Margaret Atwood at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 18 October 1974

CLASSIFICATION

Swallow ID:

1253

Partner Institution:

Concordia University

Source Collection Label:

SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds

Series:

The Poetry Series

Sub Series:

SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds

ITEM DESCRIPTION

Title:

Margaret Atwood at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 18 October 1974

Title Source:

Cataloguer

Title Note:

"MARGARET ATWOOD" written on the spine of the tape's box. "I006-11-008" written on sticker on the reel. "MARGARET ATWOOD 5780 H. FINK ENGLISH 18-10-74 Weisman Gallery OP-Gvadnay?" written on the front of the tape's box

Language:

English

Production Context:

Documentary recording

Genre:

Reading: Poetry

Persistent URL:

http://archives.concordia.ca/I086

Identifiers:

[]

Rights

CREATORS

Name:

Atwood, Margaret

Dates:

1939-

URL:

http://viaf.org/viaf/109322990

Role:

"Author", "Performer", "Speaker"

Notes:

Internationally acclaimed novelist, poet, critic and activist Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario, November 18, 1939. She lived in Ottawa until 1946, when her family settled in Leaside, a suburb of Toronto. Atwood entered Victoria College, University of Toronto, graduating with honours in 1961. Her first published collection of short stories was Double Persephone (Hawkshead Press, 1961). By 1962 she had received her MA in English from Radcliffe College in the United States, working on further graduate work at Harvard University between 1962-3 and in 1965-7. Atwood published her second collection, The Circle Game (Anansi, 1966), which won the Governor General Award for Poetry. She wrote articles and reviews for Alphabet, Canadian Literature and Poetry among other publications, and poems for Kayak, Quarry and the Tamarack Review. Poems published in her book The Animals in That Country (Oxford University Press, 1968) won first prize in Canada’s 1967 Centennial Commission poetry competition. In 1970, she published three books, Procedures for Underground (Oxford University Press), Time, and The Journals of Susanna Moodie (Oxford University Press). Between 1971 and 1973, Atwood worked as an editor and on the board of directors for the House of Anansi press in Toronto, which in 1972 published Power Politics. Upon the discovery at Harvard that there was no published critical study of Canadian literature, she herself wrote and published Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (Anansi, 1971), which created a stir of controversy, but by 1982 it had sold more than 85,000 copies. Since 1973, she has lived with novelist and activist Graeme Gibson, producing one daughter, Eleanor Jess in 1967. Atwood taught and lectured at several Universities across Canada, the US and Australia, including University of British Columbia, University of Alberta, Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) (1967-68) and at York University, Toronto. A selection of her publications include Surfacing (Simon & Schuster, 1972), You Are Happy (Harper & Row, 1974), Selected Poems (Oxford University Press) in 1976, Two-Headed Poems (Simon & Schuster, 1978), True Stories (Oxford University Press, 1981) and Second Words (Anansi, 1982). Her 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale (McClelland & Stewart) became one of her most popular and critically acclaimed works. In 1986 she was appointed the Berg Chair at New York University, as well as serving as writer-in-residence at several other Universities. She co-founded and served as chair to the Writer’s Union of Canada in 1982-3, and served as president of the Canadian Centre of International PEN from 1984-6. She has subsequently published dozens of books, including Cat’s Eye (McClelland & Stewart, 1988), The Robber Bride (Doubleday, 1993), Alias Grace (Nan A. Talese, 1996), The Blind Assassin (Nan A. Talese, 2000), Oryx and Crake (2003), The Penelopiad (Canongate, 2005) and The Tent (Bloomsbury, 2006). Along with many other publications of her critical essays, Curious Pursuits: Occasional Writing 1970-2005 (Verago) came out in 2005. Her many prizes and honours include the Booker Prize, the E.J. Pratt Medal (1961), The Radcliffe Medal (1980), the Commonwealth Writers Prize (1992), and she is a Companion of the Order of Canada. Atwood continues to work as spokesperson on behalf of human rights and the environment.

CONTRIBUTORS

Name:

Beissel, Henry, 1929-

Dates:

1929-

URL:

http://viaf.org/viaf/5489879/#Beissel,_Henry

Role:

"Presenter"

Notes:

Identity of this speaker confirmed in oral history interviews by Jason Camlot with Henry Beissel (over zoom), conducted on 2020-03-27 and 2020-05-05.

Name:

Francis, Wynne

Dates:

1918-2000

URL:

http://viaf.org/viaf/77926194

Role:

"Series organizer", "Presenter"

Name:

Fink, Howard,

Dates:

1934-

URL:

http://viaf.org/viaf/6332801

Role:

"Series organizer", "Speaker"

MATERIAL DESCRIPTION

Recording Type:

Analogue

AV Type:

Audio

Material Designation:

Reel to Reel

Physical Composition:

Magnetic Tape

Extent:

1/4 inch

Playback Mode:

Mono

Generations:

Master

Tape Brand:

Scotch

Sound Quality:

Good

Other Physical Description:

Cardboard tape box

Other:

Notes on tape box include: CENTRE FOR INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY; Prod. No: 5789; Professor/Initiator H. Fink; DEPT. English; venue noted is Weisman Gallery; Op. [operator or recordist] G Uadnay [?]; check box indicates this is MASTER of the recording (not a copy);

DIGITAL FILE DESCRIPTION

File URL:

https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/margaret_atwood_i006-11-008.mp3

Show Content

File Path:

files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3

Duration:

00:59:46

Size:

