Jerome Rothenberg at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 17 October 1969

CLASSIFICATION

Swallow ID:

1279

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:

Jerome Rothenberg at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 17 October 1969

Title Source:

Cataloguer

Title Note:

"JEROME ROTHENBERG Recorded October 16, 1969 3.75 ips, 1/2 track on 1 mil. tape 43 minutes" written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. "JEROME ROTHENBERG I006/SR95" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. "I006-11-095" written on sticker on the reel

Language:

English

Production Context:

Documentary recording

Genre:

Reading: Poetry

Persistent URL:

http://archives.concordia.ca/I086

Identifiers:

[]

Rights

CREATORS

Name:

Rothenberg, Jerome

Dates:

1931-

URL:

http://viaf.org/viaf/109302361

Role:

"Author", "Performer"

Notes:

American poet, teacher, translator, performance artist and editor Jerome Rothenberg was born in New York City in 1931. He received his B.A. in 1952 from the City College of New York and his M.A. in 1953 from the University of Michigan. Directly after graduation, Rothenberg enrolled in the military and served until 1955. He then worked on additional graduate work at Columbia University from 1956-1959. Rothenberg’s first collection of poetry, White Sun Black Sun (1960) was published through the small press Hawk’s Well Press, which he founded in 1958 to promote the works of young poets. He also edited the magazine Poems from a Floating World which ran from 1959-1964. At that time, Rothenberg began a long and influential career as a teacher of both Literature and Visual Arts; he worked at the City College of New York (1960-61), the Mannes College of Music (1961-1970), the University of California, San Diego (1971), and at the New School for Social Research (1971-72). Along with his poetry, Rothenberg translated the works of German postwar poets Paul Celan, Gunter Grass and Ingeborg Bachman; the translations influenced many of the poets of the Beat movement. Rothenberg then published his own poetry in The Seven Hells of the Jigoku Zoshi (Trobar, 1962), Sightings (Hawk’s Well, 1964), The Gorky Poems (El Corno Emplumado, 1966), Between: 1960-1963 (Fulcrum, 1967), Poland/1931, Part I (Unicorn Press, 1969), Poems for the Game of Silence (Dial, 1970), Seneca Journal, Midwinter (Singing Bone, 1975) and his popular anthology Shaking the Pumpkin: Traditional Poetry of the Indian North Americas (Doubleday, 1972). Rothenberg then taught at the University of Wisconsin (1974-77), the University of California, San Diego (1977-85), the State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany in 1986 and at Binghamton from 1986-1988, and finally at the University of California, San Diego. More of his poetry collections include Narratives and Realtheater Pieces (Braad, 1978), Poems for the Society of the Mystic Animals (Tetrad, 1979), Abulafia’s Circles (Membrane, 1979), Vienna Blood (New Directions, 1983), Altar Piece (Station Hill, 1982), That Dada Strain (New Directions, 1983), Khurbn & Other Poems (New Directions, 1989), Lorca Variations (New Directions, 1993) which won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award in 1994, Seedings (New Directions, 1996) and A Paradise of Poets (New Directions, 1999). Rothenberg has won, among many other honors, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research grant in 1968, fellowships fro the Guggenheim Foundation in 1974 and the National Endowment for the Arts in 1976. His first collection of essays on poetics, Pre-Faces (New Directions, 1982) won the American Book Award that same year. Rothenberg continues to teach in the Visual Arts and Literature Departments, as a Professor Emeritus at the University of California at San Diego.

CONTRIBUTORS

Name:

Bowering, George

Dates:

1935-

URL:

http://viaf.org/viaf/34469976

Role:

"Series organizer", "Performer"

MATERIAL DESCRIPTION

Recording Type:

Analogue

AV Type:

Audio

Material Designation:

Reel to Reel

Physical Composition:

Magnetic Tape

Extent:

1/4 inch

Playing Speed:

3 3/4 ips

Track Configuration:

Half-track

Playback Mode:

Mono

Tape Brand:

Scotch

Sound Quality:

Good

DIGITAL FILE DESCRIPTION

File URL:

https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/jerome_rothenberg_i006-11-095.mp3

Show Content

File Path:

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

Duration:

01:27:32

Size:

210.1 MB

Content:

