[{"id":"1295","cataloger_name":["Bindu,Reddy"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds"],"source_collection_label":["SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds"],"collection_contributing_unit":["Records Management and Archives"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":[""],"collection_source_collection_description":["The fonds consists of some administrative records of the SGWU Department of English and the Concordia Department of English between 1971 and 2000. It also consists of some SGWU Department of English records related to student academic activities in the 1940s and to public readings and lectures, and a few interviews, produced between 1966 and 1972. The fonds mainly includes minutes of departmental meetings and some course timetables. It also includes some student papers in bound volumes and 63 sound recordings (80 audio reels) mainly composed of poetry readings (see the Concordia SpokenWeb project which uses this material) but also a few lectures given at SGWU. There are also loose typed sheets describing some of the SGWU poetry readings."],"collection_source_collection_id":["I086"],"persistent_url":["http://archives.concordia.ca/I086"],"item_title":["Gary Snyder at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 5 November 1971\n"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"POETRY READING GARY SNYDER #1 I006-11-106.1\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. \"I006-11-106.1\" written on sticker on the reel\n\n\"POETRY READING GARY SNYDER #2 I006-11-106.2\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. \"I006-11-106.2\" written on sticker on the reel\n\n\"POETRY READING GARY SNYDER #3 I006-11-106.3\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. \"POETRY READING GARY SNYDER I006-11-106.3\" written on sticker on the reel\n\n\"POETRY READING GARY SNYDER #4 I006-11-106.4\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. \"POETRY READING GARY SNYDER I006-11-106.4\" written on sticker on the reel\n"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 6"],"item_identifiers":["[I006-11-106.1, I006-11-106.2, I006-11-106.3, I006-11-106.4]"],"creator_names":["Snyder, Gary"],"creator_names_search":["Snyder, Gary"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/68944804\",\"name\":\"Snyder, Gary\",\"dates\":\"1930-\",\"notes\":\"American poet and nature activist Gary Snyder was born in San Francisco on May 8, 1930. He spent most of his early life exploring the wilderness and cultures along the Pacific Coast around his parent’s dairy farm in Washington State. In 1942, his family moved to Portland, Oregon and in 1947 he enrolled in Reed College to study literature and anthropology. His senior thesis was later published in 1978 and called He Who Hunted Birds in His Father’s Village: The Dimensions of a Haida Myth (Grey Fox Press). Snyder then worked various jobs with the U.S. Forest Service and Park Service, with timber companies on Native American Reservations, and Snyder even climbed aboard a ship traveling to South America. In 1951, Snyder completed his bachelor’s degree and went to Indiana University to study linguistics, which only lasted one semester, after which, he traveled to San Francisco. Snyder met and lived with the poet Philip Whalen before entering into the University of California, Berkley in 1952 to begin graduate studies in East Asian languages. The poetry scene in San Francisco (San Francisco Renaissance) had begun to take shape and on October 7, 1955, Snyder read with Allen Ginsberg, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Kenneth Rexroth and Philip Whalen at the famous “Six Poets at the Six Gallery”, a reading which launched the ‘Beat’ movement. In 1956, Snyder began formal Buddhist training in Kyoto, Japan, and traveled back and forth from the U.S. several times during the next decade, studying Buddhism and writing poetry. Snyder’s first collection of poetry was Riprap (Four Seasons Foundation, 1959), which was followed the next year by Myths and Texts (Totem Press, 1960), Six Sections from Mountains and Rivers without End (1965), Cold Mountain Poems (Four Seasons, 1965), The Back Country (New Directions, 1968), a collection of essays Earth House Hold (New Directions, 1969), Regarding Wave (Windhover Press, 1969), Manzanita (Four Seasons Foundation, 1972), The Fudo Trilogy (Shaman Drum, 1973) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Turtle Island (New Directions, 1974). With an increase in popularity, Snyder became a spokesman for environmental issues and served on the Board for the California Arts Council between 1974 and 1979. He began local projects and schools, including the North San Juan School House and the Ring-of-Bone Zendo Buddhist community centre. Snyder then published a series of essays and prose in The Old Ways (City Lights Books, 1977), The Real Work: Interviews and Talks, 1964-1979 (New Directions, 1980), and an account of his travels with poets Joanne Kyger and Allen Ginsberg Passage through India (1983), and a return to poetry with Axe Handles (North Point Press, 1983), and Left Out in the Rain (North Point Press, 1986). Snyder then began teaching at the University of California, Davis, in both the English and Nature and Culture Departments. More recently, he has published essays and poetry in No Nature: New and Selected Poems (Pantheon Books, 1992), a completed version of a long poem previously published Mountains and Rivers without End (Counterpoint, 1996) which won the Bollingen Prize. His collected poetry can be found in The Gary Snyder Reader: Prose, Poetry and Translations 1952-1998 (Counterpoint, 1999) and The High Sierra of California: Poems and Journals of Gary Snyder (Quail Press, 2000). Snyder retired from teaching in 2002, but has continued advocating for environmental issues and writing poetry, publishing Danger on Peaks (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004), Back on the Fire: Essays (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2007).\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Author\",\"Performer\"]}]"],"contributors_names":["Sommer, Richard"],"contributors_names_search":["Sommer, Richard"],"contributors":["[{\"url\":\"http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n84036163\",\"name\":\"Sommer, Richard\",\"dates\":\"1934-2012\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Series organizer\",\"Presenter\"]}]"],"Presenter_name":["Sommer, Richard"],"Series_organizer_name":["Sommer, Richard"],"Production_Date":[1971],"material_description":["[{\"side\":\"\",\"image\":\"\",\"other\":\"\",\"extent\":\"1/4 inch\",\"AV_types\":\"Audio\",\"tape_brand\":\"Scotch\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Stereo\",\"playing_speed\":\"3 3/4 ips\",\"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\":\"Scotch\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Stereo\",\"playing_speed\":\"3 3/4 ips\",\"sound_quality\":\"Excellent\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"track_configuration\":\"2 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\":\"Stereo\",\"playing_speed\":\"3 3/4 ips\",\"sound_quality\":\"Excellent\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"track_configuration\":\"2 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\":\"Stereo\",\"playing_speed\":\"3 3/4 ips\",\"sound_quality\":\"Excellent\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"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","Reel to Reel","Reel to Reel","Reel to Reel"],"physical_compositions":["Magnetic Tape","Magnetic Tape","Magnetic Tape","Magnetic Tape"],"recording_type":["Analogue","Analogue","Analogue","Analogue"],"AV_type":["Audio","Audio","Audio","Audio"],"playback_mode":["Stereo","Stereo","Stereo","Stereo"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"1971 11 5\",\"type\":\"Production Date\",\"notes\":\"Date apecified in written announcements\\n\",\"source\":\"Supplemental Material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building Room H-651\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1455, Boul de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada\",\"latitude\":\"45.4972758\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57893043\"}]"],"Address":["1455, Boul de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada"],"Venue":["Hall Building Room H-651"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Gary Snyder reads poems later collected in Turtle Island (New Directions, 1974), originally published in a limited edition book called Manzanita (Four Seasons Press, 1972). He also reads one poem from Regarding Wave (Fulcrum Press, 1971), one poem from Coyote’s Journal #9 (1971), one poem from The Fudo Trilogy (Shaman Drum, 1973), and several from Mountains and Rivers Without End (Counterpoint) only published in 1997, as well as other poems from unknown sources. "],"contents":["gary_snyder_i006-11-106-1.mp3 [File 1 of 4]\n\nRichard (Dick) Sommer\n00:00:00\nProbably some of us are here in order to look at or touch the Gary Snyder [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q315963] who actually went and did all those semi-mythological things, who has climbed mountains and traveled in India with Allen Ginsberg [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6711], who provided Kerouac [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q160534] with a book character, who has lived in or on the edges of several different kinds of wilderness, who has lived in the precincts of Japanese Buddhist monasteries, who has fought, I think has fought hard, to keep other cultures than ours, and other kinds of life than human life, from obliteration. And who has written poems out of the consciousness of these things. For myself, Gary Snyder hasn't made poems so much as he has provided me with windows made out of words. These are windows that have had a way of, themselves disappearing, leaving me usually standing where I think I want to be, out in the open world. So, I came here, I've come here, to meet whoever it is that makes so many good windows. I'll let you discover for yourselves how much this window-maker is what a windowmaker should be, himself, just open and clear. I'd like to present Gary Snyder.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:02:58\nI forgot one more thing I wanted to have out here. Good evening. I'm going to read in two sets this evening, with a little intermission. And first of all, I'm not going to read any poems tonight from my published books, because those poems are available and what is interesting to me is always what I'm doing, where I'm moving. So I'm going to read from a cycle of short poems, moderately short poems, which I call \"Charms\", and\nthen there'll be a break, and then I'm going to read recent sections that I've been working on from a long poem in progress called \"Mountains and Rivers Without End\". I came back to the United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30] from Japan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17] with my wife and children about three years ago now, and went as rapidly as possible to settle in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q26777], on the north slope of the south fork of the Yuba river [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q181973] at three-thousand foot elevation. And I've been living there for almost two years now. I'm saying this by way of introduction to this first cycle of poems called \"Charms\". I was brought up on a farm, and all of my ancestors that I know of, for the last few generations on both sides, were rural people, or miners, miners in Colorado [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1261], Leadville [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q286702], places like that. And it amazes me in a mysterious way how to get back to doing what my father was doing when I was a little boy, and what, and which I remember as a little boy, and to get back to doing what my grandfather was doing, which is to say--again, looking at the fences, looking at the stumps, looking at the house, looking at the well, looking at the spring and saying, how are we going to do it--touches me more deeply than I can possibly explain. And at the same time, being confronted again with these choices, which are the choices of the American frontier, and also the choices of medieval Europeans, and neolithic Mediterranean people, and neolithic Japanese people, and neolithic Chinese people. With what I've come to understand, a little more now, about history, anthropology, and biology, I feel an extraordinary responsibility to understand why I make the choices I make, in such matters as, where does one break the ground and locate a garden, or which trees does one select to fall. In other words, I find myself again in that position of entering virgin land, and this time, I want to understand, in the process of making my own choices, I want to understand why we did it wrong, every time before, and hope to get some insights in how one goes about doing it right, this time. In moving toward that understanding, in making the choices that I have to make, about how we are going to live, in the semi-wilderness and true wilderness of the Sierra Nevada, my teachers have to be scientific foresters, biologists and ecologists on the one hand, and the American Indians on the other. There are no other teachers available for these choices.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:08:02\nAnd so these poems, in the cycle called \"Charms\", reflect those debts and reflect the search for that knowledge, insofar as I've gotten into it up to this point. It starts with a little chant, called \"Grace for Love\". Before we...grace, in the sense of the grace that we say before meals. Which is, grace is gratitude, an expression of gratitude for a meal. And the gratitude that we say at my rancheria is a kind of a rough translation from a Japanese Buddhist grace which goes like this in English: \"We venerate the three treasures and are thankful for this meal, the work of other people, and the suffering of other forms of life.\" The need for grace, for love, is something I became aware of when I realized that there was a level of validity in the Catholic Church's objection to contraceptive devices, insofar as love, like food, is a sacrament, and that there is level in which the act of love should inevitably be connected with the consciousness of its role in moving the seed, in transmitting the energy of the knowledge of the biomass, as transmitted down through time. But I felt that the church is far too simple-minded in assuming that the energy aroused in the sacrament of love, in the direction of fertility, has to mean literally that the people who are acting that sacrament out have to necessarily procreate their own kind. And so we came to this, I and several other people, came to this, as what primitive people would call the transferral of merit, or species-increase ritual. In other words, we make love with gratitude to other beings, and wish to transfer our fertility from the human race to the vanishing species.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:11:09\nPerforms \"Grace for Love\".\n\nGary Snyder\n00:14:20\nReads \"A Curse on the Man In the Pentagon, Washington\".\n\nGary Snyder\n00:16:37\nThat's from a Cheyenne ghost dance song, that little last chorus.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:16:43\nReads \"I went into the Maverick Bar\" [published later  in Turtle Island].\n\nGary Snyder\n00:18:25\nThe Navajo word \"Anasazi\" means \"the ancient ones.\" It's the name that the Navajo gave to the people who lived in the canyons and cliffs of Chaco Canyon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q49786970] and Canyon De Chelly [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41679118] and Mesa Verde [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6821095] and many other sites. Probably the people were the ancestors of the present Pueblo people, living there probably up until the twelfth century, till the great drought of the thirteenth century. The people who more than any others, to judge from what the Pueblo people are still able to transmit today, the people who more than any others have achieved what could truly be called \"civilization\" on this continent, and whose lore embodies perhaps two millennia of deep experience. I wrote this at Canyon De Chelly.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:19:52\nReads “Anasazi” [published later in Turtle Island].\n\nGary Snyder\n00:21:11\nThe Canyon De Chelly, which will come up in another poem I'm going to read later today, and in fact, all over the West, all over the Great Basin [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q966943], and in other parts of North America [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q49] too, notably on the granite outcroppings on th]e northern shores of Lake Superior [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1066], for example, are designs pecked into the rocks, petroglyphs. Anthropologists, Americanists, whatever you call 'em, haven't had much time to study those petroglyphs yet, because they've been engaged through all the years of this century in a hasty, half-successful salvage operation. Salvaging the remnants of this or that dying culture, recording and taping the last words of a dying language, and they've had no time to give to studying these older things that they know are there, such as the petroglyphs. But the petroglyphs have a repeated vocabulary of motifs which are found in patterns distributed all over North America, and particularly in the West. One of the most widespread is a hand, that someone has put on a cliff or a boulder face, apparently outlined, and then filled it in with red, hematite, or a red hand. That red hand often is lacking a finger, or lacking a finger-joint. This would not be notable in itself if it weren't that in the caves of southern France [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q142] and northern Spain [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q29], there are dated, back as far as 40,000 years, the same red hands, with missing fingers and missing finger-joints are found. This is only one of a number of things which are found all the way. And so this next poem, \"The Way West Underground\", is one of a number of poems, and this is perhaps the most intellectual of them, in which I'm trying to trace out how you get back to make the line of connection between what I know the American knows, what I am beginning to know the American Indian knew, and what I am beginning to know our prehistoric ancestors knew, which was not a different knowledge. And the question of why our prehistoric ancestors lost it is another question. Actually the main impetus of this poem deals with the bears, because there's an international mystery religion called the Bear Cult, that runs all the way from Finland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q33] to Utah [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q829], across Siberia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5428], and it shares the mysterious central theme, which is a girl who marries a bear. I've written several poems about that girl. And about the bears. And so this is coming in on that from another angle.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:25:12\nReads \"The Way West Underground\" [published later in Turtle Island].\n\nEND\n00:26:55\n\n\ngary_snyder_i006-11-106-2.mp3 [File 2 of 4]\n\nGary Snyder\n00:00:00\n--which is a way Finnish men sing folk songs together.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:00:05\nResumes reading of \"The Way West Underground\".\n\nUnknown\n00:02:20\n[Cut or edit made in tape].\n\nGary Snyder\n00:02:21\nSo I had to trace back again in my mind, with my eyes, with my observation: of course, the plants produce seeds, the birds feed on the seeds, and so forth. Small members of the food chain. The ocean is similar but in a different set of relationships. We live on an exuberance of sexuality. We eat the reproductive organs of grasses: wheat, rice. Because herring or cod have millions of eggs that hatch into millions of almost-microscopic fry, the food chains of the ocean are made possible.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:03:16 \nReads \"The Song of the Taste\" from Regarding Wave.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:04:51\nI read that because it goes so nicely with this other poem, called \"Song to the Raw Material\". I really think a lot about these things these days because I've put myself deliberately in the position of having to know where my food comes from, and it's no longer a question of, like do I eat natural foods or supermarket foods, or do I eat meat or am I a vegetarian, it's more sophisticated than that, it's a lot more subtle than that. Like literally, where did it come from. And by what means can I have a sense of responsibility and gratitude to what it is that I'm eating and in what sense can I repay that world, whichever world it is, that I am feeding off of. Well of course one way you can repay it is by being a willing, and gracious, member of the food chain yourself. Now we are rather large animals, which means that we are rather high in the food chain. But nonetheless, quite edible. And it would be a great honour, really, to be eaten by a large, rare predator, and I can't think of any way I'd rather finish my days than to give myself to a grizzly bear, if I could, you know, choose when. [Laughter]. Like get all my affairs in order first. I'm not ready yet! Or at least, go back, as large creatures often do, go back into the cycle of feeding smaller creatures. But you can see the basic biological ignorance of this society, the ignorance of what systems really are, what basic systems are, and what our responsibilities to our membership in basic systems is, by the fact that they either burn people up or they fill them full of chemicals which make them not tasty, and lock them in bronze caskets, and so forth. The only people in the world who are righteous about this particular question seem to be the Tibetans and the Parsis, I mean, really righteous about it. The Tibetans and the Parsis have an old tradition, which is mentioned, it's so old that it's mentioned by Herodotus [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11925546], in talking about a group of people called the Magi, in Persia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q794], that is to say they expose their dead in elevated places and feed them to the vultures. That's one very elegant way, actually, to deal with it. The Eskimo, an Eskimo shaman whose name I forget, is reputed to have said, \"We live dangerous lives, because our food consists entirely of souls\". “Song to the Raw Material”.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:08:12\nReads \"Song of the Raw Material\".\n\nGary Snyder\n00:09:12\nReads \"Steak\" [published later in Turtle Island; audience laughter and applause throughout].\n\nGary Snyder\n00:10:53\nI saw that in Lethbridge [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q270887], Alberta [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1951]. [Audience laughter]. The creation mythology of Japan, called the kojiki, is very long, and very complicated. I tried to boil it down to some kind of a formula I could understand, at least boil down the first hundred pages of it, so I wrote this--it's about how the world is created according to the Japanese creation mythology. I think. I think that's what it is.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:11:28\nReads \"No matter, never mind\" [published later in Turtle Island].\n\nAudience\n00:12:14\nLaughter and applause.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:12:24\nIt's funny how the language is smarter than we are, [audience laughter] yeah. Like we can get hung up on mind/matter dualism, but the language won't accept it. It says the same thing two ways. \"The Bath\". Where we live we don't have any electricity or propane, and so we do everything with wood, including heating our bath, which we found the best wood-fired bathing system was a Finnish-type sauna, and...so this poem, you know just to set the scene, it's a somewhat longer poem, this poem is a sauna, with a wood-burning stove that also heats a tank of water on the side, and with a bench that you sit up on and a lower place that you can get down on and wash with. You can get these wood-fired sauna-stoves from some Finnish outfit in Michigan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1166]. The only place in the United States that I have been able to locate that makes sauna stoves that fire wood. I highly recommend them. The personae in this are my wife, my three-year old son, my three-and a-half year old son, my two-year-old son.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:14:00\nReads \"The Bath\" [published later in Turtle Island].\n\nGary Snyder\n00:19:31\nSome friends said to us, when we moved up to the backcountry, ah, you're just getting away from your responsibilities. You're evading the struggle. So I wrote this little poem as a, kind of a light answer to that. It's called \"Front Lines\".\n\nGary Snyder\n00:19:59\nReads \"Front Lines\" [published later in Turtle Island].\n\nGary Snyder\n00:21:36\nThat poem is not an exaggeration of what we're doing. We are, like, where I am and a number of other people I know around this continent, have their backs up against the wilderness, so to speak, and they're not going to let this thing go past them. If they can help it, or as you say, over my dead body. The California Indians used to set control burns, as distinct from wildfires, forestry terms, which contributed to the maintenance of what you might call a climax timber stand, keeping the undergrowth burnt out, keeping an annual deer-forage coming in, and protecting the large timber, as it were, from destructive forest fires, because whenever a forest fire--which is very common in California [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q99], it's an annual event--whenever forest fires go through, went through the forests when they were in that condition, it simply went through taking the ground cover off, but couldn't get hot enough or high enough to kill the large trees. With the advent of logging, mining, and the Manzanita brush that follows on that, the whole flora of California changed radically. All of the flora of California changed. What happened was that the woods got very brushy, and then the early forestry practices which were, of course, to put forest fires out whenever they came on them, in some ways contributed to the increasingly dangerous situation of dense brush, logging slash laying around, second-growth trees not really very large yet, and a situation where every brush fire that went through killed absolutely everything grew up. And that's the state of the state now, to a large extent, although there are some hip foresters now who are back into control burns as best as they can. This poem is called \"Control Burn\" and it only starts from what I'm just talking about, taking that as an image.\n\nGary Snyder\n00:24:00\nReads \"Control Burn\" [published later in Turtle Island].\n\nGary Snyder\n00:25:37\nReads \"The Great Mother\" [published later in Turtle Island].\n\nEND\n00:26:55\n\n\ngary_snyder_i006-11-106-3.mp3 [File 3 of 4]\n\nGary Snyder\n00:00:00\nEverything in this next poem is all true. Almost everything.\n \nGary Snyder\n00:00:17\nReads \"The Call of the Wild\", Part I [published later in Turtle Island]. \n \nGary Snyder\n00:00:32\nReads \"The Call of the Wild\", Part II [published later in Turtle Island]. \n \nAnnotation\n00:01:52.06\nReads \"The Call of the Wild,\" Part III [published later in Turtle Island]. \n \nGary Snyder\n00:04:11\nReads \"Source\" [published later in Turtle Island]. \n \nGary Snyder\n00:05:40\nIn the poem \"Charms\", which is dedicated to Michael McClure [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1390054], who has more than any other living poet, or person even that I know, has gone farther than anyone else, I think, into becoming one with, in understanding, in penetrating, in perceiving the consciousness of other beings.\n \nGary Snyder\n00:06:15\nReads \"Charms\" [published later in Turtle Island]. \n \nAudience\n00:07:45\nApplause. \n \nGary Snyder\n00:08:01\nI want to read one little poem that kind of, that I just wrote on the plane the other day.  Flying in here yesterday I wrote this. And then we'll take a break. But this belongs, really, with these poems. \n \nGary Snyder\n00:08:15\nReads \"How did a great red-tailed Hawk come to lie on the shoulder of Interstate 5\" [published later in Turtle Island]. \n \nGary Snyder\n00:10:05\nOkay, let's take a break.  \n\nAudience\n00:10:07\nApplause.\n\nUnknown\n00:10:17\nAmbient Sound [voices].\n \nAudience Member 1\n00:10:29\nDo you remember getting tiny toys for your children from San Francisco [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q62]? There was a small book that I saw in the States, folded out in a certain, section-by-section, parts of the earth kinda, growing larger and larger and larger...\n \nGary Snyder\n00:10:46\nI haven't seen it.\n \nAudience Member 1\n00:10:48\nNo, I guess...it's sort of, um, anti-war toys.\n \nGary Snyder\n00:10:51\nSounds nice. Yeah. Some place in San Francisco you can get it?\n \nAudience Member 1\n00:10:56\nUm, I don't know, it was from a certain, a certain group of people, and I don't remember their names. It was beautiful. Nice gift to give little kids.\n \nGary Snyder\n00:11:07\nI shall watch for it when I go there again. Thank you. \n \nAudience Member 1\n00:11:13\nOkay. You bet. [Inaudible]\n \nGary Snyder\n00:11:14\nOkay. [Laughter].\n \nAudience Member 2\n00:11:19\nMan you're incredible. You're so good. I really dig your stuff.\n \nGary Snyder\n00:11:26\n[Laughter]. Thank you.\n \nAudience Member 2\n00:11:26\nI really dig it, will you come for a drink with me later? With me and my friends?\n \nGary Snyder\n00:11:31\nI gotta go some place later.\n \nAudience Member 2\n00:11:33\nYou sure? \n \nGary Snyder\n00:11:34\nYeah. I mean, like I...they got something set up for me. \n \nAudience Member 2\n00:11:38\nI don't, I don't know, I really dig that, I really dig that [inaudible] I just came in, I thought your stuff was so incredible...Your stuff, the way you bring it across to people!\n \nGary Snyder\n00:11:51\nWell, that's what I try to do.\n \nAudience Member 2\n00:11:54\nHave you written a book?\n \nGary Snyder\n00:11:54\nI've written a lot of books. [Laughter].\n \nAudience Member 2\n00:11:58\nNo no no, no really, no really, I don't know too much about...Gary Snyder, you know?\n \nGary Snyder\n00:12:04\nWell, you'd probably find, I don't know, because I'm coming here, because of my being here now, they've probably got some of my books in the bookstore, if you want to go look. [Laughter].\n \nAudience Member 2\n00:12:13\nSee I'm writing this play right now, you know? I'm trying to express myself and it's really...it's really strange [Cut off abruptly].\n \nUnknown\n00:12:27\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n \nGary Snyder\n00:12:28\nWell, there has been a great deal of opposition to nuclear energy, and nuclear power-generating stations, in the United States so effective in some areas that a lot of generating plants have been blocked or slowed down in their construction. And I think that the United States government is about to launch on an enormous effort to calm the public and to lull it into accepting massive developments of nuclear energy generating centres, fast-breeder and later, perhaps, fusion. Now I myself would have no objection to such a thing if I could be convinced that it was safe, both in the long term and the short term, and although it might be conceivably safe in the short term, I can see no way in which it would be safe in the long run, because nuclear wastes accumulated over, say, several centuries, as they might be, or more, in increasing quantities around the globe, are going to out eventually, and even though you can say, well, we're putting it off for five hundred thousand years, five hundred thousand years is not a very long time.  And if we are feeding a wasteful, industrial, technological, consumer society for a few more centuries, buying it a few more centuries of life, at the expense of all future biological health on the planet, it's obviously not worth it. The Amchitka test, which is possibly interested in such things as what uses very large explosions would have in releasing oil from oil-bearing shale or something like that, I think the U.S. administration is going ahead with this test in the face of all this criticism, deliberately, as a deliberate and very intelligent gamble. The chances are that nothing will happen. When nothing happens, then they will be able to say, \"All you people were hysterical. You see?  Nothing happened\".  And that will buy them a lot of time and a lot of credibility to proceed strongly and forcibly with more nuclear testing and more nuclear power generation development. And the conservationists, perhaps, have in a way, played into their hands, by making such a big issue out of it, so that they will be left holding an empty bag if nothing happens. If something does happen, then the administration can say, \"You're right, we were wrong\", and Nixon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9588] perhaps forfeits the next election. That's all. Okay. \n \nGary Snyder\n00:15:25.61\n\"Mountains and Rivers Without End\" is a poem that I've been working on, it's a long poem, a long series of interconnected long poems that I've been working on for some years. I'm going to read several sections from that tonight. Including one or two that are very recent, in fact these are all pretty recent. \"Mountains and Rivers without End\". The title of the poem comes from a Yuan Dynasty [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7313] Chinese scroll, that unfolds sideways and is thirty-five feet long. By way of introduction, a little poem called \"The Rabbit\". There are many sections to this, I'm only going to read [counts under breath.]..six tonight.\n \nGary Snyder\n00:16:27\nReads \"The Rabbit\" [published later in Mountains and Rivers Without End].\n \nGary Snyder\n00:18:04\n\"The California Water Plan\". The state of California at the moment is engaged in a large, incredibly wasteful, incredibly stupid, illegal, even by their own terms, water plan project, which if they're lucky, will salinate the Sacramento Valley [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1686914] and make agriculture permanently impossible. I was up in the Minarets [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2412852] in the Sierra last summer, thinking about the California Water Plan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q28228216], and I perceived something of what the true California Water Plan was. So I wrote this down. It refers to an obscure little Buddhist god called Fudo, or Achala [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q337624], who is my particular guardian, my personal guardian and my personal teacher, and, so I use, I refer to him, in several poems. The other two poems in which I refer to him actually are a piece called \"Smokey the Bear Sutra\", and another piece called \"Spell Against Demons\". This is the final, actually, this is the third and final poem in the trilogy of Fudo poems. Also. But you'll find all about Fudo in this poem, it'll drive you crazy.    \n \nGary Snyder\n00:19:48\nReads \"The California Water Plan\" [later published in The Fudo Trilogy].\n \nGary Snyder\n00:25:34\n\"Kumarajiva's Mother\". Now, the rest of these poems that I'm going to read this evening are cutting back and forth between ancient India [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q668] and ancient North America. I--living as I do and where I have lived all my life, we face the Pacific [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q98]. And, the American Indian came from Asia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q48], or vice versa, the Asians came from North America. I mean I know a Shoshone who says that. He says, \"We've always been here, those Asians came from here\". [Laughter].  \"What do you mean we came from someplace else, that's some white anthropologist theory\". [Laughter]. \"Kumarajiva's Mother.\" Kumarajiva [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q335293] was a great Buddhist monk-scholar-translator, who was kidnapped by the Chinese from Central Asia, by force, and carried off to China [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q148] where he was made to translate Sanskrit Buddhist texts into Chinese, and he stayed there the rest of his life, with a crew of about eighty Chinese assistants, day and night, translating sutras. He did a lot of translation. He also got in trouble, because he liked girls, and on one occasion, because he actually had mistresses apparently, he ate a bowl of needles, like you sew with needles, in front of an assembly of all the monks and assistants in Peking [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q956], or no it wasn't Peking in those days, it was Chang'an [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6501000], all of the monks and assistants in the capital, Chang'an, and then he said, \"When you boys can eat needles, you can have girlfriends too\". [Audience laughter]. But this poem is about his mother. [Audience laughter]. And I really, I mean I could explain to you why I wrote this poem but it isn't really worth explaining, I'll just read it. It has to do partly with the fact that my mother has freckles. And I was trying to figure out at this time, when I wrote this, I was trying to figure out whatever happened to women in Buddhism? Like something happened to 'em. They got lost. For a long time, anyway.