143.5 MB

Content:

margaret_atwood_i006-11-008.mp3 Henry Beissel 00:00:00 One moment... problem that we have here at Sir George . We did try to get a larger hall but it was impossible. To accommodate the overflow, we have set up loudspeakers in the little gallery here, Howard, and in the other one too? Howard Fink 00:00:21 Outside. Henry Beissel 00:00:22 Outside, there are loudspeakers. So please don't all crowd into the room. If you are going to lean against the paintings, we shall never be able to get this room again for poetry readings. Because this, this is a gallery which belongs to the Fine Arts department, we had great difficulty getting it, these paintings are very precious, particularly to the artists themselves [audience laughter]. I would ask you please to stay away from the paintings. That must have been the artist [audience laughter]. We are also waiting for the arrival of someone else, so please be patient. Howard--[audience laughter] can you ask the security people to turn on the cooling system, the hall is going to be too hot. Unknown 00:01:22 Ambient Sound [voices]. Henry Beissel 00:01:25 We may get 927. Margaret Atwood 00:01:30 What do you mean, we may, I think they're also--okay. What would you like to do? Let us stay here or move? Audience 00:01:41 Stay here. Margaret Atwood 00:01:44 Okay, with the people, there are some people who are at the back of the door, there is some space up here at the front if you'd like to come up. Henry Beissel 00:01:54 No more than ten. Margaret Atwood 00:01:58 About ten. It'll make more room at the back too...If everybody on the chairs would shift over this way, um, and sit on, sort of as if it were a bench, then some more people can sit on the edges there. Or just move the chairs all that way. Move the rows forward. They're all shifting over anyway. Could you all move your chairs forward to make the rows as close together as possible. Okay, it's alright. Unknown 00:03:17 Ambient Sound [voices]. Margaret Atwood 00:04:41 There are these uhh--woohoo--there are these speakers outside and you might be more comfortable if you went out and listened over the speakers, some of the people are really jammed in there. I don't see any reason why this thing should resemble a steam bath, for all of us. If you're--what? what?...I don't think I can, what is it that they do? [Audience laughter]. Wynne Francis 00:05:19 [Laughter]. Miss Atwood has just upstaged the introducer. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. It's not often that an artist excels in two medium such as poetry and fiction as our guest tonight does. Miss Atwood's reputation as a superior poet was established in the 60's with her first collections, The Circle Game and The Animals in that Country . And while continuing to write fine poetry, six major collections to date, she's given us two novels in the last five years, The Edible Woman and Surfacing. With the second novel, published late in 1972, within a few months of a controversial work of criticism, Margaret Atwood became one of Canada's best known literary artists. The hypothesis of Survival, a study of patterns in Canadian lit is that Canadians see themselves as victims. I was remind of Survival recently when I came across a nineteenth-century curiosity written by one John McTaggart . It was a book published in London in 19-- excuse me--1829. McTaggart wrote "There's a melancholy which is peculiar to Canadians which must be combatted. People who labor under it must be encouraged, the soothing language, good treatment and now and then as circumstances require, a little assistance gratis as a stimulant." McTaggart's third point about the helpful effects of a little assistance as a recent theory has been taken up by the Canada Council , to whom we are in part indebted for her appearance tonight. Margaret Atwood's work constitutes an exploration of what it means to be a Canadian, to be a woman and to be a human being. She writes about our totems, our tapestry of manners, our progressive insanities. She taught at Sir George in 67-68, and it's a great pleasure to have her return to us tonight. After her reading, she'll be open to questions from the audience. Ladies and gentlemen, Margaret Atwood. Audience 00:07:27 Applause [cuts out briefly]. Margaret Atwood 00:07:38 Let's see now, if the mic starts to get funny, let me know...Too loud?...Not too loud, I'm afraid it isn't a very good mic and also I'm afraid I'm going to have to hold it the whole time which is a bore...I don't think it'll work very well, is that better? Does that work? Higher? Lower? Okay, how's that? Okay, I'm going to read entirely from my new book which is called "This is"--oh, what is it called? [audience laughter]. It's called You Are Happy. Somebody who has been photographing me says that a friend of hers was in a bookstore and picked out this book and thought at first that this was one of these "I'm Okay, You're Okay" books. Until I saw who wrote it. [Audience laughter]. But it has a happy ending, you'll be pleased to know. And I'm going to begin at the beginning and end at the end. Skipping portions along the way. I'm also going to make this reading fairly short because we are all in this rather constricted situation. I used to tell people when people in the States used to ask me “do you live in an igloo” and other questions like that, I used to think to myself that being a Canadian was sort of like living in a chicken coop in the middle of the desert. That everybody was all together in one place but there are these huge spaces around. I wish that we had been provided with one of them. [Audience laughter]. I have a chicken coop, and you're nicer. But there are more of you. I think we will all have to be very, very patient, unlike the chickens. I'm going to begin by reading a poem called "Newsreel: Man and Firing Squad". Margaret Atwood 00:10:04 Reads "Newsreel: Man and Firing Squad" from You Are Happy. Margaret Atwood 00:11:42 Reads "Useless" from You Are Happy. Margaret Atwood 00:12:35 This is--the image in this next poem comes from, begins with the fact that I have a sheep and one of them died. The poem is called "November". Margaret Atwood 00:12:48 Reads "November" from You Are Happy. Margaret Atwood 00:13:52 Reads "Repent" from You Are Happy. Margaret Atwood 00:14:47 "Tricks with Mirrors". How are you doing? Is it hot and steamy? Has anybody died yet? Margaret Atwood 00:15:05 Reads "Tricks with Mirrors" from You Are Happy. Margaret Atwood 00:17:45 This is the title poem, "You Are Happy". Margaret Atwood 00:17:50 Reads "You are Happy" from You Are Happy. Margaret Atwood 00:18:48 Reads "First Prayer" from You Are Happy. Margaret Atwood 00:20:25 "Is / Not: 1". Oh boy, is it ever hot in here. I can't stand it. Light. I wonder if we could--well, then I can't see, you see. I wonder if we could turn off--would it be better if we turn off those lights that are grilling you over there...I could what?...Where's the light switch anyway? Howard, turn off the lights?...Well, maybe in a few minutes the lights will go off. Where did… Unknown 00:21:36 [Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. Margaret Atwood 00:21:37 Hooray, wonderful. Actually, there's a