoriaville]\\n15:56 - Reads “Provincia Nostra”\\n16:50 - Introduces first line “For some inimitable action...”\\n16:54 - Reads first line “For some inimitable action...”\\n17:31 - Introduces first line “If I had legs like yours...”\\n17:46 - Reads first line “If I had legs like yours...”\\n18:03 - Introducer (unknown) says thank-you’s. [INDEX: Mike Gnarowski, Henry Beissel, Louis Dudek, McGill, Margaret Avison, Paul Blackburn]\\n19:00 - END OF EVENT.\\n\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/henry-beissel-reads-with-introduction-by-louis-dudek-michael-gnarowski-in-same-reading/\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/henry_beissel_i086-11-003.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"henry_beissel_i086-11-003.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:49:40\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"119.2 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"Henry_beissel_i086-11-003.mp3 [File 1 of 2]\\n\\nRoy Kiyooka\\n00:00:00\\nLadies and Gentleman, um, let's see, what am I going to say? [Audience laughter and applause]...Well, glad to see y’all here. So, Professor Louis Dudek []https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3261787] from McGill University [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q201492] will introduce the two poets who’re reading this evening. \\n\\nAudience\\n00:00:31\\nApplause.\\n\\nLouis Dudek\\n00:00:40\\nI expected a longer introduction than that, it will be very fine. There are two kinds of readings that I like to attend very much, one kind is the sort that they're having tonight at McGill University, where a well-established poet who has been on the scene for forty or fifty years comes to read. Over there, it's A.J.M. Smith [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4647944] from Michigan State [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q270222], Canadian anthologist and well-known poet. With a poet like that, really makes no difference what he reads or how he reads it's just important to see him and even the tottering saint can perform miracles on occasions. The other kinds of poets I do like to hear very much are the sort that we'll hear tonight, Gnarowski and Beissel [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1606507]. The McGill publicity department sent out a notice about A.J.M. Smith and described him as well-known Anthropologist of Canadian poetry. Actually, they corrected it in ink, they made the mistake twice though, probably a typist error. But they didn't know how correct they were, with the current scene in Canadian writing, there are primitive types around that are hard to classify and we need anthropologists...Well, Beissel and Gnarowski are not of this breed of poets who seem to have lost all sense of poetic organization or form, where you think that conventions, poetic conventions have been abolished and what is left are chaotic bits of internal monologue on the page. Of course, that kind of school may be very interesting to watch to see what comes out of it but at present, having watched it now for a few years I'm a little impatient often and tired of the magazines where this material occurs because it seems so easy to turn out and anyone has these bits of chaotic monologue going on. On the other hand, there are many poets still writing who are not following the conventional forms of English metrics and rhyme and so forth, who are turning out poems or at least watching what happens what happens with the words on the page and both the poets we're listening to tonight are of this kind. They are very careful craftsmen. Henry Beissel has the long list of achievements to his credits already, but two on that list strike me very much. One is, amongst many of the posts where he's taught, one is the University of Alberta [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q640694] is the kind of political stir that was created on the campus when his magazine Edge was brought into the classroom by one of the professors. That is, his poetry contains, content that can make one think, that is morally committed to certain issues in today's world. He's very strongly a moral poet on one side, and the other item in his biography is his new book which has just appeared New Wings for Icarus, which is extremely aesthetic at the same time that it is meaningful in this way. His poetry seems to combine two things, one is a moral urgency and on the other hand, at the same time, a romantic sense of language and of imagery and of emotion that goes with that, which are all very, very promising characteristics for a beginning poet, but I think that this New Wings for Icarus book is his first considerable book. So, without more ado, I introduce to you Henry Beissel. \\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:05:30\\nWhen I considered the kind of poems that I might read this evening and the order in which to read them, I was thinking of the condition of this hall, as it was the last time I was here and I therefore chose two poems which I wrote in the West Indies [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q669037]. [Audience laughter]. They celebrate the sun in an ambiguous sort of way, I'm going to read them all the same, despite the fact that the conditions have changed. I don't know how much you need to know about the West Indies, I'm hoping—oh.\\n\\nAudience Member 1\\n00:06:15\\nAddresses Beissel [unintelligible].\\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:06:17\\nIs this any better? Is there someone in the hall who can attend please to all this? \\n\\nAudience Member 2\\n00:06:28\\nAddresses Beissel [unintelligible].\\n\\nAudience\\n00:06:30\\nLaughter.\\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:06:39\\nWell I'll try to speak a little louder on my own, in spite of the microphone. I was saying that I don't know how much one needs to know of the West Indies to respond to this sort of poem, I'm hoping something of the West Indies might be in the poems, the first is called \\\"Pans at Carnival\\\". Pan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6610630] is the expression for a steel drum. The imagery in the poem is taken entirely from the steel drum and its use at Carnival [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4618], a feast that is about to be celebrated in Trinidad [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q754] in about a month. Rhythmically, the poem tries to catch something of the rhythm of the steel pan. \\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:07:28\\nReads \\\"Pans at Carnival\\\".\\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:10:18\\nThe second poem celebrates something of the violence that the sun, with which the sun blesses those parts of the world from which it never really disappears.\\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:10:34\\nReads \\\"Where the Sun Only\\\".\\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:12:49\\nNext I want to read two parts from New Wings for Icarus. Time does not allow me to read the whole poem, because then I could read you nothing else. “Icarus” is a poem that is written in four parts, it is with some regret that I read only two, because to me it is like playing the second and fourth part of a symphony, but there is no alternative. \\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:13:19\\nReads \\\"New Wings for Icarus\\\", part 2 from New Wings for Icarus.\\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:13:51\\nSorry, I'll start again. This is a hard one to read and this print is very small. I better hold it closer.\\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:13:59\\nReads \\\"New Wings for Icarus\\\", part 2 from New Wings for Icarus.\\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:19:41\\nReads \\\"New Wings for Icarus\\\", part 4 from New Wings for Icarus.\\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:26:39\\nNow for a little sort of relaxation in-between, I find unrelieved serious poetry hard to bear myself, I'll read—unfortunately I do not write occasional poems terribly often, they always seem to grow into something much bigger than I can handle, but the next two poems I want to read you are occasional poems, poetry can come out of anything of course, and this one came out of an encounter in a house of Inquisition in Cartagena [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q657461], in Colombia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q739], it is really self-explanatory. It's called \\\"En la Casa de Inquisición\\\". \\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:27:40\\nReads \\\"En la Casa de Inquisición\\\".\\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:29:23\\nThe next poem leads me on to the last set of poems, but you won't discover that until you hear the last two poems. This poem is dedicated to my daughter, when she was 1 and a half, the first stanza deals with the circumstances of her birth, which were somewhat elaborate, there were firemen. The second stanza deals with her present—this would be the past from the time of the poem, the second deals with her present, and the third with her future. \\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:30:07\\nReads \\\"To My Daughter at Age 1 1/2\\\".\\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:33:25\\nAnd now I come to the final two poems. They belong together and are part of a— we agreed not to torture you and not to read for more than 30 minutes this evening and I am trying to stick to that. This is rather the beginning of something that I may never live to finish, the entire thing is supposed to have some 26 poems, of which you will hear the first two, one is a prologue and the other one is called \\\"Adam Enter Eve\\\". In the prologue, a character introduces himself who is to play his part in the rest of the poem. It's not really a dramatic poem, although it's, well I don't think of it as a drama, although it has dramatic qualities. Anyway, I don't like to be my own critic. I prefer just to read you the poem. The whole cycle will be called \\\"The Dancer from the Dance\\\" that is as you no doubt know, a quotation from Yeats [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q40213]. \\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:34:45\\nReads \\\"Prologue\\\" from \\\"The Dancer from the Dance\\\".\\n\\nHenry Beissel\\n00:37:04\\nReads \\\"Adam Enter Eve\\\".\\n\\nEND\\n00:49:40\\n[Recording continues on mike_gnarowski_i006-11-122.mp3].\\n\",\"notes\":\"Henry Beissel reads largely from New Wings for Icarus (Coach House Press, 1966).\\n\\n00:00 - Unknown speaker introduces Louis Dudek [INDEX: McGill University, Louis Dudek]\\n00:40 - Louis Dudek introduces Henry Beissel [INDEX: A.J.M. Smith from Michigan State as Canadian Anthropologist of poetry, Mike Gnarowski, poetic organization and conventions, new schools of poetry, ‘chaotic monologue’, English metrics and rhyme, University of Alberta, Edge Magazine, New Wings for Icarus]\\n05:30 - Henry Beissel speaks [INDEX: West Indies]\\n06:39 - Henry Beissel introduces “Pans at Carnival” [INDEX: imagery of a steel drum, Trinidad]\\n07:28 - Reads “Pans at Carnival”\\n10:18 - Introduces “Where the Sun Only” [INDEX: imagery of the sun]\\n10:34 - Reads “Where the Sun Only”\\n12:49 - Introduces “New Wings for Icarus”, part 2 [INDEX: Icarus]\\n13:51 - Re-starts poem\\n19:41 - Reads “New Wings for Icarus”, part 4\\n26:39 - Introduces “En la Casa de Inquisition” [INDEX: occasional poetry, Cartagena, Columbia]\\n27:40 - Reads “En la Casa de Inquisition”\\n29:23 - Introduces “To my Daughter at Age 1 1/2” [INDEX: poem for his daughter]\\n30:07 - Reads “To my Daughter at Age 1 1/2”\\n33:25 - Introduces “Prologue” and “Adam Enter Eve” from “The Dancer from the Dance” [INDEX: Yeats]\\n34:45 - Reads “Prologue”\\n37:04 - Reads “Adam Enter Eve”\\n49:40 - END OF RECORDING.\\n\\nHoward Fink List of Poems:\\n“Henry Beissel”\\nJanuary 13, 1967\\nwith reel information\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/henry-beissel-reads-with-introduction-by-louis-dudek-michael-gnarowski-in-same-reading/\"}]"],"score":5.6714616},{"id":"1259","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":["Margaret Avison at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 27 January 1967"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"Marg. Avison (2 tracks 3 3/4\"/sec ) I086-11-002\" written on sticker on the reel and on the tape's box. Marg. Avison refers to Margaret Avison. \"RT 518\" also written."],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 1"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Avison, Margaret"],"creator_names_search":["Avison, Margaret"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\" http://viaf.org/viaf/79128508\",\"name\":\"Avison, Margaret\",\"dates\":\"1918-2007\",\"notes\":\"Poet Margaret Avison was born in Galt, Ontario in 1918. She was educated at the University of Toronto and received her Bachelor’s degree in 1940. During the early forties, she contributed her poetry to Sid Corman’s Origin, with the likes of Charles Olson, Denise Levertov and Robert Creeley. While she is often associated with this group of poets, her content differs from theirs. Avison worked as an English literature lecturer, a secretary, a librarian, a researcher and as a social worker at a mission in downtown Toronto. Her first collection of poems was published in 1960, titled Winter Sun (University of Toronto Press), followed by The Dumbfounding (Noron, 1966). Avison’s poetry was also anthologized in Eli Mandel and Jean-Guy Pilon’s Poetry 62 (Ryerson, 1961). In 1963, she returned to the University of Toronto to write her thesis on Don Juan and to pursue graduate work. Avison taught and lectured English at Scarborough College and at the University of Toronto, as well as working at the Presbyterian Church Mission in Toronto. In 1970, she collaborated with bp Nichol and published The Cosmic Chef Glee & Perloo Memorial Society under the direction of Captain Poetry presents...: [an evening of concrete, courtesy of Oberon Cement Works] (Oberon Press). Avison, staying on the periphery of the poetry scene, attended and participated in several readings, and supported other writers in their pursuits. She translated poems from Hungarian, which appear in The Plough and the Pen: Writings from Hungary, 1930-1956 (London, P. Owen, 1963). Sunblue was published in 1978 by Lancelot Press, and a collected edition of Winter Sun/The Dumbfounding: Poems 1940-1966 (McClelland & Stewart, 1982) and No time (Lancelot Press, 1989). Her Selected Poems was published in 1991 by Oxford University Press, followed by A kind of perseverance (Lancelot Press, 1994) and Not yet but still (Lancelot Press, 1997). Avison has produced a number of books, Always Now: The collected poems (Porcupine’s Quill) came as a three volume series published between 2003 and 2005. Momentary dark (McClelland & Stewart, 2006), Listening: the last poems (McClelland & Stewart, 2009) and I am here and not not-there: an autobiography (Porcupine’s Quill, 2009) have both recently been released. Margaret Avison died in Toronto in August of 2007.\\n\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Performer\",\"Author\"]}]"],"contributors_names":["Kiyooka, Roy"],"contributors_names_search":["Kiyooka, Roy"],"contributors":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/30784426\",\"name\":\"Kiyooka, Roy\",\"dates\":\"1926-1994\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Series organizer\",\"Presenter\"]}]"],"Presenter_name":["Kiyooka, Roy"],"Series_organizer_name":["Kiyooka, Roy"],"Performance_Date":[1967],"material_description":["[{\"side\":\"\",\"image\":\"\",\"other\":\"\",\"extent\":\"1/4 inch\",\"AV_types\":\"Audio\",\"tape_brand\":\"BASF\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"3 3/4 ips\",\"sound_quality\":\"Excellent\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"01:20:00\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"track_configuration\":\"2 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\":\"1967 1 27\",\"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 Basement Theatre\",\"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 Basement Theatre"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"contents":["margaret_avison_i086-11-002.mp3\n\nRoy Kiyooka\n00:00:00\nIn view of the embarrassment of having made such a mess of introducing the last poet, I spent a considerable amount of time setting out what I should say this evening, so hopefully I'll be a little more successful. Well, this is our seventh poetry evening and we welcome you all here this cold and blustery evening. Now, this evening we're having Margaret Avison [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6759152] read poems, and I wanted to say a few things about her. I first listened to Margaret read her poems at the poetry conference, University of British Columbia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q391028], during the summer of 1963. Her reading, together with those of the other poets on hand, are among the most memorable occasions I've had in my love affair with poems and poets. Four years later, in early January, we spent an afternoon together. Now I don't want to attribute, what I felt with a thought, on Bloor Street, to our conversation, but the warmth of it was very real. Margaret Avison was born in Guelph [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q504114], Ontario [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1904]; some early years were spent in Alberta [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1951]; she graduated from Victoria College [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3551503], the University of Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q180865], in 1940, with a BA in English Language and Literature. She has been a secretary of all sorts for various firms, individuals, and organizations, and has also been a research assistant and librarian and presently teaches English at Scarborough College, Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172]. 1956-57 she was a Guggenheim Fellow [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P6594] in poetry, and during the forties her work appeared in various Canadian magazines, and in the fifties, mainly in American ones. She has published two books of poems; The Winter Sun in 1960 won the Governor General's Award [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q283256], and in 1966, W.W. Norton [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1282208] in New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60] issued The Dumbfounding [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q42189162], her latest book. Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure in introducing to you Margaret Avison.\n \nUnknown\n00:02:59\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \n \nMargaret Avison\n00:02:59\nI don't know about the reading but I do know about the pleasure of meeting Roy [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3445789] again here, and being introduced by him. If this were Monday, or up to a week from tonight, I would be able to join the Angry Art Week. I don't know if anybody else has received these letters, but in New York City initially they're trying this and anybody who gets a letter from them is asked to dedicate any reading or event to what they're trying to do. You can still send them money, too, I'll give you the address if you want it later. What they're going to do is play harps in railroad stations and have...lets see, Bach [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1339] cantatas in railroad stations, play-ins in various museums and the lobbies of concert halls, recital halls, business buildings--I like that one--dramatic presentations in laundromats and supermarkets, [audience laughter], a paint-in, and fences and billboards throughout Manhattan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11299] with their work showing and so on. This is a series. \"What we're trying to do is through art to reach the American people as human beings.\" So...[audience laughter]. If this were Monday I'd dedicate the reading [audience laughter and applause]...This is all very orderly, although it doesn't look it, and it starts with other people's poems of various kinds. A little section of C. Bukowski [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q76409], somebody said that's Charles, an American poet. It's a great long thing that was in a mimeograph magazine, and the description is of a woman with a bicycle and a baby carriage, high-heeled shoes, white socks, and all her belongings, on a hot day in the middle of a road in a city. \n \nMargaret Avison\n00:05:28\nReads unnamed poem by Charles Bukowski.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:06:30.\nThat's sad, so on the same page I copied one of Al Fowler's, which was in a magazine called Lines, which is the all-time happiest little poem, and I don't know why. I'm going to stop where the lines stop, not where the sense stops, so you can see the shape of it.  There's no capital letters. There's no title.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:07:01\nReads “Are you a root or a tendermint” by Al Fowler [published in Lines 6].\n\nAudience \n00:07:20\nLaughter.\n\nMargaret Avison\n00:07:30\nThis is one by Gerry Gilbert [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5552756], called \"Zoo\".\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:07:39\nReads \"Zoo\" by Gerry Gilbert.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:08:00\nI may bring in some more of other people's, but this is just a little, it's a friend of mine in Toronto who's made it to grade seven this year. He calls it \"The Delinquent\", and he has, in this copy he has said that it's his copyright so if you betray the fact that I read some of it, I'll be in trouble with him.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:08:33\nReads \"The Delinquent\" by an unnamed author [audience laughter throughout].\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:10:20\nIt goes on, a bit, I want to go back to where it gets sad, though. I love \"She twisted her pinkies behind her but all the knots held more\".\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:10:30\nResumes reading \"The Delinquent\" [audience laughter throughout].\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:11:33\nThere's an awful line in the next verse. [Audience laughter].\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:11:41\nResumes reading \"The Delinquent\" [audience laughter throughout].\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:12:43\nIt ends up with knotting a burning matchstick into her old man's hair. [Audience laughter]. I think as he goes on he'll be somebody. If I'm not reading mine I'll warn of you. Some of these...the first one is a Toronto poem with footnotes, saying that TTC [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17978] means Toronto Transit Commission, and the Ditch is an open cut on the Yonge subway between Bloor and Rosedale. \n \nMargaret Avison\n00:13:38\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:14:37\nThe second subway poem...a little child, it's called \"Subway Station Why Not.\"\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:14:53\nReads \"Subway Station Why Not\".\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:15:56\nThis next one is St. Clair Avenue, where I live on the car tracks. It's called \"Insomniac Report\".\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:16:11\nReads \"Insomniac Report\".\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:17:07\nFeels as if I should be doing something different, but I don't know what. I did a poem to people writing examinations I'm hunting for, but I think I've forgotten it. There's three about this odd experience of teaching and students. This one was written before I had had the experience, but was looking forward to it. And it had the title \"Is That You/Me Standing on My/Your Feet?\" And it's very full of fine theory and idealism.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:18:18\nReads \"Is That You/Me Standing on My/Your Feet?\".\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:19:21\nAnd I've got two other incomplete ones that should be read with that. I'll just read two stanzas of the first one, it's got one four-line stanza for the students...\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:19:36\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:20:36\nThe teacher's answer hasn't got written yet. Here's another bit, two stanzas, the student and the teacher, that isn't finished. The student is talking although it doesn't sound like it. \n \nMargaret Avison\n00:21:01\nReads unnamed poem.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:21:51\nThere's a daybreak bus I have to catch and this one is called \"October 21, '66, at a bus stop on the way\".\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:22:03\nReads \"October 21, '66, at a bus stop on the way\".