\n \nGary Snyder\n00:28:22\nReads \"Kumarajiva's Mother\".\n \nEND\n00:30:59\n\n\ngary_snyder_i006-11-106-4.mp3 [File 4 of 4]\n \nGary Snyder\n00:00:00\n...alone in the 8th century, and studied at an enormous Buddhist, Mahayana university called Nalanda [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q216243], for fifteen years, and then walked back to China, with a fraying pack full of books, which he translated for the next twenty years after he got back to China. He brought the school of Buddhism, which is called the school of Mind Only, and the school of Emptiness. That's one aspect of this next poem. Another aspect is a little petroglyph, American Indian petroglyph figure, called the hump-backed flute player, a little stick figure playing the flute, with a pack on his back, walking. He was found pecked on the rocks from Sonora [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q46422], Mexico [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q96] up into the Great Basin, and about which almost nothing is known. The Ghost Dance, which was a Messianic Indian religion, started by a Paiute named Wovoka https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q558420], which asserted that perhaps by magic the white man could be swept away from North America and the game would return.  And finally, the oldest living beings are the bristle-coned pine, who live in the White Mountains [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1556007], at an elevation of nine thousand feet in eastern California, the oldest of which is something like four thousand five hundred years old. So this poem is called \"The Humpbacked Flute Player\".\n \nGary Snyder\n00:01:59\nReads \"The Humpbacked Flute Player\" from Coyote’s Journal #9 [and published later in Mountains and Rivers Without End]. \n \nGary Snyder\n00:08:36\nI'm going to finish with one more poem called \"Down\". These poems are not in the order that they're going to be, but they're in a convenient order for the moment.\n \nGary Snyder\n00:09:05\nReads \"Down\".\n \nAudience\n00:11:48\nApplause.\n \nRichard (Dick) Sommer\n00:12:18\nI can't thank you for that. I don't know any way. Charles Simic [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q722555] will be reading on November 19th. Thank you. \n\nAudience\n00:12:40 \nApplause.\n\nEND\n00:12:45\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:\\n\\nIn 1971, Gary Snyder published The back country (New Directions Press) and First time round (Roaring Fork Press), the first edition of Manzanita (Kent State University), Swimming naked in the Yuba River (Maidu Press), Anasazi (Yes! Press), Regarding Wave: Poems (Fulcrum Press) contributed to Sky, sea, birds, trees, earth, house, beasts, flowers (Unicorn Press) with Kenneth Rexroth, to Coyote’s journal: #9 (Book People) with Albert Glover, James Coller and Allen Ginsberg, and to Six poems/seven prints (Kent State University) with Alex Gildzen, John Ashbery, James Bertolino, Gwendolyn Brooks, Denise Levertov and Steven Osterlund.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nIt is not clear what Gary Snyder’s connection to Sir George Williams University or Montreal was, but he no doubt had an influential role in the shaping of American poetry, specifically in the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat movement. The series tried to include poets from all types of poetry backgrounds and from both Canada and the U.S.; Snyder was an important American poet at this time.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript and print catalogue by Rachel Kyne\\n\\nOriginal print catalogue, introduction, research and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\\n\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"4 reel-to-reel tapes>2 CDs>4 digital files\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/gary-snyder-at-sgwu-1971/#1\",\"citation\":\"Boxer, Avi; Bryan McCarthy and Graham Seal. “Letters: re: Reverend Richard J. Sommer”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 12 November 1971, page 4. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/gary-snyder-at-sgwu-1971/#1\",\"citation\":\"Boxer, Avi; Bryan McCarthy and Graham Seal. “Letters: Get Your Shit Together...”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 19 November 1971, page 4. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-encyclopedia-of-american-literature/oclc/769478515&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"DiFranco, Aaron K. \\\"Snyder, Gary\\\". The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. Jay Parini (ed). Oxford University Press, 2004. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-twentieth-century-poetry-in-english/oclc/807465072&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Maxwell, Glyn. \\\"Snyder, Gary\\\". The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Ian Hamilton (ed). Oxford University Press, 1996. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/gary-snyder-at-sgwu-1971/#1\",\"citation\":\"Morrissey, Stephen. “Letters: Inexcusable Ignorance”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 26 November 1971, page 4. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/gary-snyder-at-sgwu-1971/#1\",\"citation\":\"Pearson, Allen. “Letters: The Second Coming?”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 12 November 1971, page 4. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/fudo-trilogy/oclc/622284906&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Snyder, Gary. The Fudo Trilogy. Berkley, California: Shaman Drum, 1973. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6925688\",\"citation\":\"Snyder, Gary. Mountains and Rivers Without End. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint Press, 1996. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/regarding-wave-gary-snyder/oclc/463402884&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Snyder, Gary. Regarding Wave. New York: New Directions Press, 1967. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/six-sections-from-mountains-and-rivers-without-end/oclc/295205&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Snyder, Gary. Six Sections from Mountains and Rivers Without End. San Francisco: Four Seasons Press, 1965. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/concise-oxford-companion-to-american-literature/oclc/1146399202&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"\\\"Snyder, Gary\\\". The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature. James D. Hart (ed). Oxford University Press, 1986. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-american-literature/oclc/54356940&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"\\\"Snyder, Gary [Sherman]\\\". The Oxford Companion to American Literature. James D. Hart (ed.), Phillip W. Leininger (rev). Oxford University Press, 1995. \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Snyder, Gary. Turtle Island. 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Back\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/I0006_11_0106-4_side.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0106-4_side.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Gary Snyder Tape Box 4 - Spine\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/gary_snyder_i006-11-106-1.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"gary_snyder_i006-11-106-1.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:26:55\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"64.6 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"gary_snyder_i006-11-106-1.mp3 [File 1 of 4]\\n\\nRichard (Dick) Sommer\\n00:00:00\\nProbably some of us are here in order to look at or touch the Gary Snyder [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q315963] who actually went and did all those semi-mythological things, who has climbed mountains and traveled in India with Allen Ginsberg [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6711], who provided Kerouac [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q160534] with a book character, who has lived in or on the edges of several different kinds of wilderness, who has lived in the precincts of Japanese Buddhist monasteries, who has fought, I think has fought hard, to keep other cultures than ours, and other kinds of life than human life, from obliteration. And who has written poems out of the consciousness of these things. For myself, Gary Snyder hasn't made poems so much as he has provided me with windows made out of words. These are windows that have had a way of, themselves disappearing, leaving me usually standing where I think I want to be, out in the open world. So, I came here, I've come here, to meet whoever it is that makes so many good windows. I'll let you discover for yourselves how much this window-maker is what a windowmaker should be, himself, just open and clear. I'd like to present Gary Snyder.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:02:58\\nI forgot one more thing I wanted to have out here. Good evening. I'm going to read in two sets this evening, with a little intermission. And first of all, I'm not going to read any poems tonight from my published books, because those poems are available and what is interesting to me is always what I'm doing, where I'm moving. So I'm going to read from a cycle of short poems, moderately short poems, which I call \\\"Charms\\\", and\\nthen there'll be a break, and then I'm going to read recent sections that I've been working on from a long poem in progress called \\\"Mountains and Rivers Without End\\\". I came back to the United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30] from Japan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17] with my wife and children about three years ago now, and went as rapidly as possible to settle in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q26777], on the north slope of the south fork of the Yuba river [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q181973] at three-thousand foot elevation. And I've been living there for almost two years now. I'm saying this by way of introduction to this first cycle of poems called \\\"Charms\\\". I was brought up on a farm, and all of my ancestors that I know of, for the last few generations on both sides, were rural people, or miners, miners in Colorado [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1261], Leadville [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q286702], places like that. And it amazes me in a mysterious way how to get back to doing what my father was doing when I was a little boy, and what, and which I remember as a little boy, and to get back to doing what my grandfather was doing, which is to say--again, looking at the fences, looking at the stumps, looking at the house, looking at the well, looking at the spring and saying, how are we going to do it--touches me more deeply than I can possibly explain. And at the same time, being confronted again with these choices, which are the choices of the American frontier, and also the choices of medieval Europeans, and neolithic Mediterranean people, and neolithic Japanese people, and neolithic Chinese people. With what I've come to understand, a little more now, about history, anthropology, and biology, I feel an extraordinary responsibility to understand why I make the choices I make, in such matters as, where does one break the ground and locate a garden, or which trees does one select to fall. In other words, I find myself again in that position of entering virgin land, and this time, I want to understand, in the process of making my own choices, I want to understand why we did it wrong, every time before, and hope to get some insights in how one goes about doing it right, this time. In moving toward that understanding, in making the choices that I have to make, about how we are going to live, in the semi-wilderness and true wilderness of the Sierra Nevada, my teachers have to be scientific foresters, biologists and ecologists on the one hand, and the American Indians on the other. There are no other teachers available for these choices.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:08:02\\nAnd so these poems, in the cycle called \\\"Charms\\\", reflect those debts and reflect the search for that knowledge, insofar as I've gotten into it up to this point. It starts with a little chant, called \\\"Grace for Love\\\". Before we...grace, in the sense of the grace that we say before meals. Which is, grace is gratitude, an expression of gratitude for a meal. And the gratitude that we say at my rancheria is a kind of a rough translation from a Japanese Buddhist grace which goes like this in English: \\\"We venerate the three treasures and are thankful for this meal, the work of other people, and the suffering of other forms of life.\\\" The need for grace, for love, is something I became aware of when I realized that there was a level of validity in the Catholic Church's objection to contraceptive devices, insofar as love, like food, is a sacrament, and that there is level in which the act of love should inevitably be connected with the consciousness of its role in moving the seed, in transmitting the energy of the knowledge of the biomass, as transmitted down through time. But I felt that the church is far too simple-minded in assuming that the energy aroused in the sacrament of love, in the direction of fertility, has to mean literally that the people who are acting that sacrament out have to necessarily procreate their own kind. And so we came to this, I and several other people, came to this, as what primitive people would call the transferral of merit, or species-increase ritual. In other words, we make love with gratitude to other beings, and wish to transfer our fertility from the human race to the vanishing species.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:11:09\\nPerforms \\\"Grace for Love\\\".\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:14:20\\nReads \\\"A Curse on the Man In the Pentagon, Washington\\\".\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:16:37\\nThat's from a Cheyenne ghost dance song, that little last chorus.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:16:43\\nReads \\\"I went into the Maverick Bar\\\" [published later  in Turtle Island].\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:18:25\\nThe Navajo word \\\"Anasazi\\\" means \\\"the ancient ones.\\\" It's the name that the Navajo gave to the people who lived in the canyons and cliffs of Chaco Canyon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q49786970] and Canyon De Chelly [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41679118] and Mesa Verde [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6821095] and many other sites. Probably the people were the ancestors of the present Pueblo people, living there probably up until the twelfth century, till the great drought of the thirteenth century. The people who more than any others, to judge from what the Pueblo people are still able to transmit today, the people who more than any others have achieved what could truly be called \\\"civilization\\\" on this continent, and whose lore embodies perhaps two millennia of deep experience. I wrote this at Canyon De Chelly.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:19:52\\nReads “Anasazi” [published later in Turtle Island].\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:21:11\\nThe Canyon De Chelly, which will come up in another poem I'm going to read later today, and in fact, all over the West, all over the Great Basin [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q966943], and in other parts of North America [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q49] too, notably on the granite outcroppings on th]e northern shores of Lake Superior [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1066], for example, are designs pecked into the rocks, petroglyphs. Anthropologists, Americanists, whatever you call 'em, haven't had much time to study those petroglyphs yet, because they've been engaged through all the years of this century in a hasty, half-successful salvage operation. Salvaging the remnants of this or that dying culture, recording and taping the last words of a dying language, and they've had no time to give to studying these older things that they know are there, such as the petroglyphs. But the petroglyphs have a repeated vocabulary of motifs which are found in patterns distributed all over North America, and particularly in the West. One of the most widespread is a hand, that someone has put on a cliff or a boulder face, apparently outlined, and then filled it in with red, hematite, or a red hand. That red hand often is lacking a finger, or lacking a finger-joint. This would not be notable in itself if it weren't that in the caves of southern France [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q142] and northern Spain [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q29], there are dated, back as far as 40,000 years, the same red hands, with missing fingers and missing finger-joints are found. This is only one of a number of things which are found all the way. And so this next poem, \\\"The Way West Underground\\\", is one of a number of poems, and this is perhaps the most intellectual of them, in which I'm trying to trace out how you get back to make the line of connection between what I know the American knows, what I am beginning to know the American Indian knew, and what I am beginning to know our prehistoric ancestors knew, which was not a different knowledge. And the question of why our prehistoric ancestors lost it is another question. Actually the main impetus of this poem deals with the bears, because there's an international mystery religion called the Bear Cult, that runs all the way from Finland [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q33] to Utah [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q829], across Siberia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5428], and it shares the mysterious central theme, which is a girl who marries a bear. I've written several poems about that girl. And about the bears. And so this is coming in on that from another angle.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:25:12\\nReads \\\"The Way West Underground\\\" [published later in Turtle Island].