George Bowering 00:00:00 I'm glad we got this room. Welcome back to the first night of the fourth year of our series. And for those of you who are here for the first time, welcome you too. I'm really glad that we could start off with Jerome Rothenberg , especially from my own personal viewpoint, because while Jerome Rothenberg is one of the names that I've paid a lot of attention to, and one of the names that poets have paid attention to over the last decade, this'll be the first time that I've been able to hear him read, too. Usually when, often when us people from the West think about the new American poetry, we tend to think of it in terms of people from outposts such as New Mexico , and Utah, and San Francisco , and so on. And we forget that New York City is one of the centre-place, central-places, so that it can produce poets such as Joel Oppenheimer who will be here in the following spring, and Paul Blackburn , who was here a couple of years ago. Jerome Rothenberg has always been the centre, in the centre of that scene, and not only as one of the principal poets, but as editor, and publisher, and so on and so forth, especially with a very important magazine of the 1960's called some--oblique thing [some/thing]. And he's especially interesting to me too because of the kind of work that produced a book such as Technicians of the Sacred, a compilation of the poetries from various oral traditions around the world, and a similar sort of impulse has always been at the centre of his work too. I'd also like to correct a mistake on the little printed page that wasn't really mine, that I picked up from somewhere else and couldn't quite believe myself, that said that Jerome Rothenberg was born in 1921. All I can say is that he was born sometime between the death of Lord Byron and now. [Laughter]. But I'm pretty certain that he wasn't around in 1921. So I'd like you to give a welcome to Jerome Rothenberg. Audience 00:02:53 Applause. Jerome Rothenberg 00:02:58 The birthdate'll come clearer in the second part of the reading. I'll read in two parts. And in the first set, what I'll be reading are translations and re-workings of American Indian poetry, which have been important to me over the last five or six years. And I'll start with some which are based on earlier translations, re-workings of material previously translated, and then as I get into it, some translations that result from direct contact and direct experience of American Indian poetry. This is an Aztec poem. The first four or five, six poems will be Aztec or Mexican in origin, and the theme will be flowers. "Offering Flowers". Jerome Rothenberg 00:04:24 Reads "Offering Flowers" [from Technicians of the Sacred]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:07:37 This is Aztec, too, in origin, translated through the Spanish. Jerome Rothenberg 00:07:52 Reads “A Song of Chalco” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:09:53 And it doesn't die out, even with the destruction that follows, and flowers are picked up again, this in a series of translations, again through the Spanish, of a series of Peyote songs, from the Huichol Indians of central Mexico . The name Wirikuta is the name given to the place of the gods, and the spiritual place of the Peyote. The Peyote is described as the rose, it's described as the corn, the maize, it's described under a number of images, and through the figure, the mythological figure of one called the Blue Stag. This is the first Huichol, Peyote song. Jerome Rothenberg 00:10:46 Reads “First Peyote Song” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:11:46.19 "Song of an Initiate". Jerome Rothenberg 00:11:51 Reads "Song of an Initiate" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:12:25 And this is a poem called "How the Violin Was Born: A Peyote Account”. Jerome Rothenberg 00:12:35 Reads "How the Violin was Born: A Peyote Account” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:13:24 These are a few short Indian pieces. Not poems but part of what's connected with the whole activity of poetry, among the tribal peoples. Which is more than an activity of words; which goes beyond language. And these are the events that accompany the words. And the first is an Iroquois dream event. Jerome Rothenberg 00:13:58 Reads ["Dream Event 1", published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:14:08 These are a series of vision events. The first two are Eskimo. Jerome Rothenberg 00:14:14 Reads "Vision Event I" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:14:25 Reads "Vision Event 2" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:14:39 And this is a Sioux Indian vision event. Jerome Rothenberg 00:14:43 Reads "Vision Event 3" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:15:01 This is a Kwakiutl Indian gift event. All the words are from Kwakiut'l Indians. It's either spoken in English or