\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:23:07\nI had planned to get all this organized on the plane, but I was in the middle of the three seats and I kept getting the briefcase out and everything would fall to the floor, and this one would dive for it, or this one, and I finally gave up, so it's upside down. This is dedicated to Jacques Ellul [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q322922], The Technological Society [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1607727], a book he wrote that's a little mad but very stirring.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:23:56\nReads [“Making Senses”, published later in No Time]. \n \nMargaret Avison\n00:26:39\nThere's one here that is just the equivalent to sketching, I guess. I know a poet in Chicago [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1297] who used to go and sit around in the Art Institute [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q239303], when it was a fairly quiet room, and stare all morning, and if any words occurred to him, he dashed them down. And sometime he worked up his sketches and sometime he didn't, which is a technique that's lots of fun to practice, and occasionally something grows out of it. In this case I don't think I'll ever do anything but it'll show you the kind of thing that I mean, if, as I assume, most of you are writers.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:27:38\nReads unnamed poem. \n \nMargaret Avison\n00:28:25\nNow a poem with syntax and stuff called \"The Seven Birds\". A corner of Bathurst and College Street in Toronto which is the kind of buildings that have been there since the first world war, where there's often stores on the street level and an apartment or two above. \n \nMargaret Avison\n00:29:01\nReads \"The Seven Birds\" [published later in sunblue].\n\nMargaret Avison\n00:30:15\nI think I should read a long, fierce poem. This is not by me except translated. It's the poem of Gyula Illyes [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q381107], called \"Of Tyranny, In One Breath\". Ilona Duczynska [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q967353] did a literal translation for me and then read it to me for sound and we worked through it that way.  Apparently the poem started, or happened, in 1956 in Budapest [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1781]. Illyes had written it some years before but hadn't been angry enough at the time to risk what it was to bring it out. But he grew angry enough and somebody said the one thing that nobody censors is the magazine which tells you what lectures are going on where and what movies are running where and is just a news sheet, and the middle spread was for advertising, so they printed this in the middle sheet and it was, they tried to stop it as soon as the authorities found it but by then they were storming the radio station or however it started. I can't do it in one breath because it goes on for several pages. In the first part of it, \"it,\" meaning \"tyranny\" is small \"i\" and towards the end it's a capital \"I.\"\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:32:27\nReads English translation of \"Of Tyranny, In One Breath\" by Gyula Illyes [published later in Always Now, Vol. 1].\n\nMargaret Avison\n00:39:26\nSo, after the revolution he was much too well-known to disappear but they said he was insane and he was in an asylum for a while, but he wrote a lot of lovely things there, so I don't think he was, and he's not there now. It's much better, I think. A group of silly things it's embarrassing to read but I will, called \"Bestialities\".\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:40:19\nReads \"Bestialities\", parts 1-5 [from The Dumbfounding; audience laughter throughout].\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:41:14\nThe last one I think is just beautiful, but nobody gets it unless I explain, so I'll explain, it's like you take a piece of 8 by 11 typing paper...\n \nAudience Member 1\n00:41:26\nDon't explain, just say it.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:41:28\nAlright, you can tell me then, eh? \n \nMargaret Avison\n00:41:33\nReads \"Bestialities\", part 6 [from The Dumbfounding].\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:41:40\nNow, come on...[Audience laughter]. Hmm? Does anybody want the explanation? Well I've read it. It's just a crumpled-up letter, you know, you get it and you read it and you cry and you crumble it up and you throw it down and the mite goes up...Now I'll read it again.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:42:17\nReads \"Bestialities\", part 6 [from The Dumbfounding].\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:42:35\n“The Absorbed\". This is one of the very cold days, I guess about ten below, enough. It's inside the pane of glass separating inside from outside comes into it, a certain kind of sky that goes with that which is like glass again. \n \nMargaret Avison\n00:43:09\nReads \"The Absorbed\" [from The Dumbfounding].\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:45:50\nReads [\"Thaw\" from Winter Sun].\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:47:37\nI would like to read two other weather ones and then I'll give you a break. This is “Two Mayday Selves”.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:47:54\nReads \"Two Mayday Selves\" [from The Dumbfounding].\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:49:42\nAnd the last one is late spring, early summer. Jet-plane and terminuses, called \"Black-White Under Green, May 18th 1965”.\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:50:06\nReads \"Black-White Under Green, May 18th 1965” [published as “May 18 1965” in The Dumbfounding].\n\nUnknown\n00:52:53\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n\nMargaret Avison\n00:52:54\nI've been asked to read \"The Valiant Vacationist\". It was written so many years ago...I think I would be quite right in saying thirty years ago, and probably a little more. And I couldn't write this well now but in a way when you're very young you've got the whole world in one lump without any lump, and you only get bits later on. \n \nMargaret Avison\n00:53:34\nReads \"The Valiant Vacationist\" [published later in Always Now: Vol. 1].\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:56:54\nThen the one \"To Professor X, Year Y\".\n \nMargaret Avison\n00:57:03\nReads \"To Professor X, Year Y\" [from Winter Sun].\n\nMargaret Avison\n00:59:57\nI'd like to read one introductory poem to the long one, \"The Earth that Falls Away\", and that one, and two short ones, if you'll bear with me that long. This is called \"The Absolute, the Day\".\n \nMargaret Avison\n01:00:22\nReads \"The Absolute, the Day\" [published later as “Absolute” in sunblue and in Always Now Vol. 2].\n\nMargaret Avison\n01:01:39\nThis one is \"The Earth that Falls Away\". There's an epigraph from Beddoes’ [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2165597] Death's Jest-Book [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q42188673]: \"Can a man die? Aye, as the sun doth set, it is the earth that falls away from light\". There are a number of human situations, some into the past, through the present generation, the rest various city people, myself, and the stories come interleaving so that as I name a new section it'll be a new group of people, and by request I'm going to  stop at the line-ends here. \n \nMargaret Avison\n01:02:32\nReads \"The Earth that Falls Away\" [from The Dumbfounding].\n \nMargaret Avison\n01:15:52\nReads [\"He Couldn’t Be Safe (Isaiah 53:5)”, published later in sunblue].\n \nMargaret Avison\n01:16:54\nThere's one more and I'll stop with this one. \n \nMargaret Avison\n01:17:00\nReads [section from “The Jo Poems”, part 6. Published later in No Time. Subtitled “Having” in Always Now: Vol. 2].\n \nEND\n01:17:54\n[Cut off abruptly].\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:\\n\\nIn 1967, Margaret Avison was teaching English at Scarborough College. The Dumbfounding had been published the previous year.\\n\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nMargaret Avison met Roy Kiyooka, who was teaching at Sir George Williams University at a reading in 1963 at the University of British Columbia.\\n\",\"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/encyclopedia-of-post-colonial-literatures-in-english-vol-1/oclc/32566813&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Anderson, Mia. “Avison, Margaret (1918-)”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. Benson, Eugene; Connoly, L.W. (eds). London: Routledge, 1994. 