\\n\\nEND\\n00:26:55\\n\",\"notes\":\"Gary Snyder reads poems later collected in Turtle Island (New Directions, 1974), originally published in a limited edition book called Manzanita (Four Seasons Press, 1972). He also reads one poem from Regarding Wave (Fulcrum Press, 1971), one poem from Coyote’s Journal #9 (1971), one poem from The Fudo Trilogy (Shaman Drum, 1973), and several from Mountains and Rivers Without End (Counterpoint) only published in 1997, as well as other poems from unknown sources. \\n\\nI006-11-106=AC.1\\n00:17- Introducer (Perhaps Richard Sommer) introduces Gary Snyder. [INDEX: semi mythological things, climbed mountains and traveled to India with Allen Ginsberg, Jack\\nKerouac’s book character, wilderness, living in precincts of Japanese Buddhist\\nmonasteries, keeping cultures from obliteration, poems out of the consciousness,\\nwindows, open world, window-maker].\\n02:58- Gary Snyder introduces the reading, and poetry cycle “Charms” and long poem\\n“Mountains and Rivers Without End”. [INDEX: reading in two sets, all poems read\\nare unpublished, long poem in-progress “Mountains and Rivers Without End”, returning\\nfrom Japan to the U.S. three years prior, wife and children, settling in the foothills of the\\nSierra Nevada, north slope of the south fork of the Yuba river, three-thousand foot\\nelevation, origins on a farm, miners in Leadville, Colorado, how to get back to father’s\\noccupation, childhood, grandfather, fences, as a child in nature, spring (river), American\\nfrontier, medieval Europeans, neolithic Mediterranean people, neolithic Japanese people, neolithic Chinese people, history, anthropology, biology, responsibility of humans’ place on earth, choices we make in terms of nature, scientific foresters, ecologists, American Indians (as teachers)].\\n08:02- Introduces poetry cycle “Charms”, and “Grace for Love”. [INDEX: debts, search for knowledge, grace (gratitude for meal), rancheria, Japanese Buddhist grace, love, level of validity in the Catholic Church’s objection to contraception, food, sacrament, act of love, transference of ‘seed’ or knowledge, transferral of merit, species-increase ritual; from unknown source].\\n11:09- Chants “Grace for Love”.\\n14:20- Reads “A Curse on the Man in the Pentagon, Washington”. [INDEX: from unknown source].\\n16:37- Explains last chorus of “A Curse on the Man in the Pentagon, Washington”.\\n16:43- Reads “I went into the Maverick Bar”. [INDEX: from Turtle Island].\\n18:25- Introduces “Anasazi”. [INDEX: means ‘ancient ones’ in Navajo, name of people living in Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde and Canyon de Chelly, ancestors of present Pueblo people, 12th century, the great drought of the 13th century, civilization, two millennia of ‘deep experience’, written at Canyon de Chelly; from Turtle Island]\\n19:52- Reads “Anasazi”.\\n21:11- Introduces “The Way West Underground”. [INDEX: Canyon de Chelly, West and Great Basin, granite outcroppings of the northern shores of Lake Superior, petroglyphs,\\nAnthropologists, salvaging remnants of dying cultures, vocabulary of motifs, hand\\npetroglyph, caves of southern France and northern Spain, 40,000 years ago, intellectual\\npoem, tracing out lines of connections between Americans, American Indians, prehistoric ancestors, main impetus of the poem is an international mystery religion called the Bear Cult, runs from Finland to Utah, Siberia, central theme: girl who marries a bear; from Turtle Island].\\n25:12- Reads “The Way West Underground”.\\n26:55- Interjects comment about poem. [INDEX: Finnish men singing folk songs].\\n[*note: cut or edit made in transcript, time elapsed unknown*]\\n29:16- Snyder is talking (not sure if it’s about the poem). [INDEX: observation, plants, seeds, birds, small members of food chain, ocean, exuberance of sexuality, reproductive organs of grasses, wheat, rice, herring, cod, millions of eggs, food chain of the ocean].\\n30:11- Reads “The Song of the Taste”. [INDEX: from Regarding Wave].\\n31:46- Introduces “Song for the Raw Material”. [INDEX: food, natural vs. supermarket foods, vegetarian vs. carnivore, being part of the food chain, being eaten by a bear, biological ignorance of society, basic systems, chemicals, Tibetans and Parsis, Herodotus, Maghi in Persia, feeding dead to the vultures, Eskimo shaman quote].\\n35:07- Reads “Song of the Raw Material”. [INDEX: perhaps “Song to the Raw Material”,\\nunknown source].\\n36:07- Reads “Steak”. [INDEX: from Turtle Island].\\n37:48- Introduces “No matter, never mind”. [INDEX: Lethbridge, Alberta, creation mythology of Japan (koji-ki); from Turtle Island].\\n38:23- Reads “No matter, never mind”.\\n39:19- Introduces “The Bath”. [INDEX: no electricity (wood heating), Finnish sauna, poem as a sauna, Michigan, personae in the poem are his wife, three sons; from Turtle Island].\\n40:55- Reads “The Bath”.\\n46:26- Introduces “Front Lines”. [INDEX: evading the struggle; from Turtle Island].\\n46:54- Reads “Front Lines”.\\n48:31- Explains parts of “Front Lines”, introduces “Control Burn”. [INDEX: wilderness,\\nCalifornia ‘Indians’, control burns, forest fires in California, logging, mining, Manzanita\\nbrush, flora changing; from Turtle Island].\\n50:55- Reads “Control Burn”.\\n52:32- Reads “The Great Mother”. [INDEX: from Turtle Island].\\n\\nFIRST CD (I006-11-106=AC.1)\\nPoem Read:\\t\\t\\t\\t\\t\\tTime Stamp\\tDuration (mins):\\n\\n“Grace for Love”  \\t\\t\\t\\t\\t00:11:09   \\t03:10\\n“A Curse on the Man in the Pentagon…” \\t00:14:20        02:17\\n“I went into the Maverick Bar…”  \\t\\t\\t00:16:23        01:42\\n“Anasazi”  \\t\\t\\t\\t\\t\\t00:19:52        02:17\\n“The Way West Underground”  \\t\\t\\t00:25:12        04:01\\n“The Song of the Taste”  \\t\\t\\t\\t00:30:11        01:35\\n“Song for the Raw Material”  \\t\\t\\t00:35:07        00:58\\n“Steak”  \\t\\t\\t\\t\\t\\t00:36:07        01:41\\n“No Matter, Never Mind”   \\t\\t\\t\\t00:38:23        00:46\\n“The Bath” \\t\\t\\t\\t\\t\\t00:40:55        05:29\\n“Front Lines” \\t\\t\\t\\t\\t\\t00:46:54        01:36\\n“Control Burn” \\t\\t\\t\\t\\t00:50:55        01:37\\n“The Great Mother”  \\t\\t\\t\\t00:52:32        00:42\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/gary-snyder-at-sgwu-1971/#1\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/gary_snyder_i006-11-106-2.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"gary_snyder_i006-11-106-2.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:26:55\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"63.2 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"gary_snyder_i006-11-106-2.mp3 [File 2 of 4]\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:00:00\\n--which is a way Finnish men sing folk songs together.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:00:05\\nResumes reading of \\\"The Way West Underground\\\".\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:02:20\\n[Cut or edit made in tape].\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:02:21\\nSo I had to trace back again in my mind, with my eyes, with my observation: of course, the plants produce seeds, the birds feed on the seeds, and so forth. Small members of the food chain. The ocean is similar but in a different set of relationships. We live on an exuberance of sexuality. We eat the reproductive organs of grasses: wheat, rice. Because herring or cod have millions of eggs that hatch into millions of almost-microscopic fry, the food chains of the ocean are made possible.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:03:16 \\nReads \\\"The Song of the Taste\\\" from Regarding Wave.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:04:51\\nI read that because it goes so nicely with this other poem, called \\\"Song to the Raw Material\\\". I really think a lot about these things these days because I've put myself deliberately in the position of having to know where my food comes from, and it's no longer a question of, like do I eat natural foods or supermarket foods, or do I eat meat or am I a vegetarian, it's more sophisticated than that, it's a lot more subtle than that. Like literally, where did it come from. And by what means can I have a sense of responsibility and gratitude to what it is that I'm eating and in what sense can I repay that world, whichever world it is, that I am feeding off of. Well of course one way you can repay it is by being a willing, and gracious, member of the food chain yourself. Now we are rather large animals, which means that we are rather high in the food chain. But nonetheless, quite edible. And it would be a great honour, really, to be eaten by a large, rare predator, and I can't think of any way I'd rather finish my days than to give myself to a grizzly bear, if I could, you know, choose when. [Laughter]. Like get all my affairs in order first. I'm not ready yet! Or at least, go back, as large creatures often do, go back into the cycle of feeding smaller creatures. But you can see the basic biological ignorance of this society, the ignorance of what systems really are, what basic systems are, and what our responsibilities to our membership in basic systems is, by the fact that they either burn people up or they fill them full of chemicals which make them not tasty, and lock them in bronze caskets, and so forth. The only people in the world who are righteous about this particular question seem to be the Tibetans and the Parsis, I mean, really righteous about it. The Tibetans and the Parsis have an old tradition, which is mentioned, it's so old that it's mentioned by Herodotus [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11925546], in talking about a group of people called the Magi, in Persia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q794], that is to say they expose their dead in elevated places and feed them to the vultures. That's one very elegant way, actually, to deal with it. The Eskimo, an Eskimo shaman whose name I forget, is reputed to have said, \\\"We live dangerous lives, because our food consists entirely of souls\\\". “Song to the Raw Material”.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:08:12\\nReads \\\"Song of the Raw Material\\\".\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:09:12\\nReads \\\"Steak\\\" [published later in Turtle Island; audience laughter and applause throughout].\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:10:53\\nI saw that in Lethbridge [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q270887], Alberta [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1951]. [Audience laughter]. The creation mythology of Japan, called the kojiki, is very long, and very complicated. I tried to boil it down to some kind of a formula I could understand, at least boil down the first hundred pages of it, so I wrote this--it's about how the world is created according to the Japanese creation mythology. I think. I think that's what it is.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:11:28\\nReads \\\"No matter, never mind\\\" [published later in Turtle Island].\\n\\nAudience\\n00:12:14\\nLaughter and applause.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:12:24\\nIt's funny how the language is smarter than we are, [audience laughter] yeah. Like we can get hung up on mind/matter dualism, but the language won't accept it. It says the same thing two ways. \\\"The Bath\\\". Where we live we don't have any electricity or propane, and so we do everything with wood, including heating our bath, which we found the best wood-fired bathing system was a Finnish-type sauna, and...so this poem, you know just to set the scene, it's a somewhat longer poem, this poem is a sauna, with a wood-burning stove that also heats a tank of water on the side, and with a bench that you sit up on and a lower place that you can get down on and wash with. You can get these wood-fired sauna-stoves from some Finnish outfit in Michigan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1166]. The only place in the United States that I have been able to locate that makes sauna stoves that fire wood. I highly recommend them. The personae in this are my wife, my three-year old son, my three-and a-half year old son, my two-year-old son.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:14:00\\nReads \\\"The Bath\\\" [published later in Turtle Island].\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:19:31\\nSome friends said to us, when we moved up to the backcountry, ah, you're just getting away from your responsibilities. You're evading the struggle. So I wrote this little poem as a, kind of a light answer to that. It's called \\\"Front Lines\\\".\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:19:59\\nReads \\\"Front Lines\\\" [published later in Turtle Island].\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:21:36\\nThat poem is not an exaggeration of what we're doing. We are, like, where I am and a number of other people I know around this continent, have their backs up against the wilderness, so to speak, and they're not going to let this thing go past them. If they can help it, or as you say, over my dead body. The California Indians used to set control burns, as distinct from wildfires, forestry terms, which contributed to the maintenance of what you might call a climax timber stand, keeping the undergrowth burnt out, keeping an annual deer-forage coming in, and protecting the large timber, as it were, from destructive forest fires, because whenever a forest fire--which is very common in California [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q99], it's an annual event--whenever forest fires go through, went through the forests when they were in that condition, it simply went through taking the ground cover off, but couldn't get hot enough or high enough to kill the large trees. With the advent of logging, mining, and the Manzanita brush that follows on that, the whole flora of California changed radically. All of the flora of California changed. What happened was that the woods got very brushy, and then the early forestry practices which were, of course, to put forest fires out whenever they came on them, in some ways contributed to the increasingly dangerous situation of dense brush, logging slash laying around, second-growth trees not really very large yet, and a situation where every brush fire that went through killed absolutely everything grew up. And that's the state of the state now, to a large extent, although there are some hip foresters now who are back into control burns as best as they can. This poem is called \\\"Control Burn\\\" and it only starts from what I'm just talking about, taking that as an image.\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:24:00\\nReads \\\"Control Burn\\\" [published later in Turtle Island].\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:25:37\\nReads \\\"The Great Mother\\\" [published later in Turtle Island].\\n\\nEND\\n00:26:55\\n\",\"notes\":\"Gary Snyder reads poems later collected in Turtle Island (New Directions, 1974), originally published in a limited edition book called Manzanita (Four Seasons Press, 1972). He also reads one poem from Regarding Wave (Fulcrum Press, 1971), one poem from Coyote’s Journal #9 (1971), one poem from The Fudo Trilogy (Shaman Drum, 1973), and several from Mountains and Rivers Without End (Counterpoint) only published in 1997, as well as other poems from unknown sources. \\n\\nI006-11-106=AC.1\\n00:17- Introducer (Perhaps Richard Sommer) introduces Gary Snyder. [INDEX: semi mythological things, climbed mountains and traveled to India with Allen Ginsberg, Jack\\nKerouac’s book character, wilderness, living in precincts of Japanese Buddhist\\nmonasteries, keeping cultures from obliteration, poems out of the consciousness,\\nwindows, open world, window-maker].\\n02:58- Gary Snyder introduces the reading, and poetry cycle “Charms” and long poem\\n“Mountains and Rivers Without End”. [INDEX: reading in two sets, all poems read\\nare unpublished, long poem in-progress “Mountains and Rivers Without End”, returning\\nfrom Japan to the U.S. three years prior, wife and children, settling in the foothills of the\\nSierra Nevada, north slope of the south fork of the Yuba river, three-thousand foot\\nelevation, origins on a farm, miners in Leadville, Colorado, how to get back to father’s\\noccupation, childhood, grandfather, fences, as a child in nature, spring (river), American\\nfrontier, medieval Europeans, neolithic Mediterranean people, neolithic Japanese people, neolithic Chinese people, history, anthropology, biology, responsibility of humans’ place on earth, choices we make in terms of nature, scientific foresters, ecologists, American Indians (as teachers)].\\n08:02- Introduces poetry cycle “Charms”, and “Grace for Love”. [INDEX: debts, search for knowledge, grace (gratitude for meal), rancheria, Japanese Buddhist grace, love, level of validity in the Catholic Church’s objection to contraception, food, sacrament, act of love, transference of ‘seed’ or knowledge, transferral of merit, species-increase ritual; from unknown source].\\n11:09- Chants “Grace for Love”.\\n14:20- Reads “A Curse on the Man in the Pentagon, Washington”. [INDEX: from unknown source].\\n16:37- Explains last chorus of “A Curse on the Man in the Pentagon, Washington”.\\n16:43- Reads “I went into the Maverick Bar”. [INDEX: from Turtle Island].\\n18:25- Introduces “Anasazi”. [INDEX: means ‘ancient ones’ in Navajo, name of people living in Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde and Canyon de Chelly, ancestors of present Pueblo people, 12th century, the great drought of the 13th century, civilization, two millennia of ‘deep experience’, written at Canyon de Chelly; from Turtle Island]\\n19:52- Reads “Anasazi”.\\n21:11- Introduces “The Way West Underground”. [INDEX: Canyon de Chelly, West and Great Basin, granite outcroppings of the northern shores of Lake Superior, petroglyphs,\\nAnthropologists, salvaging remnants of dying cultures, vocabulary of motifs, hand\\npetroglyph, caves of southern France and northern Spain, 40,000 years ago, intellectual\\npoem, tracing out lines of connections between Americans, American Indians, prehistoric ancestors, main impetus of the poem is an international mystery religion called the Bear Cult, runs from Finland to Utah, Siberia, central theme: girl who marries a bear; from Turtle Island].\\n25:12- Reads “The Way West Underground”.\\n26:55- Interjects comment about poem. [INDEX: Finnish men singing folk songs].\\n[*note: cut or edit made in transcript, time elapsed unknown*]\\n29:16- Snyder is talking (not sure if it’s about the poem). [INDEX: observation, plants, seeds, birds, small members of food chain, ocean, exuberance of sexuality, reproductive organs of grasses, wheat, rice, herring, cod, millions of eggs, food chain of the ocean].\\n30:11- Reads “The Song of the Taste”. [INDEX: from Regarding Wave].\\n31:46- Introduces “Song for the Raw Material”. [INDEX: food, natural vs. supermarket foods, vegetarian vs. carnivore, being part of the food chain, being eaten by a bear, biological ignorance of society, basic systems, chemicals, Tibetans and Parsis, Herodotus, Maghi in Persia, feeding dead to the vultures, Eskimo shaman quote].\\n35:07- Reads “Song of the Raw Material”. [INDEX: perhaps “Song to the Raw Material”,\\nunknown source].\\n36:07- Reads “Steak”. [INDEX: from Turtle Island].