Tags Archive

Extending Genetic Criticism to Audiotexts: A Conversation with Jason Wiens (Post)

Posted

Jason Wiens’ interest in teaching poetry with sound recordings has led his critical attention back to a tradition of textual analysis that emerged in France in the late 1970s, known as “genetic criticism” (La Critique génétique), with its interest in approaching texts as entities whose emergence is traceable through the study of “avant-texts”.  In this interview conducted by Jason Camlot, Wiens talks about recent experiments and assignments he has used in teaching Canadian poetry with sound recordings, and explains his interest in genetic criticism as it relates to the study of audiotexts.

Article, Interviews, SPOKENWEBLOG | , , , , , , , , , , ,

Margaret Atwood reading “Late August” (Post)

Posted

The audio clip for this Audio of the Week is introduced by SpokenWeb RA Emma Telaro. Read about what caught Emma’s attention while she listened to a recording of a reading by Margaret Atwood that took place in a hot and crowded art gallery at Sir George Williams in Montreal on October 18, 1974. 

Audio of the week, ShortCuts, SPOKENWEBLOG | , , , , , ,

bill bissett on CKVU-TV September 1978 (Post)

Posted

In this week’s Audio of the Week clip from PennSound, a partner affiliate of the SpokenWeb research network, we hear a televised reading of bill bissett chanting and reading from his then upcoming book Sailor (1978) on Vancouver’s CKVU-TV (now CityTV) show “The Vancouver Show” in early September 1978. By listening to the clip, you will gain an aural glimpse into bissett’s life following accusations of pornography against his work in the House of Commons.

Audio of the week, ShortCuts, SPOKENWEBLOG | , , , , , , ,

Gwendolyn MacEwen reading “I Should Have Predicted” (Post)

Posted

In this Audio of the Week, you are listening to the voice of poet Gwendolyn MacEwen reading in Montreal on November 18, 1966. The reading took place at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) and it was a joint reading with Phyllis Webb. After an introduction by Roy Kiyooka (an excerpt of which is the first Audio of the Week) Webb reads, followed by MacEwen.

Audio of the week, ShortCuts, SPOKENWEBLOG | , , ,

Margaret Avison reading “Thaw” (Post)

Posted

This Audio of the Week features Margaret Avison reading “Thaw” on Friday January 27, 1967, at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia). “Thaw” is a poem that feels right for this spring day – when patches of snow are melting beside tulip buds sprouting up from the ground. But, this year, the arrival of spring feels bittersweet. At the time when we are usually released from the solitude of winter, we have been forced into self-isolation by the spread of the virus COVID-19. For now, we stay at home and stay apart.

Audio of the week, ShortCuts, SPOKENWEBLOG | , , ,

Dorothy Livesay introducing and reading “Bartok and the Geranium” (Post)

Posted

A previous Audio of the Week featured one of Livesay’s most song-like poems “The Unquiet Bed” and this Audio of the Week features another musical poem by Livesay from that same reading in Montreal on January 14, 1971. The poem is “Bartok and the Geranium,” a poem that is often anthologized and, in fact, you may have studied it in a course on Canadian poetry. But do you know how Livesay wrote it? In this Audio of the Week, along with hearing the poem, you will hear Livesay telling her own story of how the poem began.

Audio of the week, ShortCuts, SPOKENWEBLOG | , , ,

Daryl Hine reading “The Trout” / James Wright reading “A Blessing” (Post)

Posted

When listening to one recording from the SGW Poetry Series (1966-1974), it can be hard to hear its place amid the reading series as a whole. One can visualize its place on a list or on a calendar but it can be harder to sonically hear the seriality itself, except when someone on the recording, most often the host, refers to the previous or following reading. For this Audio of the Week, as we near the end of 2019, I have selected two clips from December readings in which there are announcements for the next readings in January.

Audio of the week, ShortCuts, SPOKENWEBLOG | , , ,

Daryl Hine reading “Point Grey” (Post)

Posted

As I listened to December readings from various years in the SGW Poetry Series – to mark the end of this year, 2019 – I started exploring the reading by Daryl Hine. At first, I considered selecting his reading of the final poem, “The Trout,” but then I noticed something else: a note for one timestamp (00:42:19) indicating that Hine introduced and read “an unknown poem.” As I listened to his introduction, I realized that he was preparing the audience for the now-famous poem “Point Grey,” which, at the time of this reading, was not published. In fact, the introducer of Hine at the start of the reading mentioned that Minutes, the collection that contained “Point Grey,” would be published in 1968.

Audio of the week, ShortCuts, SPOKENWEBLOG | , , ,

Daphne Marlatt reading “Lagoon” (Post)

Posted

Daphne Marlatt starts her reading with poems from Vancouver Poems (1972), a deeply local collection that she had not yet published when this reading took place at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) in Montreal. She tells the audience that she will explain the local references as she goes along, starting with the first poem that refers to Lost Lagoon in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. What Marlatt could not have anticipated is that the poems would become pathways to revisit the city when republishing many of them years later in Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now (2013).

Audio of the week, ShortCuts, SPOKENWEBLOG | , , ,

Earle Birney asks George Bowering for a glass of water (Post)

Posted

After reading for about eleven minutes, Earle Birney pauses to ask if there is any water to drink. There is a glass and a pitcher (audibly present) but nearly empty, and thus the evening’s host George Bowering heads out into the hallway to find Birney a cold beverage. This interlude of extra-poetic speech reveals that, despite it being mid-February, the room temperature feels more like summer and, more importantly, the humourous nature of the extra-poetic speech attunes the listener to the sociality as well as to the poetry.

Audio of the week, ShortCuts, SPOKENWEBLOG | , , ,