translated into English. The Kwakiut'l, like other Northwest Coast people, celebrate the potlatch, you know, which is not always terrible or distasteful in its consequences. This is benevolent gift-giving. Jerome Rothenberg 00:15:26 Reads "Gift Event [2]" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:16:32 These are a series of seven Navajo animal songs. Jerome Rothenberg 00:16:42 Reads "Navajo Animal Songs" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:17:49 The next few are from a series of translations I've been doing, are called, well, it's the Seneca Indian word for one of their major curing ceremonies, a term for a major curing ceremony, "Shaking the Pumpkin", because the pumpkin rattle, the big pumpkin rattle is the major instrument used in this. Or it's got a more ornate name, it's called "The Society of the Mystic Animals". The man, Richard Johnny John, Indian, who is working with me on this, explained it's a serious ceremony, he said, but if everything's alright, the one who says the prayer tells them, I leave it up to you, folks, and if you want to have a good time, have a good time. Well everything's alright in the translations, you know, so one eases up there. The translations are done trying to follow everything in the Seneca, including the meaning of the sounds, the hey-ya and the way-oh-hey, that are very common in Indian poetry. Basically the way I do it is to present them visually on the page, and I can't do this in reading them, so I'm just going to select out of these poems that read easily. The purpose is curing, and well-being. Jerome Rothenberg 00:19:34 Reads ["Caw Caw the Crows Caw Caw" published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:19:49 Reads "Two more about a crow, in the manner of Zukofsky" [later published in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:05 Three poems about the owl, on the page, the vocables, the sounds, make the figure of an owl, even as in the singing of the song, the sound of the owl comes through. But here are just the words. Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:19 Reads "The Owl: One". Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:25 Reads "The Owl: Two". Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:32 Reads "The Owl: Three". Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:40 "A Song of My Song, In Three Parts”. Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:45 Reads "A Song of My Song, In Three Parts" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:59 Reads “Three Ways to Screw Up on Your Way to the Doings” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:21:16 Buckets are important, to bring back soup and...The last one from this series. Jerome Rothenberg 00:21:31 Reads “Where the Song Went Where She Went & What Happened When they Met” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:22:15 The next are a little harder to do, but I hope I make it. The Senecas don't use many words. It's a kind of minimal poetry and the power is in the compression. The Navajos use more words, the poetry gets dense, and in addition they use many many non-verbal sounds. And in addition, they distort many of the words in the singing. So that if you translate just for the meaning, you're only getting a small part of what the Navajo is doing. And then in addition, everything is sung in the Navajo. So I began to translate a series called, because that's what they are, "The Seventeen Horse Songs of Frank Mitchell". Seventeen horse-blessing, horse-curing songs that were the property of a Navajo medicine man named Frank Mitchell. And the problem that came up for me, I couldn't translate just for meaning, I wanted to, you know, consider all of the factors that went into the poem. So I began to insert sounds corresponding to the sound of the English words as the Navajo had the meaning of the sounds, and to distort the words. And then it seemed to me that it was necessary to carry this further, to begin to sing the songs as well. Which came to me with great difficulty. But I've gotten through a number of them now, and what I'll do is sing one, the "Tenth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell," and then do a tape for three voices of another one of the horse songs. You'll notice the words are rather similar from one to another, the melody changes. In this, and the Navajos of course would know this, the hero, Enemy-Slayer, has gone to the house of his father, the sun up there, to bring back horses for the people. And in this Tenth Horse Song, it's mostly the father, the sun, speaking, telling him to bring the horses back to the house of his mother, you know, who everybody understands to be Changing Woman. Bring it back to the earth. And sometimes the voice of Enemy-Slayer comes into it. But the basic refrain is to "go to the woman, go to her." Jerome Rothenberg 00:25:24 Performs "Tenth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell" [from The 17 Horse-Songs of Frank Mitchell]. Audience 00:31:25 Applause. Jerome Rothenberg 00:31:38 The next one, and I guess the last piece in the first set, is the "Twelfth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell". The melody changes. Some of the distortions change. The burden changes, and now Enemy-Slayer contemplates the horses coming back to earth with him, in the same sequence. This is done on tape, with three voices. I think that's about all there is to say about it. Three voices. Jerome Rothenberg 00:32:23 Plays recording of "Twelfth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell", sung by three voices [from The 17 Horse-Songs of Frank Mitchell and published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Audience 00:39:42 Applause. Jerome Rothenberg 00:39:48 In fact, let me end this set with a live poem, I don't want to end with a machine. This is another Aztec poem called "The Flight of Quetzalcoatl". The plumed serpent, bird-snake man. In which he discovers that he's become old, and leaves and goes on a long journey, and is reborn as the morning star. Jerome Rothenberg 00:40:39 Reads "The Flight of Quetzalcoatl" [later published in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Audience 00:47:17 Applause. Unknown 00:47:20 [Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. George Bowering 00:47:20 Okay, we'll hold for about ten minutes, and open the doors and get cool, and then come back. Unknown 00:47:27 [Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:47:28 The second set will be a straight reading, whatever that means, from a long series of poems called "Poland/1931". A series of ancestral poems. So Poland is where the ancestors come from, for some number, hundreds of years. And that is Jewish Poland. And 1931, rather than 1921, is the year of my birth. And it's in a sense, though I don't keep to it too strictly, everything before that. To try to build up a world that I really don't know. Jerome Rothenberg 00:48:29 Reads "Poland/1931: The Wedding" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:50:46 Reads "The King of the Jews" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:51:52 The next one's called "The Key of Solomon". It's the name of a medieval, a series of medieval magical books that were supposed to go back to the times of Solomon . Jerome Rothenberg 00:57:07 Reads "The Key of Solomon" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:53:42 "The Beadle's Testimony." Because beadles were a demon. Jerome Rothenberg 00:53:47 Reads "The Beadle's Testimony" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:54:53 Two poems called "Soap". Jerome Rothenberg 00:54:57 Reads "Soap " [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:55:56 Reads "Soap II” [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:57:37 Reads "The Rabbi's Testimony" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:59:08 Reads "The Connoisseur of Jews" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:00:38 Reads "The Beards" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:03:32 Reads "The Mothers I" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:04:08 Reads "The Mothers II" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:04:43 Reads "The Mothers III" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:05:19 Reads "Milk & Honey I" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:06:00 Reads "Milk & Honey II" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:06:31 Reads "Ancestral Scenes" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:07:09 Reads "The Fathers" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:09:10 This one is called "Portrait of the Jew, Old Country Style". Jerome Rothenberg 01:09:16 Reads "Poland, 1931: Portrait of the Jew, Old Country Style" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:11:51 This is a longer one, called "The Student's Testimony" Jerome Rothenberg 01:12:04 Reads "The Student's Testimony" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:17:49 A somewhat shorter one, and then another long one, and then a quite short one and that's...that's it. Jerome Rothenberg 01:17:58 Reads "The Brothers" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:20:10 Reads "The Steward's Testimony" [from Poland/1931]. Audience 01:25:15 Laughter and applause [faint]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:25:20 Now, I'll end it with, I'll end it with two poems. "A Poem for the Christians". It's partly to...[Audience laughter]...it's a found poem from the prayer book. But you can see where there are changes, you know. [Audience laughter]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:25:42 Reads "A Poem for the Christians" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:26:45 Reads "Fish and Paradise". END 01:27:32 [Cut off abruptly].