\\n37:48- Introduces “No matter, never mind”. [INDEX: Lethbridge, Alberta, creation mythology of Japan (koji-ki); from Turtle Island].\\n38:23- Reads “No matter, never mind”.\\n39:19- Introduces “The Bath”. [INDEX: no electricity (wood heating), Finnish sauna, poem as a sauna, Michigan, personae in the poem are his wife, three sons; from Turtle Island].\\n40:55- Reads “The Bath”.\\n46:26- Introduces “Front Lines”. [INDEX: evading the struggle; from Turtle Island].\\n46:54- Reads “Front Lines”.\\n48:31- Explains parts of “Front Lines”, introduces “Control Burn”. [INDEX: wilderness,\\nCalifornia ‘Indians’, control burns, forest fires in California, logging, mining, Manzanita\\nbrush, flora changing; from Turtle Island].\\n50:55- Reads “Control Burn”.\\n52:32- Reads “The Great Mother”. [INDEX: from Turtle Island].\\n\\nFIRST CD (I006-11-106=AC.1)\\nPoem Read:\\t\\t\\t\\t\\t\\tTime Stamp\\tDuration (mins):\\n\\n“Grace for Love”  \\t\\t\\t\\t\\t00:11:09   \\t03:10\\n“A Curse on the Man in the Pentagon…” \\t00:14:20        02:17\\n“I went into the Maverick Bar…”  \\t\\t\\t00:16:23        01:42\\n“Anasazi”  \\t\\t\\t\\t\\t\\t00:19:52        02:17\\n“The Way West Underground”  \\t\\t\\t00:25:12        04:01\\n“The Song of the Taste”  \\t\\t\\t\\t00:30:11        01:35\\n“Song for the Raw Material”  \\t\\t\\t00:35:07        00:58\\n“Steak”  \\t\\t\\t\\t\\t\\t00:36:07        01:41\\n“No Matter, Never Mind”   \\t\\t\\t\\t00:38:23        00:46\\n“The Bath” \\t\\t\\t\\t\\t\\t00:40:55        05:29\\n“Front Lines” \\t\\t\\t\\t\\t\\t00:46:54        01:36\\n“Control Burn” \\t\\t\\t\\t\\t00:50:55        01:37\\n“The Great Mother”  \\t\\t\\t\\t00:52:32        00:42\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/gary-snyder-at-sgwu-1971/#2\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/gary_snyder_i006-11-106-3.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"gary_snyder_i006-11-106-3.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:30:59\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"74.4 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"gary_snyder_i006-11-106-3.mp3 [File 3 of 4]\\n\\nGary Snyder\\n00:00:00\\nEverything in this next poem is all true. Almost everything.\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:00:17\\nReads \\\"The Call of the Wild\\\", Part I [published later in Turtle Island]. \\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:00:32\\nReads \\\"The Call of the Wild\\\", Part II [published later in Turtle Island]. \\n \\nAnnotation\\n00:01:52.06\\nReads \\\"The Call of the Wild,\\\" Part III [published later in Turtle Island]. \\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:04:11\\nReads \\\"Source\\\" [published later in Turtle Island]. \\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:05:40\\nIn the poem \\\"Charms\\\", which is dedicated to Michael McClure [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1390054], who has more than any other living poet, or person even that I know, has gone farther than anyone else, I think, into becoming one with, in understanding, in penetrating, in perceiving the consciousness of other beings.\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:06:15\\nReads \\\"Charms\\\" [published later in Turtle Island]. \\n \\nAudience\\n00:07:45\\nApplause. \\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:08:01\\nI want to read one little poem that kind of, that I just wrote on the plane the other day.  Flying in here yesterday I wrote this. And then we'll take a break. But this belongs, really, with these poems. \\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:08:15\\nReads \\\"How did a great red-tailed Hawk come to lie on the shoulder of Interstate 5\\\" [published later in Turtle Island]. \\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:10:05\\nOkay, let's take a break.  \\n\\nAudience\\n00:10:07\\nApplause.\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:10:17\\nAmbient Sound [voices].\\n \\nAudience Member 1\\n00:10:29\\nDo you remember getting tiny toys for your children from San Francisco [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q62]? There was a small book that I saw in the States, folded out in a certain, section-by-section, parts of the earth kinda, growing larger and larger and larger...\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:10:46\\nI haven't seen it.\\n \\nAudience Member 1\\n00:10:48\\nNo, I guess...it's sort of, um, anti-war toys.\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:10:51\\nSounds nice. Yeah. Some place in San Francisco you can get it?\\n \\nAudience Member 1\\n00:10:56\\nUm, I don't know, it was from a certain, a certain group of people, and I don't remember their names. It was beautiful. Nice gift to give little kids.\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:11:07\\nI shall watch for it when I go there again. Thank you. \\n \\nAudience Member 1\\n00:11:13\\nOkay. You bet. [Inaudible]\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:11:14\\nOkay. [Laughter].\\n \\nAudience Member 2\\n00:11:19\\nMan you're incredible. You're so good. I really dig your stuff.\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:11:26\\n[Laughter]. Thank you.\\n \\nAudience Member 2\\n00:11:26\\nI really dig it, will you come for a drink with me later? With me and my friends?\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:11:31\\nI gotta go some place later.\\n \\nAudience Member 2\\n00:11:33\\nYou sure? \\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:11:34\\nYeah. I mean, like I...they got something set up for me. \\n \\nAudience Member 2\\n00:11:38\\nI don't, I don't know, I really dig that, I really dig that [inaudible] I just came in, I thought your stuff was so incredible...Your stuff, the way you bring it across to people!\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:11:51\\nWell, that's what I try to do.\\n \\nAudience Member 2\\n00:11:54\\nHave you written a book?\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:11:54\\nI've written a lot of books. [Laughter].\\n \\nAudience Member 2\\n00:11:58\\nNo no no, no really, no really, I don't know too much about...Gary Snyder, you know?\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:12:04\\nWell, you'd probably find, I don't know, because I'm coming here, because of my being here now, they've probably got some of my books in the bookstore, if you want to go look. [Laughter].\\n \\nAudience Member 2\\n00:12:13\\nSee I'm writing this play right now, you know? I'm trying to express myself and it's really...it's really strange [Cut off abruptly].\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:12:27\\n[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:12:28\\nWell, there has been a great deal of opposition to nuclear energy, and nuclear power-generating stations, in the United States so effective in some areas that a lot of generating plants have been blocked or slowed down in their construction. And I think that the United States government is about to launch on an enormous effort to calm the public and to lull it into accepting massive developments of nuclear energy generating centres, fast-breeder and later, perhaps, fusion. Now I myself would have no objection to such a thing if I could be convinced that it was safe, both in the long term and the short term, and although it might be conceivably safe in the short term, I can see no way in which it would be safe in the long run, because nuclear wastes accumulated over, say, several centuries, as they might be, or more, in increasing quantities around the globe, are going to out eventually, and even though you can say, well, we're putting it off for five hundred thousand years, five hundred thousand years is not a very long time.  And if we are feeding a wasteful, industrial, technological, consumer society for a few more centuries, buying it a few more centuries of life, at the expense of all future biological health on the planet, it's obviously not worth it. The Amchitka test, which is possibly interested in such things as what uses very large explosions would have in releasing oil from oil-bearing shale or something like that, I think the U.S. administration is going ahead with this test in the face of all this criticism, deliberately, as a deliberate and very intelligent gamble. The chances are that nothing will happen. When nothing happens, then they will be able to say, \\\"All you people were hysterical. You see?  Nothing happened\\\".  And that will buy them a lot of time and a lot of credibility to proceed strongly and forcibly with more nuclear testing and more nuclear power generation development. And the conservationists, perhaps, have in a way, played into their hands, by making such a big issue out of it, so that they will be left holding an empty bag if nothing happens. If something does happen, then the administration can say, \\\"You're right, we were wrong\\\", and Nixon [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9588] perhaps forfeits the next election. That's all. Okay. \\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:15:25.61\\n\\\"Mountains and Rivers Without End\\\" is a poem that I've been working on, it's a long poem, a long series of interconnected long poems that I've been working on for some years. I'm going to read several sections from that tonight. Including one or two that are very recent, in fact these are all pretty recent. \\\"Mountains and Rivers without End\\\". The title of the poem comes from a Yuan Dynasty [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7313] Chinese scroll, that unfolds sideways and is thirty-five feet long. By way of introduction, a little poem called \\\"The Rabbit\\\". There are many sections to this, I'm only going to read [counts under breath.]..six tonight.\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:16:27\\nReads \\\"The Rabbit\\\" [published later in Mountains and Rivers Without End].\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:18:04\\n\\\"The California Water Plan\\\". The state of California at the moment is engaged in a large, incredibly wasteful, incredibly stupid, illegal, even by their own terms, water plan project, which if they're lucky, will salinate the Sacramento Valley [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1686914] and make agriculture permanently impossible. I was up in the Minarets [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2412852] in the Sierra last summer, thinking about the California Water Plan [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q28228216], and I perceived something of what the true California Water Plan was. So I wrote this down. It refers to an obscure little Buddhist god called Fudo, or Achala [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q337624], who is my particular guardian, my personal guardian and my personal teacher, and, so I use, I refer to him, in several poems. The other two poems in which I refer to him actually are a piece called \\\"Smokey the Bear Sutra\\\", and another piece called \\\"Spell Against Demons\\\". This is the final, actually, this is the third and final poem in the trilogy of Fudo poems. Also. But you'll find all about Fudo in this poem, it'll drive you crazy.    \\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:19:48\\nReads \\\"The California Water Plan\\\" [later published in The Fudo Trilogy].\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:25:34\\n\\\"Kumarajiva's Mother\\\". Now, the rest of these poems that I'm going to read this evening are cutting back and forth between ancient India [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q668] and ancient North America. I--living as I do and where I have lived all my life, we face the Pacific [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q98]. And, the American Indian came from Asia [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q48], or vice versa, the Asians came from North America. I mean I know a Shoshone who says that. He says, \\\"We've always been here, those Asians came from here\\\". [Laughter].  \\\"What do you mean we came from someplace else, that's some white anthropologist theory\\\". [Laughter]. \\\"Kumarajiva's Mother.\\\" Kumarajiva [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q335293] was a great Buddhist monk-scholar-translator, who was kidnapped by the Chinese from Central Asia, by force, and carried off to China [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q148] where he was made to translate Sanskrit Buddhist texts into Chinese, and he stayed there the rest of his life, with a crew of about eighty Chinese assistants, day and night, translating sutras. He did a lot of translation. He also got in trouble, because he liked girls, and on one occasion, because he actually had mistresses apparently, he ate a bowl of needles, like you sew with needles, in front of an assembly of all the monks and assistants in Peking [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q956], or no it wasn't Peking in those days, it was Chang'an [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6501000], all of the monks and assistants in the capital, Chang'an, and then he said, \\\"When you boys can eat needles, you can have girlfriends too\\\". [Audience laughter]. But this poem is about his mother. [Audience laughter]. And I really, I mean I could explain to you why I wrote this poem but it isn't really worth explaining, I'll just read it. It has to do partly with the fact that my mother has freckles. And I was trying to figure out at this time, when I wrote this, I was trying to figure out whatever happened to women in Buddhism? Like something happened to 'em. They got lost. For a long time, anyway.\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:28:22\\nReads \\\"Kumarajiva's Mother\\\".\\n \\nEND\\n00:30:59\\n\",\"notes\":\"I006-11-106=AC.2\\n00:02- Gary Snyder introduces “The Call of the Wild”. [INDEX: true; from Turtle Island (New Directions, 1974).]\\n00:17- Reads “The Call of the Wild”, Part I.\\n00:32- Reads “The Call of the Wild”, Part II.\\n01:52- Reads “The Call of the Wild”, Part III.\\n04:11- Reads “Source”. [INDEX: from Turtle Island (New Directions, 1974).]\\n05:40- Introduces “Charms”. [INDEX: dedicated to Michael McClure, consciousness of other beings; from Turtle Island (New Directions, 1974).]\\n06:15- Reads “Charms”.\\n08:01- Introduces “The Dead by the Side of the Road” [INDEX: wrote on the plane the        previous day; from Turtle Island (New Directions, 1974)]\\n08:15- Reads “The Dead by the Side of the Road”.\\n09:55- Break is taken, audience member #1 asks question. [INDEX: suggests small anti-war children’s toys.]\\n11:26- Audience member #2 asks question (part is cut). [INDEX: books, bookstore, writing play]\\n12:21- Gary Snyder speaks about opposition to nuclear energy. [INDEX: nuclear energy, nuclear power-generating stations, U.S. government, energy generating centres, industrial technological consumer society, expense on the future biological health of the planet, Amchitka test, oil-bearing shale, conservationists, Nixon, election.]\\n15:25- Introduces “Mountains and Rivers Without End” and “The Rabbit”. [INDEX: long \\tpoem, inter-connected long poems, reading several sections from it, title from Yuan     \\tDynasty Chinese scroll, little poem called “The Rabbit”, many sections- only reading 6;   \\tperhaps published as “Jackrabbit”, published much later in Mountains and Rivers Without End (Counterpoint, 1997).]\\n16:27- Reads “The Rabbit”.\\n18:04- Introduces “The California Water Plan”. [INDEX: state of California, water plan      project, salinate the Sacramento Valley and make the Sacramento Valley agriculturally  \\tdead, Minarets in the Sierra, Buddhist god called Fudo or Achala, personal guardian or    teacher, other two poems that reference Buddhist god: “Smokey the Bear Sutra” and “Spell Against Demons”, third poem in trilogy of Fudo poems; from The Fudo Trilogy      \\t(Shaman Drum, 1973).]\\n19:48- Reads “The California Water Plan”.\\n25:34- Introduces “Kumarajiva’s Mother”. [INDEX: rest of poems read are from ancient India and ancient North America, Pacific Ocean, American Indians from Asia or vice versa, Shoshone, white anthropologist theory, Kumarajiva was Buddhist monk-scholar-  \\ttranslator, Central Asia, China, translated Sanskrit Buddhist texts to Chinese, translating sutras, Peking (or Chang’an), Snyder’s mother, women in Buddhism; from unknown         source.]\\n28:22- Reads “Kumarajiva’s Mother”.\\n30:59- CUT made in tape, Snyder begins mid-sentence, introduces “The Humpbacked Flute Player”. [INDEX: 8th century, Mahayana university called NAllenda, China, Buddhism, school of the Mind Only, the school of Emptiness, two aspects of the poem, American Indian petroglyph figure of a hump-backed flute player, Sonora, Mexico, Great Basin, The Ghost Dance (Messianic Indian Religion started by a Paiute named Wovoka), oldest living beings are the bristle-coned pine, White Mountains, California; published in Coyote’s Journal 9 (1971) and in Mountains and Rivers Without End (Counterpoint, 1997).]\\n32:59- Reads “The Humpbacked Flute Player”.\\n39:36- Introduces “Down”. [INDEX: ordering of poems; from unknown source.]\\n40:05- Reads “Down”.\\n43:18- Introducer Richard Sommer thanks Gary Snyder, announces Charles Simic’s     \\treading. [INDEX: Charles Simic, November 19th, 1971.]\\n \\nSECOND CD (I006-11-106=AC.2) \\nPoems Read                                   \\t\\t\\t\\tTime Stamp:  Duration:\\n“The Call of the Wild” – Part I                                          \\t00:00:17      \\t00:16\\n“The Call of the Wild” – Part II                                         \\t00:00:32      \\t01:17\\n“The Call of the Wild” – Part III                                        \\t00:01:52      \\t02:15\\n“Source”                                                                             \\t00:04:11      \\t01:27\\n“Charms”                                                                            \\t00:06:15      \\t01:29\\n“The Dead by the Side of the Road”                                  \\t00:08:15      \\t01:40\\n“The Rabbit”                                                                       \\t00:16:27      \\t01:35\\n“The California Water Plan”                                  \\t        \\t00:19:48      \\t05:45\\n“Kumurajiva’s Mother”      \\t                                            \\t00:28:22      \\t02:36\\n“The Hump-Backed Flute Player”                                     \\t00:32:59      \\t06:34\\n“Down”                                                                               \\t00:40:05      \\t02:42\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/gary-snyder-at-sgwu-1971/#3\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/gary_snyder_i006-11-106-4.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"gary_snyder_i006-11-106-4.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:12:45\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"30.6 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"gary_snyder_i006-11-106-4.mp3 [File 4 of 4]\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:00:00\\n...alone in the 8th century, and studied at an enormous Buddhist, Mahayana university called Nalanda [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q216243], for fifteen years, and then walked back to China, with a fraying pack full of books, which he translated for the next twenty years after he got back to China. He brought the school of Buddhism, which is called the school of Mind Only, and the school of Emptiness. That's one aspect of this next poem. Another aspect is a little petroglyph, American Indian petroglyph figure, called the hump-backed flute player, a little stick figure playing the flute, with a pack on his back, walking. He was found pecked on the rocks from Sonora [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q46422], Mexico [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q96] up into the Great Basin, and about which almost nothing is known. The Ghost Dance, which was a Messianic Indian religion, started by a Paiute named Wovoka https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q558420], which asserted that perhaps by magic the white man could be swept away from North America and the game would return.  And finally, the oldest living beings are the bristle-coned pine, who live in the White Mountains [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1556007], at an elevation of nine thousand feet in eastern California, the oldest of which is something like four thousand five hundred years old. So this poem is called \\\"The Humpbacked Flute Player\\\".\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:01:59\\nReads \\\"The Humpbacked Flute Player\\\" from Coyote’s Journal #9 [and published later in Mountains and Rivers Without End]. \\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:08:36\\nI'm going to finish with one more poem called \\\"Down\\\". These poems are not in the order that they're going to be, but they're in a convenient order for the moment.\\n \\nGary Snyder\\n00:09:05\\nReads \\\"Down\\\".\\n \\nAudience\\n00:11:48\\nApplause.\\n \\nRichard (Dick) Sommer\\n00:12:18\\nI can't thank you for that. I don't know any way. Charles Simic [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q722555] will be reading on November 19th. Thank you. \\n\\nAudience\\n00:12:40 \\nApplause.\\n\\nEND\\n00:12:45\\n\",\"notes\":\"I006-11-106=AC.2\\n00:02- Gary Snyder introduces “The Call of the Wild”. [INDEX: true; from Turtle Island (New Directions, 1974).]\\n00:17- Reads “The Call of the Wild”, Part I.\\n00:32- Reads “The Call of the Wild”, Part II.\\n01:52- Reads “The Call of the Wild”, Part III.\\n04:11- Reads “Source”. [INDEX: from Turtle Island (New Directions, 1974).]\\n05:40- Introduces “Charms”. [INDEX: dedicated to Michael McClure, consciousness of other beings; from Turtle Island (New Directions, 1974).]\\n06:15- Reads “Charms”.\\n08:01- Introduces “The Dead by the Side of the Road” [INDEX: wrote on the plane the        previous day; from Turtle Island (New Directions, 1974)]\\n08:15- Reads “The Dead by the Side of the Road”.\\n09:55- Break is taken, audience member #1 asks question. [INDEX: suggests small anti-war children’s toys.]\\n11:26- Audience member #2 asks question (part is cut). [INDEX: books, bookstore, writing play]\\n12:21- Gary Snyder speaks about opposition to nuclear energy. [INDEX: nuclear energy, nuclear power-generating stations, U.S. government, energy generating centres, industrial technological consumer society, expense on the future biological health of the planet, Amchitka test, oil-bearing shale, conservationists, Nixon, election.]\\n15:25- Introduces “Mountains and Rivers Without End” and “The Rabbit”. [INDEX: long \\tpoem, inter-connected long poems, reading several sections from it, title from Yuan     \\tDynasty Chinese scroll, little poem called “The Rabbit”, many sections- only reading 6;   \\tperhaps published as “Jackrabbit”, published much later in Mountains and Rivers Without End (Counterpoint, 1997).]\\n16:27- Reads “The Rabbit”.\\n18:04- Introduces “The California Water Plan”. [INDEX: state of California, water plan      project, salinate the Sacramento Valley and make the Sacramento Valley agriculturally  \\tdead, Minarets in the Sierra, Buddhist god called Fudo or Achala, personal guardian or    teacher, other two poems that reference Buddhist god: “Smokey the Bear Sutra” and “Spell Against Demons”, third poem in trilogy of Fudo poems; from The Fudo Trilogy      \\t(Shaman Drum, 1973).]\\n19:48- Reads “The California Water Plan”.\\n25:34- Introduces “Kumarajiva’s Mother”. [INDEX: rest of poems read are from ancient India and ancient North America, Pacific Ocean, American Indians from Asia or vice versa, Shoshone, white anthropologist theory, Kumarajiva was Buddhist monk-scholar-  \\ttranslator, Central Asia, China, translated Sanskrit Buddhist texts to Chinese, translating sutras, Peking (or Chang’an), Snyder’s mother, women in Buddhism; from unknown         source.]\\n28:22- Reads “Kumarajiva’s Mother”.\\n30:59- CUT made in tape, Snyder begins mid-sentence, introduces “The Humpbacked Flute Player”. [INDEX: 8th century, Mahayana university called NAllenda, China, Buddhism, school of the Mind Only, the school of Emptiness, two aspects of the poem, American Indian petroglyph figure of a hump-backed flute player, Sonora, Mexico, Great Basin, The Ghost Dance (Messianic Indian Religion started by a Paiute named Wovoka), oldest living beings are the bristle-coned pine, White Mountains, California; published in Coyote’s Journal 9 (1971) and in Mountains and Rivers Without End (Counterpoint, 1997).]\\n32:59- Reads “The Humpbacked Flute Player”.\\n39:36- Introduces “Down”. [INDEX: ordering of poems; from unknown source.]\\n40:05- Reads “Down”.\\n43:18- Introducer Richard Sommer thanks Gary Snyder, announces Charles Simic’s     \\treading. [INDEX: Charles Simic, November 19th, 1971.]\\n \\nSECOND CD (I006-11-106=AC.2) \\nPoems Read                                   \\t\\t\\t\\tTime Stamp:  Duration:\\n“The Call of the Wild” – Part I                                          \\t00:00:17      \\t00:16\\n“The Call of the Wild” – Part II                                         \\t00:00:32      \\t01:17\\n“The Call of the Wild” – Part III                                        \\t00:01:52      \\t02:15\\n“Source”                                                                             \\t00:04:11      \\t01:27\\n“Charms”                                                                            \\t00:06:15      \\t01:29\\n“The Dead by the Side of the Road”                                  \\t00:08:15      \\t01:40\\n“The Rabbit”                                                                       \\t00:16:27      \\t01:35\\n“The California Water Plan”                                  \\t        \\t00:19:48      \\t05:45\\n“Kumurajiva’s Mother”      \\t                                            \\t00:28:22      \\t02:36\\n“The Hump-Backed Flute Player”                                     \\t00:32:59      \\t06:34\\n“Down”                                                                               \\t00:40:05      \\t02:42\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/gary-snyder-at-sgwu-1971/#4\"}]"],"score":2.1907105},{"id":"1299","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":["Christopher Levenson at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 10 March 1972 "],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"CHRIS LEVINSON TAPE #1 OF 2 MASTER I006-11-104.1\" written on the spine of the tape's box. CHRIS LEVINSON refers to Chris Levenson. LEVINSON is misspelled. \"I006-11-104.1\" written on sticker on the reel. \"CHRIS LEVENSON TAPE #1 OF 2 MASTER 3-72--012-7 3 3/4 ips 1/2 track I006/SR104.1\" written on the front of the tape's box.\n\n\"CHRIS LEVINSON TAPE #2 OF 2 MASTER I006-11-104.2\" written on the spine of the tape's box. CHRIS LEVINSON refers to Chris Levenson. LEVINSON is misspelled. \"I006-11-104.2\" written on sticker on the reel. \"CHRIS LEVENSON TAPE #2 OF 2 MASTER 3-72--012-7 3 3/4 ips 1/2 track I006/SR104.2\" written on the front of the tape's box."],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 6"],"item_identifiers":["[I006-11-104.1, I006-11-104.2]"],"creator_names":["Levenson, Christopher"],"creator_names_search":["Levenson, Christopher"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/33620164\",\"name\":\"Levenson, Christopher\",\"dates\":\"1934-\",\"notes\":\"Poet, editor and translator Christopher Levenson was born in London, England in 1934. He studied at Cambridge University, the University of Bristol and at the University of Iowa, where he received his Master’s degree in 1970. Levenson edited Poetry from Cambridge (Fortune Press) in 1958 and was a contributor to New Poets, 1959: Iain Chrichton Smith, Karen Gershon, Christopher Levenson (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1959) for which he won an Eric Gregory Award in 1960. His first book of poetry, Cairns, was published in 1969 in England by Chatto & Windus Press, followed by Stills in 1972, published by the same press. Levenson emigrated to Canada in 1968 and taught Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Carleton University until 1999, becoming an Adjunct Professor. He then published Into the Open (Golden Dog Press, 1977) and The Journey Back (Sesame Press, 1978) which won the Archibald Lampman Award. Levenson has spent much time living in the Netherlands and in Germany, and translated both Seeking Hearts Solace (Aliquando Press, 1981) and Light of the World (Netherlandic Press, 1982). Arc Magazine was founded in 1978 with Michael Gnarowski, and Levenson served as main editor until 1988. In 1981, Levenson founded the Arc Reading Series in Ottawa, which ran for ten years. Levenson then published Arriving at night (Mosaic Press, 1986), Half Truths (Wolsak & Wynn, 1990) and Duplicities: New and Selected Poems (Mosaic Press, 1993). Levenson co-founded and served as series editor of the Harbinger Poetry Series at Carleton University Press from 1994-1999, and was a Reviews Editor for Literary Review of Canada in 1997 and English Studies in Canada from 1998-2002.  After retiring from Carleton University in 1999, he has taught at the University of St Petersburg, Russia (2002) and Kohinoor Business School in Indian (2004-2005). His most recent publications include The Bridge (Buschek Books, 2000) and Local Time (StoneFlower Press, 2006).\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Author\",\"Performer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"name\":\"\",\"dates\":\"\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[]}]"],"Production_Date":[1972],"material_description":["[{\"side\":\"\",\"image\":\"\",\"other\":\"\",\"extent\":\"1/4 inch\",\"AV_types\":\"Audio\",\"tape_brand\":\"Scotch\",\"generations\":\"Master\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"3 3/4 ips\",\"sound_quality\":\"Good\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"track_configuration\":\"Half-track\",\"material_designation\":\"Reel to Reel\",\"physical_composition\":\"Magnetic Tape\",\"accompanying_material\":\"\",\"other_physical_description\":\"\"},{\"side\":\"\",\"image\":\"\",\"other\":\"\",\"extent\":\"1/4 inch\",\"AV_types\":\"Audio\",\"tape_brand\":\"Scotch\",\"generations\":\"Master\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"3 3/4 ips\",\"sound_quality\":\"Good\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"track_configuration\":\"Half-track\",\"material_designation\":\"Reel to Reel\",\"physical_composition\":\"Magnetic Tape\",\"accompanying_material\":\"\",\"other_physical_description\":\"\"}]"],"material_designations":["Reel to Reel","Reel to Reel"],"physical_compositions":["Magnetic Tape","Magnetic Tape"],"recording_type":["Analogue","Analogue"],"AV_type":["Audio","Audio"],"playback_mode":["Mono","Mono"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"1972 3 10\",\"type\":\"Production Date\",\"notes\":\"Date specified in written announcement \\\"Georgian Happenings\\\"\",\"source\":\"Supplemental Material\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building Room H-651\",\"notes\":\"Location specified in written announcement \\\"Georgian Happenings\\\"\",\"address\":\"1455, Boul de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada\",\"latitude\":\"45.4972758\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57893043\"}]"],"Address":["1455, Boul de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada"],"Venue":["Hall Building Room H-651"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Christopher Levenson reads from Cairns (Chatto and Windus, 1969) and Stills (Chatto and Windus, 1972), as well as poems published later in books like Into the Open (Golden Dog Press, 1977) and The Journey Back (Sesame Press, 1978)."],"contents":["chris_levenson_i006-11-104-1.mp3 [File 1 of 2]\n\nIntroducer\n00:00:00\nAbout seven years ago, our lives intersected for about two years at the University of Iowa [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q182973], where Christopher [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5112730], along with two or three other poets suddenly arrived, in that middle state [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1546?wprov=srpw1_0] in the United States [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30?wprov=srpw1_0], with not just English accents, but a whole body of literatures and languages behind them. Christopher was not just in the poetry workshop, but was doing a lot of translations from German and Dutch, writing his own poetry, was a kind of formidable character with these obscure languages, at least obscure to me at the time. He has since come on, after doing his Ph.D. at Carleton [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1041737] where he is an Assistant Professor of English. His third book of poems, Stills, is being published in the next few weeks by Chatto and Windus [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3666843], and should be looked for at your bookstores. He's asked for it to come but it hasn't arrived yet. So without any further delay, Christopher Levenson. \n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:01:54\nGood evening. Trying to decide what I'm going to read this evening, presents the same sort of problems that it always does, when one's being asked to divide oneself up into certain sections, decide which poems you like best, and you know, you love them all, and don't want to make any choices. And to find some headings, some pigeonholes. Well, I'm not very good at this, but I'll start off with a few poems about the United States, about Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16?wprov=srpw1_0], starting off with places, and then move on to some slightly more personal ones, before the interval. Alright, the first poem I want to read is called \"Modus Vivendi\", which, it sounds a bit affected, having a foreign language titles, but I felt this said a little bit more than simply 'way of life' because ‘modus vivendi’ implies something very transitory, and that was one of the aspects of my first impressions at least of American life, that struck me very forcibly, this really came out of my very first day in the States, traveling from New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60] to Chicago [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1297?wprov=srpw1_0] by train.\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:03:42\nReads \"Modus Vivendi\" [from Cairns].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:05:20\nThen, a poem that will be in stills called \"Metropolis\". Well I think this is self-explanatory, and in fact one of reasons why I like reading aloud, is because a fair number of my poems are self-explanatory and don't have to say too much about them. So I won't. \"Metropolis\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:05:49\nReads \"Metropolis\" [from Stills].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:06:57\nThat, I suppose, really brands me as--emotionally speaking, as a European, because it's different here in Montreal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q340]. I've not been to Quebec [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2145] yet, it's different in one or two places, but on the whole, you know, I find myself looking in vain for this sense of a centre. Now, a poem that I wrote not too long ago in Ottawa [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1930]. Called \"Office\", it's a shorter one. Sort this out a bit. Last time I gave a reading, somebody knocked water all over it. Here we go.\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:07:54\nReads \"Office\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:08:15\nAnd then one which is my main claim so far, I suppose, to writing a Canadian poem, \"Horse Sleigh\", certainly it's not one that I could have written anywhere else. One of the kids is at nursery school and they take them out each winter on a horse sleigh ride, and I went along. So, of course, it's not really about a horse sleigh.  One word- half way through, the word 'revenants' these are ghosts that come back to their own--literally, their old haunts. And can't seem to keep away from the place. \"Horse Sleigh\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:09:07\nReads \"Horse Sleigh\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:09:57\nThen, another poem, based pretty obviously I think on personal experience, in the States. It's called \"A Bad Trip\", not mine, somebody else's, but this would be, this I felt was sort of enough to keep me off it. Anyway, \"A Bad Trip\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:10:34\nReads \"A Bad Trip\" [from Stills].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:12:26\nThen, one which came a long, long time after I was actually told of this incident by my wife in fact, and it must be something like 1956, actually it happened, a carnival referred to is a German carnival, and I guess things have changed quite a bit since then. \"Song of the Unmarried Mother\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:13:00\nReads \"Song of the Unmarried Mother\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:14:28\nThen maybe have a little bit of pseudo light relief before we go on. \"Ballad of the Psycho-Analyst\". Which is another, sort of relic, but again not a personal one, this started off as a fine number of my poems do from things people say to me. The first two lines here, \"They took me across the river, they laid me up the hill\", were almost exactly what somebody said. And I took it from there. Alright, \"The Ballad of the Psycho-Analyst\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:15:07\nReads \"The Ballad of the Psycho-Analyst\" [from Cairns].