light under here. It's like the Saturday movies [audience laughter]. No, I can read with this, yeah. Maybe I'll just read a little something else here, because it's the Saturday Movies. Margaret Atwood 00:22:18 Reads ["You take my hand" from Power Politics; audience laughter throughout]. Margaret Atwood 00:23:13 And since we were talking about the war between Superman and Captain Marvel at dinner, my favourite was Plastic Man , but that was an esoteric taste. I'll read this one. Margaret Atwood 00:23:28 Reads "They Eat Out" [from Power Politics]. Margaret Atwood 00:24:44 I go to--I can't resist this. This is from the new book, it's called "Siren Song". Students of Seventeenth Century Literature are always asking themselves and each other, what song the sirens sang, and this is the ultimate answer. Margaret Atwood 00:25:06 Reads "Siren Song" from You Are Happy. Margaret Atwood 00:26:12 The imminent critic, Allen Pearson, who was once known when he lived in Montreal as the Montreal Poet, now that he lives in Toronto , he's probably known as the Toronto Poet, says the following: "Siren Song tells how boring it is for a woman to be obliged to attract men by appealing to them for help". [Audience laughter]. Um, since I'm on the subject of people in capes and costumes, I'll read... Unknown 00:26:56 [Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. Annotation 00:26:57 Reads [untitled poem from the “Circle/Mud Poems” section in You Are Happy]. Margaret Atwood 00:28:20 Reads "Is / Not" from You Are Happy. Margaret Atwood 00:30:37 I think I'd better read just three more poems, before we all die. The first one is called "There is Only One of Everything". Margaret Atwood 00:30:54 Reads "There is Only One of Everything" from You Are Happy. Margaret Atwood 00:32:30 Reads "Late August" from You Are Happy. Margaret Atwood 00:33:26 This is the last poem, called "Book of Ancestors". Margaret Atwood 00:33:33 Reads "Book of Ancestors" from You Are Happy. Audience 00:36:31 Applause [cuts out briefly]. Wynne Francis 00:36:47 Thank you, it's really not so hot if you sit still. Miss Atwood is prepared to discuss, for a little while. Margaret Atwood 00:37:04 If you would like to, uh, I can't see a thing of course, I can sort of see hands if you stick them up and wave them around. Would that be better than turning back on the lights which I'd prefer not to do? Wynne Francis 00:37:22 There's no way we can get mics in the audience, so please speak loudly. Margaret Atwood 00:37:23 I see a hand. Audience Member 1 00:37:28 How did your nickname of a witch get originated? Margaret Atwood 00:37:30 How did my nickname of a witch? Are you referring to the speech I gave the other night at Loyola? Oh, it's, I was talking about a couple of reviews, that seemed to credit me with having these supernatural powers, you know, the ability to hypnotize my readers and things like that, and what I was saying was that in fact I don't in fact possess the powers of hypnotism or I'd use them on my bank manager and be quite rich. Um, I was talking about a pattern that seems to crop up from time to time in a certain kind of review usually written by men. [Audience laughter]. I heard that there were a couple of people in the audience at Loyola who before the speech, were convinced that I was a witch and that I was going to talk about witchcraft, and when I said that I wasn't one, they left. [Audience laughter]. You see, if I were a witch, I wouldn't be able to wear the cross. So that's how you can tell I'm not. Wards off vampires. Um, yes? Audience Member 2 00:38:54 Um, [unintelligible] and as well as the Edible Woman, I seem to get this idea of an emergence from greyness, or darkness and I was wondering if it's through this emergence from greyness that you have any reference to Blake in his emergence from chaos. Margaret Atwood 00:39:17 I'll be very flattered, if I did. I'm afraid I suffer by the comparison. I think that you're right in spotting it, I think I would say that it's more like this, that if you want to think in terms of colour, that you start with a grey, and then you go down. Down into, well, it depends on the poem or the book or whatever of what's happening in your life. And, but you have to go down before you come up again otherwise you stay just in the grey part. If you want a real pattern for this, it's Dante's Inferno , where the man starts in a wandering wood, you know he starts in a kind of state of being lost, and then he goes down into hell. The further down he goes the more tortured souls he sees, but when he gets right to the bottom he finds that he's going up again. And then he comes out the other side. Audience Member 2 00:40:19 Yeah, but, in this other side-ness in the Edible Woman you come up through colours, a very [unintelligible] of colours and I was wondering if this is the complete emergence of man? Margaret Atwood 00:40:29 Not complete--I would say no, no beginning. Audience Member 2 00:40:32 [Unintelligible] complete--into his universal aspect, but into an emergence of man. Into the colours of life. Margaret Atwood 00:40:39 Your choice of the word 'man' is interesting. Since the heroine is a woman. [Audience laughter and applause]. Um, I think you have the pattern right. I wouldn't like to attach any sort of universal meaning to it. Audience Member 2 00:40:56 No I'm not attaching a universal meaning, I'm attaching more or less a universal meaning to the colour of darkness or greyness. Margaret Atwood 00:41:04 No, that's right, you're correct. Yes. Audience Member 2 00:41:07 I'm not trying to express a universal meaning into these colours, this is where you're taking it wrong. Margaret Atwood 00:41:14 Well, I'm not too sure what we're talking about to tell you the truth. You've spotted a correct pattern and I'm not too sure how one interprets it because I don't like to be the critic of my own work in a way if you know what I mean. Yes. Audience Member 3 00:41:34 I know you're writing a screenplay for [unintelligible]. Will it ever become a film? Margaret Atwood 00:41:39 Will it ever? Let's see now, I finished it at the end of July. Now, what is--the stages of making a film are these: first somebody takes out an option on it, which means they pay you X dollars to have the sole right to try to make the movie for a certain period of time. If they fail to make it to renew the option or to require the rights at the end of that period, you get it back and you can then sell it to anybody else or back to them if you want. That's different from buying the rights which means they've got it. And you can't get it back. An option has been taken out, a script has been written. They are now doing whatever it is they do, who knows. To try to put together what is called a package, that is, they try to interest a director or they pick out a director and they try to put a director together with a script together with some money. And that's all going on, I don't know what's happening with it because they don't tell. Yes. Audience Member 4 00:42:42 Are those people American or Canadian? Margaret Atwood 00:42:47 These people are. [Audience laughter]. Once upon a time there was an English Canadian film industry. Not very hard. I