Notes:

Jerome Rothenberg reads poems published later in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972) and from Poland/1931 (Unicorn Press, 1969). Rachel has indexed poems. 00:00- George Bowering introduces Jerome Rothenberg. [INDEX: room, first night of fourth year of the series, poets, West, New American Poetry, New Mexico, Utah, San Francisco, New York City, Joel Oppenheimer, Paul Blackburn, editor, publisher, Some CH Oblique Thing [unknown 1960’s magazine], Technicians of the Sacred, oral traditions worldwide, pamphlet mistake: Rothenberg not born in 1921, Lord Byron.] 02:58- Jerome Rothenberg introduces reading and “Offering Flowers”. [INDEX: birthdate, two-part reading, translations or re-workings of American Indian poetry, direct contact, direct experience with American Indians, Aztec poem, Mexican, theme of flowers; unknown source.] 04:24- Reads “Offering Flowers”. [INDEX: translation, Aztec, Mexico, flower, feast, offering, morning, temple, spiritual, god, dance, repetition, anaphora, food, drink, word] 07:37- Introduces “A Song of Chalco”. [INDEX: Aztec in origin, translated to Spanish; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 07:52- Reads “A Song of Chalco”. [INDEX: rose, fire, god, house, bird, thrush, song, poet, forest, flower, dance, lust, father, prince, joy, son, body, river.] 09:53- Introduces first line “First Peyote Song”. [INDEX: die out, destruction, flowers, translations, Spanish, Peyote songs, Huichol Indians of central Mexico, Wiricota, gods, spiritual place of the Peyote, rose, the corn, the maize, images, mythological figure called Blue Stag, Huichol; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 10:46- Reads first line “First Peyote Song” . [INDEX: rose, birth, flower, wind, eternal, god, mountain, mother, house, heart, Peyote, Blue Stag, rain, maize, earth, Aztec, Mexico, song.] 11:46- Reads “Song of an Initiate”. [INDEX: rose, song, god, stair, sky, silence; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 12:25- Introduces “How the Violin Was Born: A Peyote Account”. [INDEX: peyote account; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 12:35- Reads “How the Violin Was Born”. [INDEX: music, violin, wood, cedar, stone, tree, heart, soul, Big Stag, bird, song, wind.] 13:24- Introduces “Dream Event I”. [INDEX: Indian pieces, whole activity of poetry, tribal peoples, activity of words, beyond language, events that accompany words, Iroquois dream-event; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 13:58- Reads “Dream Event I". [INDEX: aboriginal, dream, community, interpretation, theatre.] 14:08- Introduces “Vision Event I”. [INDEX: ‘Eskimo’; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 14:14- Reads “Vision Event I”. [INDEX: aboriginal, Eskimo, solitude, stone, circle, place, time, ritual.] 14:25- Reads “Vision Event II”. [INDEX: aboriginal, Eskimo, vision, hanging, sight; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 14:39- Introduces “Vision Event III”. [INDEX: Sioux Indian.] 14:43- Reads “Vision Event III”. [INDEX: American Indian, aboriginal, vision, crying, sight; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 15:01- Introduces “Gift Event” [INDEX: Kwakiut’l Indian gift event, English, translation, Northwest Coast people, celebrate the potlatch, consequences, benevolent; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 15:26- Reads “Gift Event”. [INDEX: Kwakiut'l, giving, gift, potlatch, Northwest, coast, aboriginal, animal, ritual, house, sound, value, name.] 16:32- Introduces “Seven Navajo Animal Songs”. 16:42- Reads “Seven Navajo Animal Songs”. [INDEX: animal, chipmunk, action, movement, mole, sex, wildcat, water, turkey, madness, scatological, pinion jay, bird; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 17:49- Introduces “Caw Caw the Crows Caw”. [INDEX: Seneca Indian word, curing ceremony “Shaking the pumpkin”, instrument, “The Society of the Mystic Animals”, Richard Johnny-John Indian, serious ceremony, prayer, translations, meanings of sounds, Indian poetry, visual presentation of sound, curing, well-being; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 19:34- Reads “Caw Caw the Crows Caw”. [INDEX: Seneca, aboriginal, crow, movement; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 19:49- Reads “Two more about a crow, in the manner of Zukofsky...”