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:16:54\nAnd, I'll read a couple more, sort of more personal ones, I guess. Well, this isn't really, this poem called \"Old Friend\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:17:16\nReads \"Old Friend\" [from Stills].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:19:11\nAnd, \"Maps\". I've always been fascinated by maps and I find looking through my poems, certain images keep on recurring. One of them is that of maps, another one, as maybe you'll see later, is of stones, [unintelligible] and so on. And what I'm referring to in the first section here are these old maps where great chunks have come true and not known and so they just put in a zephyr, a wind, you know, or a dragon, or a dolphin or something like that to  make up for their ignorance. \"Maps\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:19:58\nReads \"Maps\" [from Stills].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:21:29\nThen, a thing in this first part, I'll just read. One found poem, and then two excerpts from a sort of longer work in process. The found poem, I dedicate to Howard and [Marty (?)] Fink because that's where I found it. It's called the \"Bowfoot Scale\". The beaufort scale is simply an explanation in terms of miles per hour, I've left that column out, and in terms of symptoms so to speak of these words that you hear on the weather reports, calm, slight breeze and so forth. \"Beaufort Scale\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:22:21\nReads \"Beaufort Scale\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:23:31\n[Laughter]. I dare say it's a found poem. It's not really mine. I get a lot of fun out of finding poems. Now these next two excerpts are from a poem which is tentatively entitled, \"Hopkins in Piccadilly\", it won't be called that in the end, it's just, it started off thinking what Gerard Manley Hopkins [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q313693] would think of contemporary London [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q84], but it soon left that idea behind and what it's going to be now is a poem in several sections about various aspects of London. Trying to use as many words in my poems that I don't normally use in poems, you know, or that one does not normally see used in poems, and so a lot of, words which are not normally part of my poetic vocabulary. I'm not trying to be arch or archaic or anything like that, simply to expand my vocabulary and, hope to, therefore, I can say new things. Now the two that I've got semi finished, or at least enough to read, one's called \"Charing Cross Road\", if you know London, England [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21], you'll know that this is the road in which you find both some very good book shops and a lot of very sleazy so called hygienic stores, and it's this aspect I'm concentrating on there, and then the second one is on Hyde Park [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q123738], with the idea of the public speakers and the orators. \"Charing Cross Road\" then.\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:25:25\nReads \"Charing Cross Road\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:26:34\nThat's as far as I've got with that bit so far. The next one, \"Hyde Park\", the Hyde Park Speaker's Corner [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q510323] is what I'm thinking of particularly.\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:26:47\nReads \"Hyde Park\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:28:41\nIt's not really supposed to follow quite on from that, but a little bit later. \"But still at least we have our language...\"\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:28:48\nResumes reading “Hyde Park”.\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:29:08\nThat's as far as I've got with that section too for the moment. And I believe the custom is, sometimes, at least, here to have a sort of five or ten minute break and then we will have about another twenty minutes afterwards, if that's alright with you.\n\nUnknown\n00:30:22\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\n\nChristopher Levenson\n00:30:23\nI'll read a few so called political poems, they're not really political in the normal sense, not sort of party political or anything like that, simply concerned about relationships between people in the community or sort of national attitudes, that sort of thing, more than specific political issues. Although this first one that I'm going to read, \"Terrorist\", comes, I think, fairly obviously from a particular situation, with which you here are particularly well acquainted. I was thinking, particularly of the FLQ [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1129564] crisis [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q27702], but it could apply to any terrorist.\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:31:31\nReads \"Terrorist\" [published later in The Journey Back].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:32:35\nI suppose if I have a recurring theme in these quasi-political poems, it is that, the tyranny of the ideal if you like, the way in which we force things to become what we want them to become. Force ourselves to see things so that they fit into our pre-selected beliefs. Alright, a rather different sort of poem called \"The Facts of Life\".  This too will be in the book.\n\nChristopher Levenson\n00:33:13\nReads \"The Facts of Life\" [from Stills].\n \nEND\n00:35:25\n\n\nchris_levenson_i006-11-104-2.mp3 [File 2 of 2] \n\nChristopher Levenson\n00:00:00\nResumes reading \"The Facts of Life\" [from Stills].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:00:59\nAnd another poem that comes from the same sort of period, as I said, I like finding poems, and this one I found in the window of a pharmacy, this time they had notices saying 'watch for these danger signs', they were danger signs of cancer, and I call this little poem, which is, as I say, a political poem, so I won't explain the metaphor any further, \"Introduction to Cancer Diagnosis\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:01:32\nReads \"Introduction to Cancer Diagnosis\" [from Stills].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:02:17\nAnother poem, \"Epitaph for a Killer\", I think you will probably remember the incident this starts from. Charles Whitman [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q453209] going up the University library tower [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q28403236] in Austin [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16559], Texas and just picking a few people off with his telescopic lens gun. And the thing that struck me when I read these reports, as it so often happened with Richard Speck [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q944350] and all those other sort of, mass killers, that people said, 'oh, but he was such a nice boy, such an ordinary boy' you know, 'such a decent lad'. You know, how could anyone so ordinary, you know if he had long hair, or if he'd been a hippie, we would have expected it. But you know, because they didn't go 'round the little- labels on them, they were expected to have conformed completely, and of course they didn't. \"Epitaph for a Killer\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:03:32\nReads \"Epitaph for a Killer\" [from Stills].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:04:49\nI always forget until I finish reading that poem that that last line is not self-explanatory. It's a disease--I think it's called Sickle disease--Pardon? [audience member addresses Levenson]. Sickle Cell Disease [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q185034], okay. Which apparently affects mainly African Negroes, and this is some sort of deficiency in the blood quite simply, but something which is totally inexplicable in the genes anyway. Alright, another, one more sort of pseudo or quasi political poem, this one is called \"Boreland Burlap\". Again, I don't know if you know exactly what I am referring to, but I think the poem explains it sufficiently, the way you get trees transplanted whole nowadays.\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:06:05\nReads \"Boreland Burlap\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:07:05\nAnd now, a section of poems, well, I've put ironically, self-ironically, \"The Solution\" I mean, having presented some political problems--of course, there are no solutions. What I've tried to do in some of the poems I'm going to read now is simply to capture certain textures, or to suggest certain qualities that I admire, or certain aspects of character. The first, well I think probably the only rock poem I'm going to read this evening, called \"Fossil\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:07:57\nReads \"Fossil\" [from Cairns].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:08:50\nThen, a short little poem called \"Moss\", I've got to find it. Well, come back to that in a minute as they say on CBC [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q461761]. Oh here we are, I think, no. Yes, there we are, \"Moss\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:09:22\nReads \"Moss\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:09:44\nAnd now, \"Skyscraper\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:09:54\nReads \"Skyscraper\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:10:22\n\"Mediation on Trees\". This too, part of it is found, so to speak, found of all places, in 'Life’ [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q463198]. The magazine 'Life', an article about a Japanese wood carver, and I'll try to indicate by the tone of my voice, which are the quotations, the rest of it's me of course. \"Meditation on Trees\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:11:03\nReads \"Meditation on Trees\" [published later in The Journey Back].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:12:57\nI just realized, I mentioned to one or two people that I was going to read a poem called \"Ottawa\" and I haven't read it, so I'll slip it in now.\n\nChristopher Levenson\n00:13:07\nReads \"Ottawa\".\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:13:41\nAnother poem called \"The Face of Holland\", again concerned with certain characteristics, here I'm trying to identify national characteristics and the various sort of puns, hereto--I think the only thing I need to explain perhaps are the polders of course the land that originally reclaimed by the sea and now enclosed by dykes. I think the rest of it's self-explanatory.\n\nChristopher Levenson\n00:14:19\nReads \"The Face of Holland\" [published later in The Journey Back].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:15:47\nI think I'll read three more poems if you bear with me, these come under the general heading of 'Art', really the relationship of art to life, though this first one is at least, would-be light poem, called \"The Quartet\", to Carleton, where I teach now. We have a series of concerts in the winter, and most of them are pretty good but one particular one wasn't and it set me thinking about the whole marvelous artificiality of chamber music in a way.\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:16:37\nReads \"The Quartet\" [from Stills].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:18:14\nThen, a poem called \"Watch the Birdie\" which is about the cost of art in human terms. If you know what a sea urchin is like in its natural and in its final state, final [unintelligible] state, it'll help. You know they're all, like, sort of hedgehogs or porcupines and you have to scrape all the spines off and then gauge the insides out, but that's described in lurid detail.\n\nChristopher Levenson\n00:19:02\nReads \"Watch the Birdie\" [from Stills].\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:20:18\nThat sounds a bit pretentious, I'm afraid, those last four words in Latin, but it means \"you also\", or \"you likewise\", and I know gulls' cries don't really sound like that but, that seemed to me the briefest most concise way of making that point at the end of the poem. Finally, a poem which attempts to link love and art. Called \"Bathysphere\", or rather the kind of knowledge involved in both.\n \nChristopher Levenson\n00:21:11\nReads \"Bathysphere\" [published later in Into The Open].\n \nEND\n00:22:51\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Local connections: \\n\\nAccording to the transcript, Levenson and Fink met at the University of Iowa. Since moving to Canada, Levenson’s primary focus has been on the promotion and study of Canadian literature, and he has served on many editorial boards and organized reading series to strengthen the Canadian literary community.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones\\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Sarah MacDonell & Ali Barillaro\\n\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"2 reel-to-reel tapes>CD>2 digital files\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"http://www.writersunion.ca/ww_profile.asp?mem=1141&L=\",\"citation\":\"“Christopher Levenson”. The Writer’s Union of Canada, Members’ Pages. September 16, 2009. \"},{\"url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/christopher-levenson-at-sgwu-1972/#2\",\"citation\":\"“Georgian Happenings”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 10 March 1972.\\n\"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/cairns/oclc/729779089&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Levenson, Christopher. Cairns. London: Chatto and Windus, 1969. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/into-the-open-poems/oclc/3794830&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Levenson, Christopher. Into the Open. Ottawa: Golden Dog Press, 1977. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/stills/oclc/484767872&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Levenson, Christopher. Stills. London: Chatto and Windus, 1972. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/journey-back-and-other-poems/oclc/722588448&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Levenson, Christopher. The Journey Back. Windsor: Sesame Press, 1978. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/levenson-christopher-b-1934/oclc/4811302892&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Stevens, Peter. \\\"Levenson, Christopher\\\". The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"\\\"Christopher Levenson.\\\" Contemporary Authors Online; Detroit: Gale, 2001. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670548953890816,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0104-1_tape.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0104-1_tape.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Christopher Levenson Tape Box 1 - 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Christopher was not just in the poetry workshop, but was doing a lot of translations from German and Dutch, writing his own poetry, was a kind of formidable character with these obscure languages, at least obscure to me at the time. He has since come on, after doing his Ph.D. at Carleton [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1041737] where he is an Assistant Professor of English. His third book of poems, Stills, is being published in the next few weeks by Chatto and Windus [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3666843], and should be looked for at your bookstores. He's asked for it to come but it hasn't arrived yet. So without any further delay, Christopher Levenson. \\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:01:54\\nGood evening. Trying to decide what I'm going to read this evening, presents the same sort of problems that it always does, when one's being asked to divide oneself up into certain sections, decide which poems you like best, and you know, you love them all, and don't want to make any choices. And to find some headings, some pigeonholes. Well, I'm not very good at this, but I'll start off with a few poems about the United States, about Canada [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16?wprov=srpw1_0], starting off with places, and then move on to some slightly more personal ones, before the interval. Alright, the first poem I want to read is called \\\"Modus Vivendi\\\", which, it sounds a bit affected, having a foreign language titles, but I felt this said a little bit more than simply 'way of life' because ‘modus vivendi’ implies something very transitory, and that was one of the aspects of my first impressions at least of American life, that struck me very forcibly, this really came out of my very first day in the States, traveling from New York [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60] to Chicago [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1297?wprov=srpw1_0] by train.\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:03:42\\nReads \\\"Modus Vivendi\\\" [from Cairns].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:05:20\\nThen, a poem that will be in stills called \\\"Metropolis\\\". Well I think this is self-explanatory, and in fact one of reasons why I like reading aloud, is because a fair number of my poems are self-explanatory and don't have to say too much about them. So I won't. \\\"Metropolis\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:05:49\\nReads \\\"Metropolis\\\" [from Stills].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:06:57\\nThat, I suppose, really brands me as--emotionally speaking, as a European, because it's different here in Montreal [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q340]. I've not been to Quebec [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2145] yet, it's different in one or two places, but on the whole, you know, I find myself looking in vain for this sense of a centre. Now, a poem that I wrote not too long ago in Ottawa [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1930]. Called \\\"Office\\\", it's a shorter one. Sort this out a bit. Last time I gave a reading, somebody knocked water all over it. Here we go.\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:07:54\\nReads \\\"Office\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:08:15\\nAnd then one which is my main claim so far, I suppose, to writing a Canadian poem, \\\"Horse Sleigh\\\", certainly it's not one that I could have written anywhere else. One of the kids is at nursery school and they take them out each winter on a horse sleigh ride, and I went along. So, of course, it's not really about a horse sleigh.  