[{"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":1.9290923}]