mean it's trying very hard but not many results are being had. And I wanted very much to make Surfacing in Canada with Canadian everything, but I was about two years too late. And also Canadians are quite timmerus about this book because they said “well, it'll never be able to sell a film in the States” because of all that strange American symbolism in it. They--the two people I'm working with are two American independent producers, not to be confused with MGM , who want to make the book as it is, that is, they like the book, they want to be faithful to it, they don't want to transport it to Maine or wherever and make it into an American film, which of course you couldn't do without ruining the symbolic pattern. They want to make it in Canada, they want to put in all that stuff because they say “wow, dynamite”. [Audience laughter]. They're not worried about selling it in the States. So that's how we're proceeding right now and we have not yet had a falling out on any of the crucial matters such as what's in the screenplay. And so that's been fine. They would like to make it here. And what stage they're at right now I don't know. Now if they don't put it together, then I get it back and then I have another go. And I'll try it ‘round Canada again, once more, and I'll probably with the same results-- Audience Member 4 00:44:26 You have tried? Margaret Atwood 00:44:30 Oh yes, everybody tries. I've written four or five screenplays, none of them have been made. They've all been for Canadians. One thing has happened, I got one television play done, but of course everything you do for the CBC pretty well gets done. [Audience laughter]. As you know. I wrote a screenplay for Edible Woman that didn't get done. I wrote one for Marie-Claire Blais , Mad Shadows, we had high hopes for that, that was a Canadian director, Canadian producer all the rest of it. No deal. Film development corporations said it wasn't commercial enough. I mean, you don't go outside before you've been through it for a while. It's a problem that novelists used to face when trying to get their novels published here. Wynne Francis 00:45:22 I'd like to ask a question, and I can't see what competition I've got, I can't see anything out there. On Wednesday at Loyola, you gave comic tags to some of your critical opponents taken from Koestler , Yogis and Komisars are critics that are formalists and culturally and politically aware and I wondered, do you see the ideal critic or type of criticism as combining these two? Margaret Atwood 00:45:51 Well, I think that people have certain talents, you know, and they should exercise what talents they have, and that all kinds of criticism should be available to the reader. I don't think that every critic has to do everything, I think that would be asking a singer to be a dancer. Wynne Francis 00:46:08 I remember you saying it was good to have both kinds, I wondered if you think they could be combined? Audience Member 5 00:46:16 Is it possible that the body of knowledge turns into the knowing body? Margaret Atwood 00:46:20 Is it possible that the body of knowledge turns into the knowing body? Um, I'll let you answer that. If such a person could do it, I'd like to see it, I've never seen anybody who could do both at the same time. Frye , for instance, does one kind in one book and then another kind in another book, but he usually doesn't usually do them both in the same book. I would say that Yogi-ism is necessary to be able to read a poem, just period pure and simple. To see what is happening in it. But Komasarism is necessary to place it in a larger context. Why not do both? Yes, I see. Back there, you Audience Member 6 00:47:08 Do you think that Quebec is a part of Canada? Margaret Atwood 00:47:09 Oh that's such a good question. Audience Member 6 00:47:11 Do you think that a Quebecois is a Canadian? Margaret Atwood 00:47:15 I think I'll leave that to the Quebecois to decide for themselves. They're the people concerned. [Audience applause]. I was talking with one not so long ago, Marie-Claire Blais, and I asked her that question. I said, “well, what do you think of yourself as? Do you think of yourself as a Quebecoise? or a Canadian? or a North-American, or part of Western European culture or a universalist?” And she said, “I am from Quebec”. [Audience laughter]. Does that answer your question? Yes. Audience Member 7 00:47:58 What is your opinion of the introductions in the New Canadian Library Series? Margaret Atwood 00:48:03 Well, they vary. [Audience laughter]. Do you mean the one? Well, I thought that it was, it was like a, well, the only thing I can think of is something fairly vulgar, um, but I don't mean that I think it was bad. I mean that I think it was quite a ponderous organization, being brought to bear on what I consider to be a fairly light piece of writing. That is, at the front of my book, I have a quotation from the Joy of Cooking which tells how to make puff pastry. And then I have you know, critical sort of, really big critical apparatus coming in and talking about the symbolic structuring and the this and the that, and I think it's nice, I'm glad to know about those things, but [audience laughter] it's somehow, I thought my novel was a bit more comic than that. If you know what I mean. Audience Member 8 00:49:09 Yeah, I wanted to ask a question. Yeah, I was wondering to what degree you consider yourself to be an ironist because you're talking about [unintelligible] irony, it seems to me that irony is the point I’m most attracted to in your work anyway. Margaret Atwood 00:49:22 Yeah, well, you can have both of course, as a matter of fact you usually do. Audience Member 8 00:49:31 You were talking about anger, and "permit me the present tense" kind of thing, seems to me that that was ironic. Margaret Atwood 00:49:41 Ambigu--it has a double meaning. But that's not always irony, I think irony has been...Well, somebody defined irony as a kind of literature in which the reader knows more about what's going on with the character than the character knows himself, shall we say. So, yes, of course, I think that happens in an awful lot of modern literature. Yes. Audience Member 9 00:50:14 I understand you're working on Survival Two? Margaret Atwood 00:50:16 Not working, exactly. Audience Member 9 00:50:22 I was wondering whether you could, or would like to elaborate on that. Margaret Atwood 00:50:25 Yeah, okay. There was to have been something called Survival Two, which was to have been this really dynamite anthology. Which would have incorporated many of the short pieces mentioned in Survival, plus other ones that were appropriate and we did assemble this and then we had it priced as to how much it would cost for permissions and how much it would cost us to print it and it was just astronomically expensive. So we had to shelf that, and that was what Survival Two was to have been. Now I'll probably publish the proposed table of contents sometime and you can see what would have been in it. [Audience laughter]. You know, but a small publisher cannot afford to do this kind of thing. However, I am, I won't say working on because I'm working on it in the same sense that I'm working on my Ph.D. thesis, what