. [INDEX: Louis Zukofsky, sound, Seneca, aboriginal later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 20:05- Introduces “The Owl: One”. [INDEX: page, vocables, sounds, figure, singing of song, sound of the owl.] 20:19- Reads “The Owl: One”. [INDEX: Seneca, aboriginal, owl, home, tree, hemlock] 20:25- Reads “The Owl: Two”. [INDEX: Seneca, aboriginal, cure, sickness, poison, owl] 20:32- Reads “The Owl: Three”. [INDEX: Seneca, aboriginal, owl, tree, sound, whistle.] 20:40- Reads “A Song of My Song”. [INDEX: three parts, song, distance, circle, room, proximity, sound; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 20:59- Reads “Three Ways to Screw Up on Your Way to the Doings”. [INDEX: later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972) 21:16- Introduces “Where the Song Went Where She Went & What Happened When they Met”. [INDEX: buckets, soup, last of series; later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 21:31- Reads “Where the Song Went Where She Went & What Happened When they Met” 22:15- Introduces “Tenth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell”. [INDEX: Senecas, words, minimal poetry, power in compression, Navajo poetry, non-verbal sounds, distort words when sung, translation, meaning, series, horse-blessing, horse-curing songs, Navajo medicine man Frank Mitchell, problem translating, insert sounds, English, sing, tape of three voices of horse song, melody, hero, Enemy-Slayer, father’s house, sun, people, mother, Changing Woman, earth, refrain “go to the woman, go to her”.] 25:24- Reads/Sings “Tenth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell”. 31:38- Introduces “Twelfth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell”. [INDEX: melody change, distortions change, burden changes, Enemy-Slayer, horses, earth, sequence, three voices, later published in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 32:23- Plays recording of “Twelfth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell”. 39:48- Introduces “The Flight of the Quetzalcoatl”. [INDEX: live poem, machine, Aztec poem, plumed serpent, bird-snake-man, old, long journey, morning star; published later in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972).] 40:39- Reads “The Flight of the Quetzalcoatl”. 47:20- George Bowering introduces break. 47:27.02- END OF RECORDING. 00:00- Jerome Rothenberg introduces long poem “Poland 1931”. [INDEX: long poem, ancestral poems, Jewish Poland, year of Rothenberg’s birth, world unknown.] 01:02- Reads “Poland, 1931: The Wedding”. 03:19- Reads “Poland, 1931: The King of Jews”. 04:25- Introduces “Poland, 1931: The Key of Solomon”. [INDEX: medieval magical books.] 04:40- Reads “Poland, 1931: The Key of Solomon”. 06:15- Introduces “Poland, 1931: The Beetle’s Testimony”. [INDEX: beetles, demon.] 06:20- Reads “Poland, 1931: The Beetle’s Testimony”. 07:26- Introduces “Poland, 1931: Soap”. [INDEX: two poems called “Soap”.] 07:30- Reads “Poland, 1931: Soap I”. 08:29- Reads “Poland, 1931: Soap II”. 10:10- Reads "Poland, 1931: The Rabbi's Testimony" 11:41- Reads "Poland, 1931: The Connoisseur of Jews" 13:11- Reads "Poland, 1931: The Beards" 16:05- Reads "Poland, 1931: The Mothers I" 16:41- Reads "Poland, 1931: The Mothers II" 17:16- Reads "Poland, 1931: The Mothers III" 17:52- Reads "Poland, 1931: Milk and Honey I" 18:33- Reads "Poland, 1931: Milk and Honey II" 19:04- Reads "Poland, 1931: Ancestral Scenes" 19:42- Reads "Poland, 1931: The Fathers" 21:43- Introduces "Poland, 1931: Portrait of the Jew, Old Country Style" 21:49- Reads "Poland, 1931: Portrait of the Jew, Old Country Style" 24:24- Introduces "Poland, 1931: The Student's Testimony" 24:37- Reads "Poland, 1931: The Student's Testimony" 30:31- Reads "Poland, 1931: The Brothers" 32:43- Reads "Poland, 1931: The Steward's Testimony" 37:53- Introduces “A Poem for the Christians”. [INDEX: found poem in prayer book.] 38:15- Reads "A Poem for the Christians" 39:18- Reads "Fish and Paradise" 00:40:05.58- END OF RECORDING