One word- half way through, the word 'revenants' these are ghosts that come back to their own--literally, their old haunts. And can't seem to keep away from the place. \\\"Horse Sleigh\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:09:07\\nReads \\\"Horse Sleigh\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:09:57\\nThen, another poem, based pretty obviously I think on personal experience, in the States. It's called \\\"A Bad Trip\\\", not mine, somebody else's, but this would be, this I felt was sort of enough to keep me off it. Anyway, \\\"A Bad Trip\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:10:34\\nReads \\\"A Bad Trip\\\" [from Stills].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:12:26\\nThen, one which came a long, long time after I was actually told of this incident by my wife in fact, and it must be something like 1956, actually it happened, a carnival referred to is a German carnival, and I guess things have changed quite a bit since then. \\\"Song of the Unmarried Mother\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:13:00\\nReads \\\"Song of the Unmarried Mother\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:14:28\\nThen maybe have a little bit of pseudo light relief before we go on. \\\"Ballad of the Psycho-Analyst\\\". Which is another, sort of relic, but again not a personal one, this started off as a fine number of my poems do from things people say to me. The first two lines here, \\\"They took me across the river, they laid me up the hill\\\", were almost exactly what somebody said. And I took it from there. Alright, \\\"The Ballad of the Psycho-Analyst\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:15:07\\nReads \\\"The Ballad of the Psycho-Analyst\\\" [from Cairns].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:16:54\\nAnd, I'll read a couple more, sort of more personal ones, I guess. Well, this isn't really, this poem called \\\"Old Friend\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:17:16\\nReads \\\"Old Friend\\\" [from Stills].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:19:11\\nAnd, \\\"Maps\\\". I've always been fascinated by maps and I find looking through my poems, certain images keep on recurring. One of them is that of maps, another one, as maybe you'll see later, is of stones, [unintelligible] and so on. And what I'm referring to in the first section here are these old maps where great chunks have come true and not known and so they just put in a zephyr, a wind, you know, or a dragon, or a dolphin or something like that to  make up for their ignorance. \\\"Maps\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:19:58\\nReads \\\"Maps\\\" [from Stills].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:21:29\\nThen, a thing in this first part, I'll just read. One found poem, and then two excerpts from a sort of longer work in process. The found poem, I dedicate to Howard and [Marty (?)] Fink because that's where I found it. It's called the \\\"Bowfoot Scale\\\". The beaufort scale is simply an explanation in terms of miles per hour, I've left that column out, and in terms of symptoms so to speak of these words that you hear on the weather reports, calm, slight breeze and so forth. \\\"Beaufort Scale\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:22:21\\nReads \\\"Beaufort Scale\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:23:31\\n[Laughter]. I dare say it's a found poem. It's not really mine. I get a lot of fun out of finding poems. Now these next two excerpts are from a poem which is tentatively entitled, \\\"Hopkins in Piccadilly\\\", it won't be called that in the end, it's just, it started off thinking what Gerard Manley Hopkins [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q313693] would think of contemporary London [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q84], but it soon left that idea behind and what it's going to be now is a poem in several sections about various aspects of London. Trying to use as many words in my poems that I don't normally use in poems, you know, or that one does not normally see used in poems, and so a lot of, words which are not normally part of my poetic vocabulary. I'm not trying to be arch or archaic or anything like that, simply to expand my vocabulary and, hope to, therefore, I can say new things. Now the two that I've got semi finished, or at least enough to read, one's called \\\"Charing Cross Road\\\", if you know London, England [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21], you'll know that this is the road in which you find both some very good book shops and a lot of very sleazy so called hygienic stores, and it's this aspect I'm concentrating on there, and then the second one is on Hyde Park [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q123738], with the idea of the public speakers and the orators. \\\"Charing Cross Road\\\" then.\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:25:25\\nReads \\\"Charing Cross Road\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:26:34\\nThat's as far as I've got with that bit so far. The next one, \\\"Hyde Park\\\", the Hyde Park Speaker's Corner [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q510323] is what I'm thinking of particularly.\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:26:47\\nReads \\\"Hyde Park\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:28:41\\nIt's not really supposed to follow quite on from that, but a little bit later. \\\"But still at least we have our language...\\\"\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:28:48\\nResumes reading “Hyde Park”.\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:29:08\\nThat's as far as I've got with that section too for the moment. And I believe the custom is, sometimes, at least, here to have a sort of five or ten minute break and then we will have about another twenty minutes afterwards, if that's alright with you.\\n\\nUnknown\\n00:30:22\\n[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].\\n\\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:30:23\\nI'll read a few so called political poems, they're not really political in the normal sense, not sort of party political or anything like that, simply concerned about relationships between people in the community or sort of national attitudes, that sort of thing, more than specific political issues. Although this first one that I'm going to read, \\\"Terrorist\\\", comes, I think, fairly obviously from a particular situation, with which you here are particularly well acquainted. I was thinking, particularly of the FLQ [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1129564] crisis [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q27702], but it could apply to any terrorist.\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:31:31\\nReads \\\"Terrorist\\\" [published later in The Journey Back].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:32:35\\nI suppose if I have a recurring theme in these quasi-political poems, it is that, the tyranny of the ideal if you like, the way in which we force things to become what we want them to become. Force ourselves to see things so that they fit into our pre-selected beliefs. Alright, a rather different sort of poem called \\\"The Facts of Life\\\".  This too will be in the book.\\n\\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:33:13\\nReads \\\"The Facts of Life\\\" [from Stills].\\n \\nEND\\n00:35:25\\n\",\"notes\":\"Christopher Levenson reads from Cairns (Chatto and Windus, 1969) and Stills (Chatto and Windus, 1972), as well as poems published later in books like Into the Open (Golden Dog Press, 1977) and The Journey Back (Sesame Press, 1978).\\n\\n00:00- Unknown male Introduces Christopher Levenson [INDEX: University of Iowa, United  \\tStates, translations from German and Dutch, Ph.D., Carleton University- Assistant       \\tProfessor of English, Stills published by Chatto and Windus]\\n01:54- Christopher introduces “Modus Vivendi” [INDEX: selecting poems for reading, poems   about United States and Canada, traveling from New York to Chicago by train]\\n03:42- Reads “Modus Vivendi”.\\n05:20- Introduces “Metropolis” [INDEX: process of reading out loud]\\n05:49- Reads “Metropolis”\\n06:57- Introduces “Office” [INDEX: European sentimentality, Montreal, Ottawa]\\n07:54- Reads “Office”\\n08:15- Introduces “Horse Sleigh” [INDEX: 'Canadian poem']\\n09:07- Reads “Horse Sleigh”\\n09:57- Introduces “A Bad Trip”\\n10:34- Reads “A Bad Trip”\\n12:26- Introduces “Song of the Unmarried Mother” [INDEX: German Carnival]\\n13:00- Reads “Song of the Unmarried Mother”\\n14:28- Introduces “The Ballad of the Psychoanalyst”\\n15:07- Reads “The Ballad of the Psychoanalyst”\\n16:54- Introduces “Old Friend”\\n17:16- Reads “Old Friend”\\n19:11- Introduces “Maps” [INDEX: images in his poetry: maps and stones]\\n19:58- Reads “Maps”\\n21:29- Introduces “Bowfoot Scale” [INDEX: found poem, Howard and Marty Fink [?], weather reports]\\n22:21- Reads “Bowfoot Scale”\\n23:31- Introduces “Charing Cross Road” [excerpts from “Hopkins in Piccadilly”] [INDEX:   \\tGerald Manley Hopkins, London, poetic vocabulary]\\n25:25- Reads “Charing Cross Road”\\n26:34- Introduces “Hyde Park” [also excerpt from “Hopkins in Piccadilly”]\\n26:47- Reads “Hyde Park”\\n29:08- Calls a break\\n30:33- Resumes from break, introduces “Terrorist” [INDEX: ‘Political poems’, FLQ crisis]\\n31:31- Reads “Terrorist”\\n32:35- Introduces “The Facts of Life” [INDEX: quasi-political poems, tyranny of the ideal]\\n33:13- Reads “The Facts of Life”\\n35:25.57- END OF RECORDING\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/christopher-levenson-at-sgwu-1972/#1\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/chris_levenson_i006-11-104-2.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"chris_levenson_i006-11-104-2.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:22:51\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"54.9 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"chris_levenson_i006-11-104-2.mp3 [File 2 of 2] \\n\\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:00:00\\nResumes reading \\\"The Facts of Life\\\" [from Stills].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:00:59\\nAnd another poem that comes from the same sort of period, as I said, I like finding poems, and this one I found in the window of a pharmacy, this time they had notices saying 'watch for these danger signs', they were danger signs of cancer, and I call this little poem, which is, as I say, a political poem, so I won't explain the metaphor any further, \\\"Introduction to Cancer Diagnosis\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:01:32\\nReads \\\"Introduction to Cancer Diagnosis\\\" [from Stills].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:02:17\\nAnother poem, \\\"Epitaph for a Killer\\\", I think you will probably remember the incident this starts from. Charles Whitman [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q453209] going up the University library tower [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q28403236] in Austin [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16559], Texas and just picking a few people off with his telescopic lens gun. And the thing that struck me when I read these reports, as it so often happened with Richard Speck [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q944350] and all those other sort of, mass killers, that people said, 'oh, but he was such a nice boy, such an ordinary boy' you know, 'such a decent lad'. You know, how could anyone so ordinary, you know if he had long hair, or if he'd been a hippie, we would have expected it. But you know, because they didn't go 'round the little- labels on them, they were expected to have conformed completely, and of course they didn't. \\\"Epitaph for a Killer\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:03:32\\nReads \\\"Epitaph for a Killer\\\" [from Stills].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:04:49\\nI always forget until I finish reading that poem that that last line is not self-explanatory. It's a disease--I think it's called Sickle disease--Pardon? [audience member addresses Levenson]. Sickle Cell Disease [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q185034], okay. Which apparently affects mainly African Negroes, and this is some sort of deficiency in the blood quite simply, but something which is totally inexplicable in the genes anyway. Alright, another, one more sort of pseudo or quasi political poem, this one is called \\\"Boreland Burlap\\\". Again, I don't know if you know exactly what I am referring to, but I think the poem explains it sufficiently, the way you get trees transplanted whole nowadays.\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:06:05\\nReads \\\"Boreland Burlap\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:07:05\\nAnd now, a section of poems, well, I've put ironically, self-ironically, \\\"The Solution\\\" I mean, having presented some political problems--of course, there are no solutions. What I've tried to do in some of the poems I'm going to read now is simply to capture certain textures, or to suggest certain qualities that I admire, or certain aspects of character. The first, well I think probably the only rock poem I'm going to read this evening, called \\\"Fossil\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:07:57\\nReads \\\"Fossil\\\" [from Cairns].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:08:50\\nThen, a short little poem called \\\"Moss\\\", I've got to find it. Well, come back to that in a minute as they say on CBC [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q461761]. Oh here we are, I think, no. Yes, there we are, \\\"Moss\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:09:22\\nReads \\\"Moss\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:09:44\\nAnd now, \\\"Skyscraper\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:09:54\\nReads \\\"Skyscraper\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:10:22\\n\\\"Mediation on Trees\\\". This too, part of it is found, so to speak, found of all places, in 'Life’ [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q463198]. The magazine 'Life', an article about a Japanese wood carver, and I'll try to indicate by the tone of my voice, which are the quotations, the rest of it's me of course. \\\"Meditation on Trees\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:11:03\\nReads \\\"Meditation on Trees\\\" [published later in The Journey Back].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:12:57\\nI just realized, I mentioned to one or two people that I was going to read a poem called \\\"Ottawa\\\" and I haven't read it, so I'll slip it in now.\\n\\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:13:07\\nReads \\\"Ottawa\\\".\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:13:41\\nAnother poem called \\\"The Face of Holland\\\", again concerned with certain characteristics, here I'm trying to identify national characteristics and the various sort of puns, hereto--I think the only thing I need to explain perhaps are the polders of course the land that originally reclaimed by the sea and now enclosed by dykes. I think the rest of it's self-explanatory.\\n\\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:14:19\\nReads \\\"The Face of Holland\\\" [published later in The Journey Back].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:15:47\\nI think I'll read three more poems if you bear with me, these come under the general heading of 'Art', really the relationship of art to life, though this first one is at least, would-be light poem, called \\\"The Quartet\\\", to Carleton, where I teach now. We have a series of concerts in the winter, and most of them are pretty good but one particular one wasn't and it set me thinking about the whole marvelous artificiality of chamber music in a way.\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:16:37\\nReads \\\"The Quartet\\\" [from Stills].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:18:14\\nThen, a poem called \\\"Watch the Birdie\\\" which is about the cost of art in human terms. If you know what a sea urchin is like in its natural and in its final state, final [unintelligible] state, it'll help. You know they're all, like, sort of hedgehogs or porcupines and you have to scrape all the spines off and then gauge the insides out, but that's described in lurid detail.\\n\\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:19:02\\nReads \\\"Watch the Birdie\\\" [from Stills].\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:20:18\\nThat sounds a bit pretentious, I'm afraid, those last four words in Latin, but it means \\\"you also\\\", or \\\"you likewise\\\", and I know gulls' cries don't really sound like that but, that seemed to me the briefest most concise way of making that point at the end of the poem. Finally, a poem which attempts to link love and art. Called \\\"Bathysphere\\\", or rather the kind of knowledge involved in both.\\n \\nChristopher Levenson\\n00:21:11\\nReads \\\"Bathysphere\\\" [published later in Into The Open].\\n \\nEND\\n00:22:51\\n\",\"notes\":\"Christopher Levenson reads from Cairns (Chatto and Windus, 1969) and Stills (Chatto and Windus, 1972), as well as poems published later in books like Into the Open (Golden Dog Press, 1977) and The Journey Back (Sesame Press, 1978).\\n \\n00:00- [Recording starts mid-sentence] Reads “Notes for Foreign Students”.\\n00:59- Introduces “Introduction to Cancer Diagnosis” [INDEX: found poems, ‘political poem’]\\n01:32- Reads “Introduction to Cancer Diagnosis”\\n02:17- Introduces “Epitaph for a Killer” [INDEX: Charles Whitman, Austin Texas, Richard  \\tSpeck, people’s impressions of serial killers]\\n03:32- Reads “Epitaph for a Killer”\\n04:49- Explains last line of “Epitaph for a Killer”, introduces “Boreland Burlap” [INDEX: \\tSickle Cell disease, transplantation of trees]\\n06:05- Reads “Boreland Burlap”\\n07:05- Introduces section of poems called “The Solution” and “Fossil”\\n07:57- Reads “Fossil”\\n08:50- Introduces “Moss” [INDEX: CBC]\\n09:22- Reads “Moss”\\n09:44- Reads “Skyscraper”\\n10:22- Introduces “Meditation on Trees” [INDEX: found poem, Life Magazine, article on a   \\tJapanese wood carver]\\n11:03- Reads “Meditation on Trees”\\n12:57- Introduces “Ottawa”\\n13:07- Reads “Ottawa”\\n13:41- Introduces “The Face of Holland” [INDEX: national characteristics, Dutch Polders]\\n14:19- Reads “The Face of Holland”\\n15:47- Introduces “The Quartet” [INDEX: ‘Art’, Carleton University’s series of concerts in   \\twinter, chamber music]\\n16:37- Reads “The Quartet”\\n18:14- Introduces “Watch the Birdie” [INDEX: cost of art in human terms, sea urchin,   hedgehogs, porcupines]\\n19:02- Reads “Watch the Birdie”\\n20:18- Explains last line of “Watch the Birdie”, introduces “Bathysphere” [INDEX: Latin         \\tdefinition, linking love and art]\\n21:11- Reads “Bathysphere”\\n22:51.34- END OF RECORDING\\n\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/christopher-levenson-at-sgwu-1972/#2\"}]"],"score":2.1907105}]