I'm really doing is writing a novel. But I will, should I live that long, write a second edition of Survival, in which I hope to have five new chapters and additions to the ones that already exist. I think the thing about Survival that sometimes gets forgotten was that it was based on what was available in paperback at the time. A lot more things are available in paperback now, we have General Publishing coming on the scene, with Paper Jacks, and New Canadian Library expanding itself and Macmillan's paperbacks expanding. So there's just a lot more around that you can put in and also new books have been published that I would like to talk about and I've discovered older ones that I didn't know about before. So, all of these things, plus a new introduction and maybe a few things at the back, I would like to do. However, I'm not quite ready to do it yet. I took a kind of holiday after I finished Survival One, and I'm still in that, it's a holiday devoted to writing other things. Yes, Audience Member 10 00:52:30 Who are your favourite poets? Margaret Atwood 00:52:33 I tend to have favourite poems, rather than favourite poets, but I can tell you the names of some people who've written some of my favourite poems. One of them is Margaret Avison , one of them is P.K. Page , they're poems by all kinds of people that I really like, for instance, I really like some of A.M. Klein's poems. I think they're just super. And more modern people, for instance, Michael Ondaatje , I like his work, Al Purdy I was reading in the early to middle Sixties, Doug Jones at that time. It covers a very wide range. I'm a kind of omnivorous reader, I'll read anything, including the backs of Cornflake boxes, so that you just never know, and it also changes, you know, because you read somebody for a while and then you've done that so you go and read somebody else. Audience Member 10 00:53:31 [Unintelligible]. Margaret Atwood 00:53:33 Oh yeah, I get various little magazines come floating in through the mail to me, for some reason. And right now, for instance, I'm reading a lot of Adrienne Rich , because I'm about to write a review of her latest book. This kind of thing, I mean it varies from month to month. If you ask me the same question in January the question would be different...Yeah. Audience Member 11 00:54:02 [Unintelligible] Is Surfacing more than vaguely autobiographical? Margaret Atwood 00:54:11 It's vaguely, if you're talking about the plot--no. The setting, yes, and this is generally true of fiction, that people write from a setting that they know. They generally create characters out of some people that they've known plus they throw things in and invent them and make mosaics out of various things and the characters are fictional. The plot is usually a total invention. I mean, my parents are still alive and well, all of that. No, I have never been a paranoid schizophrenic with amnesia. [Audience laughter]. And as for the Edible Woman, I've never gone off food, but all kinds of other people have. You know, they come up to me and say, “Gee, how did you know the story of my life” and “that's happened to me and let me tell you it was awful, I used to throw up on busses”. I was kind of shocked, actually, I thought it was all a big comic invention of my own. I see one waving at the back. Audience Member 12 00:55:20 Um, excuse me, would you say that you base your characters on some type of psychological background? Margaret Atwood 00:55:25 Um, I try to make them believable insofar as it will fit the plot. That is, I try to make what they do believable to myself, but they have to do what they do if you see what I mean. Yes. Audience Member 13 00:55:46 Would you say the Edible Woman is a comical invention of your own? Margaret Atwood 00:55:49 I said I thought it was, yeah. Audience Member 13 00:55:51 Well, how would you define that, as a comedy? Margaret Atwood 00:55:54 Oh, okay, if you wanna be technical. Um, the Edible Woman is actually an anti-comedy. Because a comedy is a form in which usually a young couple goes through a series of misadventures and blokings and gets married at the end. Now in the Edible Woman, a young couple goes through a series of misadventures and blokings and somebody else gets married at the end. [Audience laughter]. Yes. Audience Member 14 00:56:24 Could you tell us anything about the novel you're writing now? Margaret Atwood 00:56:26 Not a thing, that's my one superstition--well, it's one of my superstitions. I can't talk about work that I'm doing, it uses up the energy. It's true. Yeah. Audience Member 15 00:56:41 I read the Edible Woman right after reading a book by Robertson Davies , about [unintelligible]. Margaret Atwood 00:56:49 Okay, the question is I read the Edible Woman right after reading a book by Robertson Davies, Fifth Business ? Audience Member 15 00:56:58 No, an earlier book. Margaret Atwood 00:57:00 Manticore ? Audience Member 15 00:57:00 It was a comedy Margaret Atwood 00:57:01 Oh, okay. Audience Member 15 00:57:02 About a couple in a town [unintelligible] resolve it and they get married. And I wondered why he wasn't mentioned in Survival at all. Margaret Atwood 00:57:15 Well, I think probably because I wasn't doing humour and I wasn't doing magic. But since I am doing humour and magic in the next two chapters, then he will be in those. Samuel Marchbanks will be in under humour and Fifth Business and Manticore will be in under magic. I find the magician figure in Fifth Business very interesting from this particular advantage point. Why do Canadian magicians have to disguise themselves as foreigners in order to be thought of as magic. [Audience laughter.] You find this in Gwen MacEwen too. Specifically in the book called No Man. Audience Member 16 00:58:04 Is that a novel? Margaret Atwood 00:58:04 It is a series of short stories, but there's sort of a central one in which you have the same pattern. Okay, let's have one more if there is one more. There isn't one more, there's one more. Audience Member 17 00:58:22 Um, the poems that you read tonight, would you consider those the best or the most significant ones from your collection, and if neither of those things, why did you select the ones that you read? The reason that I've asked that is because I've read your latest book quite carefully and I think that you read the, some of the best poems from it. I was wondering if you thought they were some of the best poems. Margaret Atwood 00:58:45 Yeah. I think that one of the best things in it is section number three, but that consists of twenty four poems, which seem to me to be too long. I read some of them that I like quite a lot, yes, this is true, but I left out some others that I also like quite a lot because it seemed to me that they were too long and at this particular night anyway I felt that I should get through as quickly as possible because we were all stifling to death. Um, and with that I think that I will now end the question period and we can all go out and have a drink of water. Audience 00:59:24 Applause [cuts out briefly]. Wynne Francis 00:59:38 I'd just like to thank Margaret Atwood very much for being with us tonight-- Audience 00:59:40 Laughter. END 00:59:46

