EPISODE SUMMARY

In episode 7 of The SpokenWeb Podcast (“The Voice is Intact”), producer Hannah McGregor and guest Jen Sookfong Lee listen together to Gwendolyn MacEwen reading the poem “The Zoo” (recorded in Montreal, 1966). As we listen to them listening on the podcast, we hear a gasp and even an exclamation: “Melodious!” What was it in her voice that they were responding to? To try to answer this question through your own experience of listening, this Audio of the Month features another poem of MacEwen’s in this same 1966 recording: “I Should Have Predicted,” published in The Shadow Maker (1969).

EPISODE NOTES

Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) – join Hannah McGregor, and minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s Audio of Month mini series.

An extension of Katherine’s audio-of-the-week series at spokenweb.ca, Katherine brings her favourite audio each month to The Spokenweb Podcast – so if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more.

Listen and read more about the recording that inspired this month’s minisode here.

Producer: Katherine McLeod
Executive Producer: Stacey Copeland
Host: Hannah McGregor

00:00

Music:

[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]

00:10

Hannah McGregor:

Welcome to our SpokenWeb minisodes. Each month on alternate fortnights—that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode—join me, Hannah McGregor, and minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month miniseries. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives. An extension of Katherine’s Audio of the Week series at spokenweb.ca, Katherine brings her favourite audio each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast. 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’s Audio of the Month: ‘mini’ stories about how literature sounds.

01:00

Theme Music:

[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]

01:03

Katherine McLeod:

In this Audio of the Month, we’re listening to the voice of Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen. Now, if you’re a regular SpokenWeb Podcast listener, you’ll recognize MacEwen’s voice from episode seven: “The Voice Is Intact.” That episode was produced by Hannah McGregor and featured interviews with Jen Sookfong Lee and myself, Katherine McLeod. At the start of the episode, Hannah and Jen listened to MacEwen’s voice as she reads a poem called “The Zoo.”

01:34

Hannah McGregor:

Have you ever heard her read?

01:35

Jen Sookfong Lee:

No, I’ve never heard her voice.

01:35

Hannah McGregor:

Oh my God, do you want to?

01:35

Jen Sookfong Lee:

Yeah!

01:36

Audio Recording:

[Audio, Gwendolyn MacEwen reading “The Zoo,” overlapping with Hannah McGregor and Jen Sookfong Lee’s commentary] A fugitive from all those truths, which are too true, the great clawing ones and the fire-breathers,–

01:46

Jen Sookfong Lee:

[Gasps]

01:46

Audio Recording:

–the ones that rake the flesh–

01:47

Jen Sookfong Lee:

So much nicer with her voice!

01:47

Audio Recording:

–like piranhas, and those that crush the bones to chalk and those that bear their red teeth in the nights.

01:55

Jen Sookfong Lee:

So melodious, her voice.

01:56

Audio Recording:

My mind emulates,–

01:58

Jen Sookfong Lee:

I’ve never used the word melodious.

01:59

Audio Recording:

–dragon, fish, and snake and shoots fire to melt the Arctic night–

02:03

Katherine McLeod:

Melodious, yes. So melodious, her voice. That was their response to her voice now, in 2020. And to be in awe of her voice has been a common response ever since MacEwen started reading poems in the 1960s. She read at places like the Bohemian Embassy in Toronto, where poets would gather on stage to read over the sound of a noisy espresso machine. MacEwen would step onto the stage and, as she started reading, in fact, as she often started reciting her poems by heart, her voice would captivate listeners. That voice is one reason for selecting MacEwen for this month’s Audio of the Month. But another is that there is a very memorable moment of MacEwen introducing one poem in particular in SpokenWeb’s audio collection. To set the scene: the reading was in 1966 at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia), and it was a joint reading with Phyllis Webb. Part way through the reading, MacEwen introduces the poem “I Should Have Predicted.”

03:11

Audio Recording:

[Audio, Gwendolyn MacEwen introducing “I Should Have Predicted] This is a poem which, oddly enough, came out in a Mexican magazine in Spanish not too long ago looking completely unrecognizable to me. It’s called “I Should Have Predicted.”

03:27

Katherine McLeod:

I haven’t been able to locate this publication, but if you have any ideas about which magazine this could have been in, please do get in touch. For now, we know that it exists because of this recording. As we listen to it, hear how MacEwen reads, how she pauses, how her articulation of the poem makes it rise and then fall. Her pacing is exquisite. It is as though she is dancing the poem, as though her voice is dancing.

04:03

Audio Recording:

[Audio, Gwendolyn MacEwen reciting “I Should Have Predicted] I should have predicted the death of this city. I could have predicted it if only there had been no such pretty flowers. No such squares filled with horses and their golden riders. By this I mean that outside all was tame and lucky. But inside, oh, inside houses were wilder things, dynasties, wars, empires crumbling, chariots housed in halls, emperors in cupboards, queens and generals in bed, kingdoms rising and falling between the sheets. Thus I did not predict the death of this city. I was deceived by fountains and apple trees. How could I know what civil wars raged inside out of my sight, which focused only on the horses and the gold, deceptive city.

05:06

Katherine McLeod:

That was Gwendolyn MacEwen reading “I Should Have Predicted” in 1966 in Montreal.

05:18

Music:

[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]

05:18

Katherine McLeod:

Find the full recording of this reading by heading to spokenweb.ca. My name is Katherine McLeod and my thanks to Hannah McGregor and Stacey Copeland for their help on the production of this minisode. Stay tuned for the next Audio of the Month: a deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives.