EPISODE SUMMARY
In trying to listen for time, this ShortCuts minisode listens for the New Year in SpokenWeb’s audio collections. What hopes do audiences have for the new year? And how do archival recordings help us understand our affective relation to time in our present moment?
The audio for this ShortCuts minisode is cut from recordings of the Sir George Williams Poetry Series, all available to listen to here: https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/ and listed individually below.
ShortCuts minisodes are developed from ShortCuts blog posts on SPOKENWEBLOG and the post that inspired this one is here.
EPISODE NOTES
A fresh take on our past minisode series – “ShortCuts” is an extension of the ‘ShortCuts’ blog posts on SPOKENWEBLOG, this series brings Katherine’s favourite audio clips each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast feed. Stay tuned for monthly episodes of ‘ShortCuts’ on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week) following the monthly spokenweb podcast episode.
Producer: Katherine McLeod
Host: Hannah McGregor
Supervising Producer: Stacey Copeland
AUDIO IN THIS MINISODE
Berrigan, Ted. [Recording] Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 4 Dec 1970, https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/ted-berrigan-at-sgwu-1970/
Hine, Daryl. [Recording] Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 1 Dec 1967, https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/daryl-hine-at-sgwu-1967/
Hindmarch, Gladys. [Recording] Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 21 Nov 1969, https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/gladys-hindmarch-at-sgwu-1969/
Simic, Charles. [Recording] Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 19 Nov 1971,
https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/charles-simic-at-sgwu-1971/#2
Wright, James. [Recording] Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 13 December 1968, https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/james-wright-at-sgwu-1968/
**Transcript in Process**
Hannah MacGregor:
Welcome to the SpokenWeb "ShortCuts." Each month on alternate fortnights (that's every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb podcast episode) - join me, Hannah McGregor, and our minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb's "ShortCuts" miniseries. We'll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives - to ask: What does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio-criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? A fresh take on our past minisode series – "ShortCuts" is an extension of the "ShortCuts" blog posts on SPOKENWEBBLOG, this series brings Katherine's favourite audio clips each month to The SpokenWeb Podcast feed - so if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more. Without further ado... Here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb "ShortCuts": ‘mini’ stories about how literature sounds.
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Katherine McLeod: How can you hear time?
When listening to a recording, can you be listening for time?
In a set of recordings of a reading series - such as the Sir Williams Poetry Series (1966-1974) - there is an audible marking of time whenever a host of a December reading mentions that the next reading will take place in January. The New Year. What hopes did the audience have for the new year? And how do archival recordings help us understand hope in our present time?
Audio clip: [Poet Daryl Hine’s voice; applause; voice of announcer stating, “We want to thank Mr. Hine and also announce that the next reading is on January 26th by the American poet John Logan.”]
Katherine McLeod: That was a clip of the end of Daryl Hine reading “The Trout” in December 1967. What was the audience thinking on this night in 1967, and what did they imagine for January 1968? What did Hine imagine? What if these were the last words of poetry that he read out loud in front of an audience in 1967? The words suddenly feel weightier when thinking of them in that way, a feeling that I would argue we can hear in another reading that ends up being the last one of 1968 in the Sir George Williams Series. It was a reading by James Wright on December 13, 1968.
Audio clip: [Wright reading; applause; voice of an announcer stating, “I'd just like to express all our thanks to James Wright for sharing his poetry and his curses and blessings with us tonight, and to remind you that the next reading in the series is by Muriel Rukeyser on Friday, January 24th. Goodnight.”]
Katherine McLeod: What did the audience hear, when they heard.
“suddenly I realized that if I stepped out of my body I would break into blossom.” What hopes did they have for 1969 as they listened?
1969, the last reading of that year in the Sir George Williams series was introduced by George Bowering and the anticipation of the new year comes up right at the start...
Audio clip [George Bowering: “Another Vancouver night in the series, this will be, this is the final reading of the fall series, and will be picked up again in January. As you know from the propaganda sheets, we're presenting what I consider to be the center of the Vancouver writing scene. Gladys Hindmarch has been in that scene for ten years, and was associated with all those people who've got all kinds of names over the last few years such as West Coast movement and the Tish movement and the New Wave Canada and that sort of business…”]
Katherine McLeod: By the way, Bowering and Hindmarch read together, virtually, on December 16 2020 - I mention that to mark time here in this minsode.
Back to the archive - 1970 - let’s see how this year ends in poetry, or at least in the Sir George Williams Poetry Series. The reading by Ted Berrigan on Dec 4 1970 is cut off so we don’t know if it ended with an announcement but it did end with Berrigan reading this poem. These are the last words heard in this last reading of 1970. It is the end of a poem called “People Who Died”...
Audio clip: [Excerpt of Berrigan reading “People Who Died”; applause]
Katherine McLeod: We are listening to what it felt like to hear those words in 1970 and to feel those deaths as recent. We are hearing time and what it was like to feel in that time.
In the Berrigan poem, that feeling is one of loss, a feeling so often counters a feeling of anticipation. We hear that anticipation in my last example: the end of a reading by Charles Simic in 1971.
Audio clip: [Excerpt of Charles Simic reading; applause; voice of an announcer stating, “The next reading will be on January 14th - Dorothy Livesay will read at that time.”
Katherine McLeod: If I were in the audience in 1971, I would be looking forward to that reading by Dorothy Livesay in 1972.
Listening for time in the archives reveals moments such as these - ones in which hope is audible. That listening is something we can learn from as we anticipate a new year. We don’t know what is ahead - and, even as I speak these words now - recording them under my blanket fort at home - I hope they will be heard, though in what context I do not know.
Right now, I play the role of the host in those archival recordings by marking time, here and now, and by imagining a future time. In the role of the archival listener, I also know how it feels to hear a future time imagined as hopeful. It is a powerful feeling to look forward to something, to share that feeling, and to listen back, hearing people looking forward to something...
Thanks for listening and here’s to more listening together in 2021.