Notes:

Margaret Atwood reads from You Are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974) and Power Politics (Anansi, 1971). Atwood also answers audience questions about her work. 00:00- Unknown introducer makes an announcement about the room. [INDEX: Sir George Williams University, larger hall, gallery, Howard Fink.] 00:21- Howard Fink answers question. 00:22- Unknown introducer continues to make announcements. [INDEX: loud speakers outside, paintings, Fine Arts Department, artists, Howard Fink, air conditioning.] 01:22- Audience talking 01:30- Margaret Atwood talks about room set up, it is recorded by the mic [INDEX: room change.] 01:41- Audience responds, says they want to stay in the same room. 01:44- Margaret Atwood tries to arrange people in the room. [INDEX: chairs, bench, people, rows, room.] 04:41- Margaret Atwood continues to arrange audience. 05:19- Wynne Francis introduces Margaret Atwood. [INDEX: poetry, fiction, poet, 1960’s, The Circle Game (Anansi, 1966), The Animals in that Country (Oxford University Press, 1968), Edible Woman (McClelland and Stewart, 1973), Surfacing (Anansi, 1971), 1972, controversial work of criticism, patterns in Canadian literature, nineteenth-century curiosity, John McTaggart quote, book published in London in 1829, victim, Canada Council, woman, human being, totems, manners, insanities, taught at Sir George Williams University between 1967-68, audience questions.] 07:38- Margaret Atwood introduces “Newsreel, Man and Firing Squad”. [INDEX: microphone, reading entirely from You are Happy (Harper & Row, 1974), photographer, bookstore, order of reading, United States, what it’s like to live in Canada; from You Are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974).] 10:04- Reads “Newsreel, Man and Firing Squad”. 11:42- Reads “Useless”. [INDEX: from You Are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974).] 12:35- Introduces “November”. [INDEX: image, sheep that died; from You Are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974)] 12:48- Reads “November”. 13:52- Reads “Repent”. [INDEX: from You Are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974).] 14:47- Introduces “Tricks with Mirrors”. [INDEX: from You Are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974).] 15:05- Reads “Tricks with Mirrors”. 17:45- Reads “You are Happy”. [INDEX: from You Are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974).] 18:48- Reads “First Prayer”. [INDEX: from You Are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974).] 20:25- Introduces “Is/Not” (but does not read it). [INDEX: hot in rom, Howard Fink. light, Saturday movies; from You Are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974).] 22:18- Reads unknown poem, first line “You take my hand and I’m suddenly in a bad movie...”. 23:13- Introduces “They Eat Out”. [INDEX: war between Superman and Captain Marvel, dinner, Plastic Man, esoteric taste; from Selected poems, 1965-1975 (Oxford University Press, 1976).] 23:28- Reads “They Eat Out”. 24:44- Introduces “Siren Song”. [INDEX: new book, students of seventeenth-century literature, answer; from Selected poems, 1965-1975 (Oxford University Press, 1976).] 25:06- Reads “Siren Song”. 26:12- Introduces “Circe/Mud Poems”, which is cut mid-sentence “The heads of eagles no longer interest me...”[INDEX: critic Allen Pearson, Montreal, Montreal Poet, Toronto, Toronto Poet, “Siren Song”, woman, attract men, capes, costumes; from Selected poems, 1965-1975 (Oxford University Press, 1976)] 26:57- Recording is CUT, repeats, begins mid-sentence reading unknown poem, which is cut mid-sentence “The heads of eagles no longer interest me...”, last line “They would rather be trees”. 28:20- Reads “It is Not”. [INDEX: perhaps “IS/Not”; from You are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974) and Selected poems, 1965-1975 (Oxford University Press, 1976).] 30:37- Introduces “There is Only One of Everything”. [INDEX: three last poems, heat; from You are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974) and Selected poems, 1965-1975 (Oxford University Press, 1976).] 30:54- Reads “There is Only One of Everything”. 32:20- Reads “Late August”. [INDEX: from You are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974) and Selected poems, 1965-1975 (Oxford University Press, 1976).] 33:26- Introduces “Book of Ancestors”. [INDEX: last poem of the night; from You are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974) and Selected poems, 1965-1975 (Oxford University Press, 1976).] 33:33- Reads “Book of Ancestors”. 36:47- Wynne Francis thanks Margaret Atwood and opens the floor to discussion. 37:04- Atwood asks for questions. 37:28- Audience #1 (female) asks first question about Atwood’s nickname ‘witch’. [INDEX: nickname “witch”] 37:30- Atwood answers question. [INDEX: speech given recently at Loyola, reviews, supernatural powers, hypnotize readers, reviews written by men, witchcraft, cross, vampires.] 38:54- Audience #2 (male) asks question about the Edible Woman’s symbology of colours. [INDEX: Edible Woman, grayness, William Blake reference, emergence from chaos.] 39:17- Margaret Atwood answers question. [INDEX: comparison, colour, descending, poem, book, life, grey, pattern, Dante’s Inferno, wood, state of being lost, hell, tortured souls.] 40:19- Audience #2 (male) asks another question. [INDEX: Edible Woman, colours, complete emergence of man.] 40:29- Margaret Atwood responds. [INDEX: not complete, beginning.] 40:32- Audience #2 (male) responds. [INDEX: complete, universal aspect, emergence of man, colours, life.] 40:39- Margaret Atwood responds. [INDEX: man, female heroine, pattern, universal meaning.] 40:56- Audience #2 (male) responds. [INDEX: universal meaning, colour of darkness, greyness.] 41:04- Margaret Atwood responds. [INDEX: correct.] 41:07- Audience #2 (male) responds. [INDEX: universal meaning, colours, wrong.] 41:14- Margaret Atwood responds. [INDEX: truth, correct pattern, critic of her own work, interpretation.] 