2 vols.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/always-now-the-collected-poems-vol-1/oclc/834732786&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Avison, Margaret. Always Now: The Collected Poems, Vols 1-3. Erin, Ontario: The Porcupine’s Quill, 2003. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/dumbfounding-poems/oclc/635930&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Avison, Margaret. The Dumbfounding. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1966. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/no-time/oclc/751204318&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Avison, Margaret. No Time. Hantsport: Lancelot Press; London: Brick Books, 1989. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/sunblue/oclc/867940471&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Avison, Margaret. sunblue. Hantsport: Lancelot Press; London: Brick Books, 1978.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/winter-sun/oclc/320960000&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Avison, Margaret. Winter Sun. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1960. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/margaret-avison-at-sgwu-1967/#reading1-1\",\"citation\":\"“Avison: Next Poet to Read”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 27 January 1967. \"},{\"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. From There to Here: A Guide to English-Canadian Literature Since 1960. Erin, Ontario: Press Porcepic, 1974. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/15-canadian-poets-times-2/oclc/622296707&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Geddes, Gary (ed). Fifteen Canadian Poets Times Two. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990. \"},{\"url\":\"http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=O5UtAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4p8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=3951,6182119&dq=sir+george+williams+poetry&hl=en\",\"citation\":\"“Poetry Series Coming Up At University”. The Gazette. Saturday, December 31, 1966: page 39.\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/margaret-avison/oclc/556890573&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Redekop, Ernest. Margaret Avison: Studies in Canadian Literature. Toronto: The Copp Clark Publishing Company, 1970. \\n\"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/margaret-avison-at-sgwu-1967/#reading1-1\",\"citation\":\"Simco, Bob. “Georgiantics”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 27 January 1967. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/margaret-avison-at-sgwu-1967/#reading1-1\",\"citation\":\"Thoms, Kathleen. “Margaret Avison’s Poetry”. OP-ED. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 3 February 1967. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670548673921024,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.264Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0086_11_0002_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"My Drive>Sir George Williams TIme-Stamped Transcripts>Spokenweb Tape Case Photos taken by Drew Bernet\",\"filename\":\"I0086_11_0002_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Margaret Avison 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/I0086_11_0002_side.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"My Drive>Sir George Williams TIme-Stamped Transcripts>Spokenweb Tape Case Photos taken by Drew Bernet\",\"filename\":\"I0086_11_0002_side.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Margaret Avison 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/I0086_11_0002_back.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"My Drive>Sir George Williams TIme-Stamped Transcripts>Spokenweb Tape Case Photos taken by Drew Bernet\",\"filename\":\"I0086_11_0002_back.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Margaret Avison 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_0002_tape.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"My Drive>Sir George Williams TIme-Stamped Transcripts>Spokenweb Tape Case Photos taken by Drew Bernet\",\"filename\":\"I0086_11_0002_tape.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Margaret Avison 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/margaret_avison_i086-11-002.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"margaret_avison_i086-11-002.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"01:17:54\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"187 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"Roy Kiyooka\\n00:00:00\\nIn view of the embarrassment of having made such a mess of introducing the last poet, I spent a considerable amount of time setting out what I should say this evening, so hopefully I'll be a little more successful. Well, this is our seventh poetry evening and we welcome you all here this cold and blustery evening. Now, this evening we're having Margaret Avison [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6759152] read poems, and I wanted to say a few things about her. I first listened to Margaret read her poems at the poetry conference, University of British Columbia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q391028], during the summer of 1963. Her reading, together with those of the other poets on hand, are among the most memorable occasions I've had in my love affair with poems and poets. Four years later, in early January, we spent an afternoon together. Now I don't want to attribute, what I felt with a thought, on Bloor Street, to our conversation, but the warmth of it was very real. Margaret Avison was born in Guelph [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q504114], Ontario [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1904]; some early years were spent in Alberta [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1951]; she graduated from Victoria College [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3551503], the University of Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q180865], in 1940, with a BA in English Language and Literature. She has been a secretary of all sorts for various firms, individuals, and organizations, and has also been a research assistant and librarian and presently teaches English at Scarborough College, Toronto [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172]. 1956-57 she was a Guggenheim Fellow [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P6594] in poetry, and during the forties her work appeared in various Canadian magazines, and in the fifties, mainly in American ones. She has published two books of poems; The Winter Sun in 1960 won the Governor General's Award [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q283256], and in 1966, W.W. Norton [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1282208] in New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60] issued The Dumbfounding [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q42189162], her latest book. Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure in introducing to you Margaret Avison.\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:02:59\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. \\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:02:59\\nI don't know about the reading but I do know about the pleasure of meeting Roy [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3445789] again here, and being introduced by him. If this were Monday, or up to a week from tonight, I would be able to join the Angry Art Week. I don't know if anybody else has received these letters, but in New York City initially they're trying this and anybody who gets a letter from them is asked to dedicate any reading or event to what they're trying to do. You can still send them money, too, I'll give you the address if you want it later. What they're going to do is play harps in railroad stations and have...lets see, Bach [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1339] cantatas in railroad stations, play-ins in various museums and the lobbies of concert halls, recital halls, business buildings--I like that one--dramatic presentations in laundromats and supermarkets, [audience laughter], a paint-in, and fences and billboards throughout Manhattan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11299] with their work showing and so on. This is a series. \\\"What we're trying to do is through art to reach the American people as human beings.