41:34- Audience #3 (male) asks question about a screenplay. [INDEX: screen play, film.] 41:39- Margaret Atwood responds [INDEX: finished in July, stages of making films, taking out an auction [option?], payment, movie, rights, sell, script, written, package, director, money.] 42:42- Audience #4 (female) asks question about film producers’ nationalities. [INDEX: American or Canadian] 42:46- Margaret Atwood responds to question. [INDEX: English Canadian film industry, struggle, book, American symbolism, American independent producers, not MGM, faithful to the book, Maine, American film, ruining the symbolic pattern, Canada.] 44:26- Audience #4 (female) asks another question. [INDEX: attempt to sell script in Canada.] 44:30- Margaret Atwood responds to question. [INDEX: four or five screen plays which haven’t been made, Canadian, television play, CBC, screenplay for Edible Woman, Marie Clarie Blais, “Mad Shadows”, Canadian director and producer, film development corporations, commercial, novelists, publishing.] 45:22- Wynne Francis asks a question about criticism. [INDEX: question, competition, speech on Wednesday at Loyola, comic tags, critical opponents, Koestler, Yogi [?], Komisars [?], literary critics, formalism, cultural and political awareness, ideal critic or ideal type of criticism.] 45:51- Margaret Atwood responds. [INDEX: talents, criticism available to the reader, singer, dancer] 46:08- Wynne Francis asks another question. [INDEX: combined talents, formal or cultural criticism] 46:16- Audience Member #5 (male) asks question about body and knowledge. [INDEX: body of knowledge] 46:20- Margaret Atwood answers question. [INDEX: body of knowledge, [Northrop] Frye, books, Yogi-ism [sp?], reading poetry, Komasar-isim [sp?], context of a poem] 47:02- Margaret Atwood calls on audience member to ask question. 47:08- Audience #6 (male) asks question about Quebec’s relation to Canada. [INDEX: Quebec, Canada] 47:09- Margaret Atwood responds. 47:11- Audience #6 (male) asks question about Quebecer’s relation to Canada. [INDEX: Quebecois, Canadian] 47:15- Margaret Atwood responds. [INDEX: Quebecois, Marie Claire Blais, identity, Canadian, North-American, Western European culture, universalist] 47:58- Audience #7 (female) asks question about the New Canadian Library Series. [INDEX: opinion of the New Canadian Library Series introductions] 48:03- Margaret Atwood answers. [INDEX: quotation from the Joy of Cooking, puff pastry, critical apparatus, symbolic structuring, novel, comic] 49:09- Audience #8 (female) asks question about irony. [INDEX: ironist, irony] 49:22- Margaret Atwood answers question. 49:31- Audience #8 (female) asks question about one line of Atwood’s poem. [INDEX: anger, ironic] 49:41- Margaret Atwood answers question. [INDEX: double meaning, irony, definition of irony, character, modern literature] 50:14- Audience #9 (female) asks question about a second Survival book. [INDEX: Survival 2.] 50:16- Margaret Atwood answers question. 50:22- Audience #9 (female) asks Atwood to elaborate. 50:25- Margaret Atwood answers question. [INDEX: Survival 2, anthology, short pieces, permissions, expensive to produce, publish proposed table of contents, Ph.D. thesis, novel, second edition of Survival, paperback, General Publishing, Paper Jacks [?], New Canadian Library, McMillan’s, publishing industry in Canada, new introduction] 52:30- Audience #10 (male) asks question about favourite poets. [INDEX: favourite poet] 52:33- Margaret Atwood answers question. [INDEX: favourite poet, favourite poems, Margaret Avison, P.K. Page, A.M. Klein, Michael Ondaatje, Al Purdy, mid-Sixties, Doug [Gordon] Jones, Cornflake boxes] 53:31- Margaret Atwood responds to inaudible question. [INDEX: little magazines, Adrienne Rich, January.] 54:02- Audience #11 (female) asks question about Surfacing being autobiographical. [INDEX: Surfacing, autobiographical.] 54:11- Margaret Atwood responds. [INDEX: vaguely, plot, fiction, setting, characters, invent part of characters, parents, paranoid schizophrenic, amnesia, Edible Woman, food, reader’s reactions, comic invention.] 55:20- Audience #12 (female) asks question about characters. [INDEX: psychological background, characters.] 55:25- Margaret Atwood responds to question. [INDEX: believable, plot.] 55:46- Audience #13 (male) asks question about Edible Woman. [INDEX: comical invention, Edible Woman.] 55:49- Margaret Atwood responds to question. 55:51- Audience #13 (male) asks question about the definition of comedy. [INDEX: definition of comedy.] 55:54- Margaret Atwood responds to question. [INDEX: technical, Edible Woman, anti-comedy, form, young couple, series of misadventures, marriage, ending.] 56:24- Audience #14 (male) asks question about latest writing. [INDEX: novel being written] 56:24- Margaret Atwood responds to question. [INDEX: superstition, work in progress.] 56:41- Audience #15 (female) asks question about Edible Woman [INDEX: Robinson Davies book.] 56:49-57:01- Margaret Atwood and audience try to figure out which book was written by Robinson Davies. [INDEX: Fifth Busienss, Nanticore, comedy.] 57:02- Audience #15 (female) asks about selections in Survival. [INDEX: couple, town, married, Survival.] 57:15- Margaret Atwood responds to question. [INDEX: humour, magic, next two chapters of Survival 2, Samuel Marchbanks, Fifth Business, Nanticore, magician figure, Canadian magicians, foreigners, Gwen[dolyn] MacEwen’s book No Man.] 58:04- Audience #16 (female) asks question about No Man by Gwendolyn MacEwen. [INDEX: Novel.] 58:04- Margaret Atwood responds to question. [INDEX: series of short stories, central story, pattern.] 58:22- Audience #17 (male) asks question about selections made in Atwood’s reading [INDEX: poems read, best, most significant from the collection, selection choices.] 58:45- Margaret Atwood responds to question. [INDEX: section #3, consists of 24 poems, too long, time constraints.] 59:380 Wynne Francis thanks Margaret Atwood. 59:46.85- END OF RECORDING.