\\\" So...[audience laughter]. If this were Monday I'd dedicate the reading [audience laughter and applause]...This is all very orderly, although it doesn't look it, and it starts with other people's poems of various kinds. A little section of C. Bukowski [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q76409], somebody said that's Charles, an American poet. It's a great long thing that was in a mimeograph magazine, and the description is of a woman with a bicycle and a baby carriage, high-heeled shoes, white socks, and all her belongings, on a hot day in the middle of a road in a city. \\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:05:28\\nReads unnamed poem by Charles Bukowski.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:06:30.\\nThat's sad, so on the same page I copied one of Al Fowler's, which was in a magazine called Lines, which is the all-time happiest little poem, and I don't know why. I'm going to stop where the lines stop, not where the sense stops, so you can see the shape of it.  There's no capital letters. There's no title.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:07:01\\nReads “Are you a root or a tendermint” by Al Fowler [published in Lines 6].\\n\\nAudience \\n00:07:20\\nLaughter.\\n\\nMargaret Avison\\n00:07:30\\nThis is one by Gerry Gilbert [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5552756], called \\\"Zoo\\\".\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:07:39\\nReads \\\"Zoo\\\" by Gerry Gilbert.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:08:00\\nI may bring in some more of other people's, but this is just a little, it's a friend of mine in Toronto who's made it to grade seven this year. He calls it \\\"The Delinquent\\\", and he has, in this copy he has said that it's his copyright so if you betray the fact that I read some of it, I'll be in trouble with him.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:08:33\\nReads \\\"The Delinquent\\\" by an unnamed author [audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:10:20\\nIt goes on, a bit, I want to go back to where it gets sad, though. I love \\\"She twisted her pinkies behind her but all the knots held more\\\".\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:10:30\\nResumes reading \\\"The Delinquent\\\" [audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:11:33\\nThere's an awful line in the next verse. [Audience laughter].\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:11:41\\nResumes reading \\\"The Delinquent\\\" [audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:12:43\\nIt ends up with knotting a burning matchstick into her old man's hair. [Audience laughter]. I think as he goes on he'll be somebody. If I'm not reading mine I'll warn of you. Some of these...the first one is a Toronto poem with footnotes, saying that TTC [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17978] means Toronto Transit Commission, and the Ditch is an open cut on the Yonge subway between Bloor and Rosedale. \\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:13:38\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:14:37\\nThe second subway poem...a little child, it's called \\\"Subway Station Why Not.\\\"\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:14:53\\nReads \\\"Subway Station Why Not\\\".\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:15:56\\nThis next one is St. Clair Avenue, where I live on the car tracks. It's called \\\"Insomniac Report\\\".\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:16:11\\nReads \\\"Insomniac Report\\\".\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:17:07\\nFeels as if I should be doing something different, but I don't know what. I did a poem to people writing examinations I'm hunting for, but I think I've forgotten it. There's three about this odd experience of teaching and students. This one was written before I had had the experience, but was looking forward to it. And it had the title \\\"Is That You/Me Standing on My/Your Feet?\\\" And it's very full of fine theory and idealism.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:18:18\\nReads \\\"Is That You/Me Standing on My/Your Feet?\\\".\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:19:21\\nAnd I've got two other incomplete ones that should be read with that. I'll just read two stanzas of the first one, it's got one four-line stanza for the students...\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:19:36\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:20:36\\nThe teacher's answer hasn't got written yet. Here's another bit, two stanzas, the student and the teacher, that isn't finished. The student is talking although it doesn't sound like it. \\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:21:01\\nReads unnamed poem.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:21:51\\nThere's a daybreak bus I have to catch and this one is called \\\"October 21, '66, at a bus stop on the way\\\".\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:22:03\\nReads \\\"October 21, '66, at a bus stop on the way\\\".\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:23:07\\nI had planned to get all this organized on the plane, but I was in the middle of the three seats and I kept getting the briefcase out and everything would fall to the floor, and this one would dive for it, or this one, and I finally gave up, so it's upside down. This is dedicated to Jacques Ellul [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q322922], The Technological Society [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1607727], a book he wrote that's a little mad but very stirring.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:23:56\\nReads [“Making Senses”, published later in No Time]. \\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:26:39\\nThere's one here that is just the equivalent to sketching, I guess. I know a poet in Chicago [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1297] who used to go and sit around in the Art Institute [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q239303], when it was a fairly quiet room, and stare all morning, and if any words occurred to him, he dashed them down. And sometime he worked up his sketches and sometime he didn't, which is a technique that's lots of fun to practice, and occasionally something grows out of it. In this case I don't think I'll ever do anything but it'll show you the kind of thing that I mean, if, as I assume, most of you are writers.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:27:38\\nReads unnamed poem. \\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:28:25\\nNow a poem with syntax and stuff called \\\"The Seven Birds\\\". A corner of Bathurst and College Street in Toronto which is the kind of buildings that have been there since the first world war, where there's often stores on the street level and an apartment or two above. \\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:29:01\\nReads \\\"The Seven Birds\\\" [published later in sunblue].\\n\\nMargaret Avison\\n00:30:15\\nI think I should read a long, fierce poem. This is not by me except translated. It's the poem of Gyula Illyes [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q381107], called \\\"Of Tyranny, In One Breath\\\". Ilona Duczynska [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q967353] did a literal translation for me and then read it to me for sound and we worked through it that way.  Apparently the poem started, or happened, in 1956 in Budapest [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1781]. Illyes had written it some years before but hadn't been angry enough at the time to risk what it was to bring it out. But he grew angry enough and somebody said the one thing that nobody censors is the magazine which tells you what lectures are going on where and what movies are running where and is just a news sheet, and the middle spread was for advertising, so they printed this in the middle sheet and it was, they tried to stop it as soon as the authorities found it but by then they were storming the radio station or however it started. I can't do it in one breath because it goes on for several pages. In the first part of it, \\\"it,\\\" meaning \\\"tyranny\\\" is small \\\"i\\\" and towards the end it's a capital \\\"I.\\\"\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:32:27\\nReads English translation of \\\"Of Tyranny, In One Breath\\\" by Gyula Illyes [published later in Always Now, Vol. 1].\\n\\nMargaret Avison\\n00:39:26\\nSo, after the revolution he was much too well-known to disappear but they said he was insane and he was in an asylum for a while, but he wrote a lot of lovely things there, so I don't think he was, and he's not there now. It's much better, I think. A group of silly things it's embarrassing to read but I will, called \\\"Bestialities\\\".\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:40:19\\nReads \\\"Bestialities\\\", parts 1-5 [from The Dumbfounding; audience laughter throughout].\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:41:14\\nThe last one I think is just beautiful, but nobody gets it unless I explain, so I'll explain, it's like you take a piece of 8 by 11 typing paper...\\n \\nAudience Member 1\\n00:41:26\\nDon't explain, just say it.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:41:28\\nAlright, you can tell me then, eh? \\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:41:33\\nReads \\\"Bestialities\\\", part 6 [from The Dumbfounding].\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:41:40\\nNow, come on...[Audience laughter]. Hmm? Does anybody want the explanation? Well I've read it. It's just a crumpled-up letter, you know, you get it and you read it and you cry and you crumble it up and you throw it down and the mite goes up...Now I'll read it again.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:42:17\\nReads \\\"Bestialities\\\", part 6 [from The Dumbfounding].\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:42:35\\n“The Absorbed\\\". This is one of the very cold days, I guess about ten below, enough. It's inside the pane of glass separating inside from outside comes into it, a certain kind of sky that goes with that which is like glass again. \\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:43:09\\nReads \\\"The Absorbed\\\" [from The Dumbfounding].\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:45:50\\nReads [\\\"Thaw\\\" from Winter Sun].\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:47:37\\nI would like to read two other weather ones and then I'll give you a break. This is “Two Mayday Selves”.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:47:54\\nReads \\\"Two Mayday Selves\\\" [from The Dumbfounding].\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:49:42\\nAnd the last one is late spring, early summer. Jet-plane and terminuses, called \\\"Black-White Under Green, May 18th 1965”.\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:50:06\\nReads \\\"Black-White Under Green, May 18th 1965” [published as “May 18 1965” in The Dumbfounding].\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:52:53\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n\\nMargaret Avison\\n00:52:54\\nI've been asked to read \\\"The Valiant Vacationist\\\". It was written so many years ago...I think I would be quite right in saying thirty years ago, and probably a little more. And I couldn't write this well now but in a way when you're very young you've got the whole world in one lump without any lump, and you only get bits later on. \\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:53:34\\nReads \\\"The Valiant Vacationist\\\" [published later in Always Now: Vol. 1].\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:56:54\\nThen the one \\\"To Professor X, Year Y\\\".\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n00:57:03\\nReads \\\"To Professor X, Year Y\\\" [from Winter Sun].\\n\\nMargaret Avison\\n00:59:57\\nI'd like to read one introductory poem to the long one, \\\"The Earth that Falls Away\\\", and that one, and two short ones, if you'll bear with me that long. This is called \\\"The Absolute, the Day\\\".\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n01:00:22\\nReads \\\"The Absolute, the Day\\\" [published later as “Absolute” in sunblue and in Always Now Vol. 2].\\n\\nMargaret Avison\\n01:01:39\\nThis one is \\\"The Earth that Falls Away\\\". There's an epigraph from Beddoes’ [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2165597] Death's Jest-Book [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q42188673]: \\\"Can a man die? Aye, as the sun doth set, it is the earth that falls away from light\\\". There are a number of human situations, some into the past, through the present generation, the rest various city people, myself, and the stories come interleaving so that as I name a new section it'll be a new group of people, and by request I'm going to  stop at the line-ends here. \\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n01:02:32\\nReads \\\"The Earth that Falls Away\\\" [from The Dumbfounding].\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n01:15:52\\nReads [\\\"He Couldn’t Be Safe (Isaiah 53:5)”, published later in sunblue].\\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n01:16:54\\nThere's one more and I'll stop with this one. \\n \\nMargaret Avison\\n01:17:00\\nReads [section from “The Jo Poems”, part 6. Published later in No Time. Subtitled “Having” in Always Now: Vol. 2].\\n \\nEND\\n01:17:54\\n[Cut off abruptly].\\n\",\"notes\":\"Margaret Avison reads from Winter Sun (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960) and The Dumbfounding (W.W. Norton & Co, 1966), as well as a few poems published years later in books like sunblue (Lancelot Press, 1978) and No Time (Lancelot Press and Brick Books, 1998). The majority of the poems read were also collected in three volumes, entitled Always Now (The Porcupine’s Quill, 2003).\\n\\nI086-11-002.1=AC\\n\\n(Rachel has indexed poems)\\n00:00- Roy Kiyooka introduces Margaret Avison. [INDEX: seventh poetry evening, poetry conference at UBC summer of 1963; Bloor Street, Guelph Ontario, Alberta, Victoria College of the University of Toronto in 1940 with BA from English Language and Literature, secretary at firms, research assistant, librarian, teaching English at    \\tScarborough College (Toronto), Guggenheim Fellow 1956-7, Canadian and American    \\tmagazines; books: The Winter Sun won Governor General’s Award in 1960, The    Dumbfounding (W.W. Norton in New York, 1966).]\\n02:59- Avison introduces poem by Charles Bukowski, first line “She had gone wrong somewhere...” [INDEX: Roy Kiyooka (meeting), Angry Art Week in NYC, dedicate    \\treadings to Angry Art Week, Bach, Manhattan, American people, American poet,        \\tMimeograph Magazine.]\\n05:28- Reads section from a poem by Charles Bukowski “She had gone wrong somewhere...”\\n06:30- Introduces poem by Al Fowler first line “Quote: Are you a root or a tender mint     tea?”. [INDEX: magazine Line, line stops, shape of poem, no capital letters, no title.]\\n07:01- Reads poem by Al Fowler, first line “Quote: Are you a root or a tender mint tea?”.\\n07:30- Introduces poem by Gerry Gilbert called “Zoo”.\\n07:39- Reads poem by Gerry Gilbert, called  “Zoo”.\\n08:00- Introduces poem called “The Delinquent”  by unknown child. [INDEX: friend in Toronto, in grade seven.]\\n08:33- Reads “The Delinquent”.\\n10:20- Interjects comment about poem.\\n10:30- Continues reading “The Delinquent”.\\n11:33- Interjects comment about poem.\\n11:41- Continues reading “The Delinquent”.\\n12:43- Explains “The Delinquent”, Introduces poem, first line “Inside the TTC’s fence...”.  [INDEX: Toronto poem, footnotes, TTC means Toronto Transit Commission, Yonge       \\tSubway between Bloor and Rosedale.]\\n13:38- Reads first line “Inside the TTC’s fence...”. [INDEX: cities, Toronto, transportation, subway; from an unknown source.]\\n14:37- Introduces “Subway Station Why Not”. [INDEX: subway poem, child, from unknown source]\\n14:53- Reads “Subway Station Why Not”. [INDEX: cities, Toronto,  transportation, subway, child; from an unknown source.]\\n15:56- Introduces “Insomniac Report”. [INDEX: St. Clair Avenue (Toronto), car tracks.]\\n16:11- Reads “Insomniac Report”. [INDEX: cities, Toronto, night, streets, sounds, sleep; from an unknown source.]\\n17:07- Introduces “Is that You/Me Standing on My/Your Feet?”. [INDEX: students writing exams, teaching, theory, idealism; from an unknown source.]\\n18:18- Reads “Is that You/Me Standing on My/Your Feet?”. [INDEX: school, teaching, work, children, student.]\\n19:21- Introduces incomplete poems, first line “No instant morality for us...”. [INDEX:        incomplete poem, two stanzas of first, one four-line stanza for the students; from an      unknown source.]\\n19:36- Reads first line “No instant morality for us...”. [INDEX: school, teaching, work,        children, students.]\\n20:36- Introduces incomplete poem, first line “The boy with the brilliant promises...”. [INDEX: teacher’s answer, two stanzas, incomplete poem; from an unknown source.]\\n21:01- Reads first line “The boy with the brilliant promises...”. [INDEX: work, school,        teaching, children, students.]\\n21:51- Introduces \\\"October 21, '66, at a bus stop on the way.\\\". [INDEX: daybreak bus; from an unknown source]\\n22:03- Reads \\\"October 21, '66, at a bus stop on the way.\\\". [INDEX: nature, time, day.]\\n23:07- Introduces unknown poem first line “A junk truck stopped beside my bus...”. [INDEX: plane, dedicated to Jacques Ellul who wrote The Technological Society; from an unknown source.]\\n23:55- Reads first line “A junk truck stopped beside my bus...”. [INDEX: cities, bus, truck, metal, urban, waste, stone, wreck, yard, grass, gargoyle.]\\n26:39- Introduces first line, “Grey by water...”. [INDEX: sketching, poet in Chicago, Art       Institute; from an unknown source.]\\n27:38- Reads first line “Grey by water...”. [INDEX: language, play, process, sketch.]\\n28:25- Introduces “The Seven Birds”. [INDEX: poem with syntax, corner of Bathurst and     College Street in Toronto, First World War building; from sunblue in “Sketches”.]\\n29:01- Reads “The Seven Birds”.\\n30:15- Introduces poem Avison translated, called “Of Tyranny in One Breath” by Gyula     Illyes. [INDEX: Ilona Duczynska, translation, 1956 in Budapest, censorship in magazines, newsheets, radio station, authorities, protest, tyranny; collected in Always  Now, Vol. 1 (Porcupine’s Quill, 2003).]\\n32:27- Reads “Of Tyranny in One Breath” by Gyula Illyes.\\n39:26- Explains “Of Tyranny in One Breath”, introduces “Bestialities”. [INDEX: revolution, Gyula Illyes, insane asylum; from The Dumbfounding.]\\n40:19- Reads “Bestialities”. [INDEX: play, animals, language, puns.]\\n41:14- Introduces first line “Said the mite on the single page of a sad letter: Eureka...”.      [INDEX: misunderstood poem, 8x11 typing paper.]\\n41:26- Audience member interjects, asks her to read it without explanation.\\n41:28- Avison reads first line “Said the mite on the single page of a sad letter: Eureka...”.\\n41:40- Explains “Said the mite on the single page of a sad letter: Eureka...”. [INDEX:        crumpled up letter, mite; from unknown source.]\\n42:17- Re-reads “Said the mite on the single page of a sad letter: Eureka...”.\\n42:35- Introduces “Be Absorbed”. [INDEX: cold day, glass pane, sky; from unknown source.]\\n43:09- Reads “Be Absorbed”. [INDEX: nature, weather, glass, window, cold, winter, ice.]\\n45:50- Reads “The Thaw”. [INDEX: city, children, weather, winter, spring, streets, dog, sparrow, pigeons, boy; published as “Thaw” in Winter Sun.]\\n47:37- Introduces poem, first line “The grackle shining in long grass...”. [INDEX weather   poem, May; Howard Fink list “To May Day”.]\\n47:54- Reads “The grackle shining in long grass...”. [INDEX: colours, birds, grackle, city,   streets, winter, day, breath; from unknown source.]\\n49:42- Introduces “Black-White Under Green”. [INDEX: late spring, early summer, Jet-plane terminuses, May 18th, 1965.]\\n50:06- Reads “Black-White Under Green”. [INDEX: nature, flowers, birds, plane, flight,     leaves, snow, sky, sea, music, ice; from The Dumbfounding.]\\n52:53.49- END OF RECORDING.\\n  \\nPoem (by stated title or first line):                                     \\nFIRST CD: I086-11-002.1=AC                         \\t\\t           Time            Duration\\n\\n[\\\"She had gone wrong...\\\"]by Charles Bukowski                        00:05:28      \\t01:01\\n[\\\"Quote: Are you a root or a tender mint tea?\\\"] by Al Fowler    00:07:01      \\t00:28\\n\\\"Zoo\\\" by Gerry Gilbert                                                       \\t00:07:39      \\t00:19\\n\\\"The Delinquent\\\" by an unknown, seven year-old friend  \\t00:08:33      \\t04:10\\n[\\\"Inside the TTC's fence...\\\"]                                               \\t00:13:38      \\t00:58\\n\\\"Subway Station Why Not\\\"                                    \\t        \\t00:14:53      \\t01:03  \\n\\\"Insomniac Report\\\"                                                            \\t00:16:11      \\t00:55\\n\\\"Is That You/Me Standing on My/Your Feet?\\\"                 \\t00:18:18      \\t01:02\\n[\\\"No instant morality for us...\\\"]                                          \\t00:19:36      \\t00:58\\n[\\\"The boy with the brilliant promises\\\"]                              \\t00:21:01      \\t00:50\\n\\\"October 21, '66, at a bus stop on the way\\\"                        \\t00:22:03      \\t01:02\\n [\\\"A junk truck stopped beside my bus\\\"]                           \\t00:23:56      \\t02:40\\n[\\\"Grey by water...\\\"]                                                            \\t00:27:38      \\t00:45\\n\\\"The Seven Birds\\\"                                                              \\t00:29:01      \\t01:13\\n\\\"Of Tyranny in One Breath\\\" by Gyula Illyes         \\t        \\t00:32:27      \\t04:58\\n\\\"Bestialities\\\"                                                           \\t        \\t00:40:19      \\t00:54\\n\\\"Said the mite on the single page of a sad letter: Eureka.\\\"      00:41:33      \\t00:57\\n\\\"Be Absorbed\\\"                                                                    \\t00:43:09      \\t02:40\\n\\\"The Thaw\\\"                                                                        \\t00:45:50      \\t01:40\\n\\\"The grackle shining in long grass\\\"                                   \\t00:47:54      \\t00:46\\n\\\"Black-White Under Green,\\\" May 18th, 1965                   \\t00:50:06      \\t02:47\\n\\nI086-11-002.2=AC \\n\\n00:00- Avison introduces “The Valiant Vacationist”. [INDEX: written more than thirty years before, writing when young; from Elsewhere.]\\n00:41- Reads “The Valiant Vacationist”. [INDEX: vacation, travel, walking, picnic, park, city, landing, steps, trees, bridge, tourist, stranger.]\\n04:00- Reads “To Professor X, Year Y”. [INDEX: November, waiting, uniformity, crowd,        downtown, history, historian, death, snow; from The Winter Sun.]\\n07:04- Introduces “The Absolute, the Day”. [INDEX: introductory poem to “The Earth that Falls Away”.] \\n07:28- Reads “The Absolute, the Day”. [INDEX: power, rabbi, Judaism, good, morality, love.]\\n08:46- Introduces “The Earth that Falls Away”. [INDEX: epigraph from Beddoes’s Death’s Jest Book, human situations, present generation, city people, stop at the line-ends; from The Dumbfounding.]\\n09:38- Reads “The Earth that Falls Away”. [INDEX: long poem, Romans, history, Bible,    silence, breaking, marriage, illness, winter, summer, city, Dawson City, gold rush, books, Canadiana, photographs, remembrance, scholar, value, cloth, fabric, textiles, production, operation, cancer, treasure, children, blind, snow, farm, emptiness, isolation, solitude, sight, sound.]\\n22:58- Reads first line “He chose a street where he wouldn’t be safe...” [INDEX: city, street, party, Bible, safety, saviour, Jesus; from unknown source; not indicated as separate poem on Howard Fink List.]\\n24:00- Reads first line “Sir, you have nothing...”. [INDEX emptiness, nothing, snow, heart, cup, fullness, joy; from unknown source. .]\\n25:01.03- END OF RECORDING.\\n \\nPoems Time Stamped with Duration\\nSECOND CD: I086-11-002.2=AC                         \\t\\tTime            \\tDuration\\n\\\"The Valiant Vacationist\\\"                                                  \\t00:00:41      \\t03:15\\n\\\"To Professor X, Year Y\\\"                                                   \\t00:04:10      \\t02:55\\n\\\"The Absolute, the Day\\\"                                                    \\t00:07:28      \\t01:15\\n\\\"The Earth that Falls Away\\\"                                              \\t00:09:38      \\t13:15\\n\\\"He chose a street where he wouldn't be safe\\\"                   \\t00:22:58      \\t01:00\\n \\\"Sir, you have nothing\\\"                                                     \\t00:24:06      \\t00:55\\n\\nHoward Fink List:\\n“Marg Avison” reading her own poetry 21/1/67 reel information.\\n\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/margaret-avison-at-sgwu-1967/\"}]"],"score":5.6714616}]