Content Type:

Sound Recording

Featured:

Yes

File URL:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw

Show Content

File Path:

My Drive>Sir George Williams TIme-Stamped Transcripts>Spokenweb Tape Case Photos taken by Drew Bernet

Title:

Margaret Atwood Tape Box - Back

Credit:

Drew Bernet

Content Type:

Photograph

File URL:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw

Show Content

File Path:

My Drive>Sir George Williams TIme-Stamped Transcripts>Spokenweb Tape Case Photos taken by Drew Bernet

Title:

Margaret Atwood Tape Box - Front

Credit:

Drew Bernet

Content Type:

Photograph

File URL:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw

Show Content

File Path:

My Drive>Sir George Williams TIme-Stamped Transcripts>Spokenweb Tape Case Photos taken by Drew Bernet

Title:

Margaret Atwood Tape Box - Reel

Credit:

Drew Bernet

Content Type:

Photograph

Dates

Date:

1974 10 18

Type:

Performance Date

Source:

Accompanying Material

Notes:

Date written on the front of the tape's box. This date was confirmed in. the Oct 18, 1974 issue of The Georgian.

LOCATION

Address:

1455, Boul de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Venue:

Weismann Art Gallery

Latitude:

45.4972758

Longitude:

-73.57893043

URL:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570

Notes:

Location written on the front of the tape's box indicates the venue was the Weisman Gallery.

CONTENT

Contents:

Notes:

Margaret Atwood reads from You Are Happy (Oxford University Press, 1974) and Power Politics (Anansi, 1971). Atwood also answers audience questions about her work.

NOTES

Type:

General

Note:

Year-Specific Information: In 1974, Atwood was living in Alliston, Ontario and had finished a year as the writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto. You Are Happy came out in 1974, and she was working on collecting her Selected Poems which were published in 1976.

Type:

General

Note:

Local Connections: Atwood became an important award-winning poet and critic in Canada by the late 60‘s. Sir George Williams’ English Department hired Atwood in 1967 as an English lecturer, after she had graduated from Harvard.

Type:

Cataloguer

Note:

Additional research and edits by Ali Barillaro

Type:

Preservation

Note:

Reel-to-reel tape>CD>digital file

RELATED WORKS

Citation:

Atwood, Margaret. Margaret Atwood Website. June 29, 2010.

URL:

http://margaretatwood.ca/index.php>

Citation:

Atwood, Margaret. Selected Poems. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1977.

URL:

https://www.worldcat.org/title/selected-poems/oclc/977851868&referer=brief_results

Citation:

Atwood, Margaret. Selected poems, 1965-1975. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1976.

URL:

https://www.worldcat.org/title/selected-poems-1965-1975/oclc/455883593&referer=brief_results

Citation:

Atwood, Margaret. The Circle Game. Toronto: House of Anansi, 1966.

URL:

https://www.worldcat.org/title/the-circle-game/oclc/1007821877&referer=brief_results

Citation:

Atwood, Margaret. Power Politics. Toronto: Anansi, 1971.

URL:

https://www.worldcat.org/title/power-politics/oclc/1043970047&referer=brief_results

Citation:

Atwood, Margaret. You are Happy. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1974.

URL:

https://www.worldcat.org/title/you-are-happy/oclc/878900780&referer=brief_results

Citation:

Bowering, George, ed. The Contemporary Canadian Poem Anthology. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1984.

URL:

https://www.worldcat.org/title/contemporary-canadian-poem-anthology/oclc/802667762&referer=brief_results

Citation:

Findley, Timothy. “Atwood, Margaret (1939-)”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. Benson, Eugene; L.W. Connolly (eds). London: Routledge, 1994. 2 vols.

URL:

https://www.worldcat.org/title/encyclopedia-of-post-colonial-literatures-in-english-volume-1/oclc/636622714&referer=brief_results

Citation:

Geddes, Gary (ed). Fifteen Canadian Poets Times Two. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1988.

URL:

https://www.worldcat.org/title/15-canadian-poets-times-2/oclc/622296707&referer=brief_results

Citation:

Mandel, Eli (ed). Poets of Contemporary Canada 1960-1970. Montreal: McClelland and Stewart, 1972.

URL:

https://www.worldcat.org/title/poets-of-contemporary-canada-1960-1970-edited-and-with-an-introduction-by-eli-mandel/oclc/1202953921&referer=brief_results

Citation:

Rowland, Susan. “Margaret Atwood 1939- (Canadian)”. Encyclopedia of the Novel. Schellinger, Paul (ed.); Christopher Hudson, Marijke Rijsberman (asst. eds.). Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1998. 2 vols.

URL:

https://www.worldcat.org/title/encyclopedia-of-the-novel/oclc/807436716&referer=brief_results

Citation:

Stephens, Anna. “Poetry- Anywhere, Anytime”. Montreal: The Gazette. 20 October 1967, page 10.

URL:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=waYtAAAAIBAJ&sjid=u58FAAAAIBAJ&pg=7250,4345207&dq=sir+george+williams+poetry&hl=en

Citation:

Kibble, Matthew. “Atwood, Margaret Eleanor, 1939-”. Literature Online biography. Proquest Information and Learning Company, H.W. Wilson Company, 2006.

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