Content Type:

Sound Recording

Featured:

Yes

Content Type:

Photograph

File URL:

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

Show Content

Title:

Jerome Rothenberg Tape Box - Back

Credit:

Drew Bernet

Content Type:

Photograph

File URL:

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

Show Content

Title:

Jerome Rothenberg Tape Box - Front

Credit:

Drew Bernet

Content Type:

Photograph

File URL:

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

Show Content

Title:

Jerome Rothenberg Tape Box - Spine

Credit:

Drew Bernet

Content Type:

Photograph

File URL:

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

Show Content

Title:

Jerome Rothenberg Tape Box - Reel

Credit:

Drew Bernet

Content Type:

Photograph

Dates

Date:

1969 10 17

Type:

Performance Date

Source:

Accompanying Material

Notes:

Date written on sticker on the back of the tape's box.

LOCATION

Address:

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

Venue:

Hall Building Room H-651

Latitude:

45.4972758

Longitude:

-73.57893043

URL:

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

Notes:

Location specified in written announcement "Poetry Four: Sir George Williams Poetry Series"

CONTENT

Contents:

jerome_rothenberg_i006-11-095.mp3 George Bowering 00:00:00 I'm glad we got this room. Welcome back to the first night of the fourth year of our series. And for those of you who are here for the first time, welcome you too. I'm really glad that we could start off with Jerome Rothenberg , especially from my own personal viewpoint, because while Jerome Rothenberg is one of the names that I've paid a lot of attention to, and one of the names that poets have paid attention to over the last decade, this'll be the first time that I've been able to hear him read, too. Usually when, often when us people from the West think about the new American poetry, we tend to think of it in terms of people from outposts such as New Mexico , and Utah, and San Francisco , and so on. And we forget that New York City is one of the centre-place, central-places, so that it can produce poets such as Joel Oppenheimer who will be here in the following spring, and Paul Blackburn , who was here a couple of years ago. Jerome Rothenberg has always been the centre, in the centre of that scene, and not only as one of the principal poets, but as editor, and publisher, and so on and so forth, especially with a very important magazine of the 1960's called some--oblique thing [some/thing]. And he's especially interesting to me too because of the kind of work that produced a book such as Technicians of the Sacred, a compilation of the poetries from various oral traditions around the world, and a similar sort of impulse has always been at the centre of his work too. I'd also like to correct a mistake on the little printed page that wasn't really mine, that I picked up from somewhere else and couldn't quite believe myself, that said that Jerome Rothenberg was born in 1921. All I can say is that he was born sometime between the death of Lord Byron and now. [Laughter]. But I'm pretty certain that he wasn't around in 1921. So I'd like you to give a welcome to Jerome Rothenberg. Audience 00:02:53 Applause. Jerome Rothenberg 00:02:58 The birthdate'll come clearer in the second part of the reading. I'll read in two parts. And in the first set, what I'll be reading are translations and re-workings of American Indian poetry, which have been important to me over the last five or six years. And I'll start with some which are based on earlier translations, re-workings of material previously translated, and then as I get into it, some translations that result from direct contact and direct experience of American Indian poetry. This is an Aztec poem. The first four or five, six poems will be Aztec or Mexican in origin, and the theme will be flowers. "Offering Flowers". Jerome Rothenberg 00:04:24 Reads "Offering Flowers" [from Technicians of the Sacred]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:07:37 This is Aztec, too, in origin, translated through the Spanish. Jerome Rothenberg 00:07:52 Reads “A Song of Chalco” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:09:53 And it doesn't die out, even with the destruction that follows, and flowers are picked up again, this in a series of translations, again through the Spanish, of a series of Peyote songs, from the Huichol Indians of central Mexico . The name Wirikuta is the name given to the place of the gods, and the spiritual place of the Peyote. The Peyote is described as the rose, it's described as the corn, the maize, it's described under a number of images, and through the figure, the mythological figure of one called the Blue Stag. This is the first Huichol, Peyote song. Jerome Rothenberg 00:10:46 Reads “First Peyote Song” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:11:46.19 "Song of an Initiate". Jerome Rothenberg 00:11:51 Reads "Song of an Initiate" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:12:25 And this is a poem called "How the Violin Was Born: A Peyote Account”. Jerome Rothenberg 00:12:35 Reads "How the Violin was Born: A Peyote Account” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:13:24 These are a few short Indian pieces. Not poems but part of what's connected with the whole activity of poetry, among the tribal peoples. Which is more than an activity of words; which goes beyond language. And these are the events that accompany the words. And the first is an Iroquois dream event. Jerome Rothenberg 00:13:58 Reads ["Dream Event 1", published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:14:08 These are a series of vision events. The first two are Eskimo. Jerome Rothenberg 00:14:14 Reads "Vision Event I" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:14:25 Reads "Vision Event 2" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:14:39 And this is a Sioux Indian vision event. Jerome Rothenberg 00:14:43 Reads "Vision Event 3" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:15:01 This is a Kwakiutl Indian gift event. All the words are from Kwakiut'l Indians. It's either spoken in English or translated into English. The Kwakiut'l, like other Northwest Coast people, celebrate the potlatch, you know, which is not always terrible or distasteful in its consequences. This is benevolent gift-giving. Jerome Rothenberg 00:15:26 Reads "Gift Event [2]" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:16:32 These are a series of seven Navajo animal songs. Jerome Rothenberg 00:16:42 Reads "Navajo Animal Songs" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:17:49 The next few are from a series of translations I've been doing, are called, well, it's the Seneca Indian word for one of their major curing ceremonies, a term for a major curing ceremony, "Shaking the Pumpkin", because the pumpkin rattle, the big pumpkin rattle is the major instrument used in this. Or it's got a more ornate name, it's called "The Society of the Mystic Animals". The man, Richard Johnny John, Indian, who is working with me on this, explained it's a serious ceremony, he said, but if everything's alright, the one who says the prayer tells them, I leave it up to you, folks, and if you want to have a good time, have a good time. Well everything's alright in the translations, you know, so one eases up there. The translations are done trying to follow everything in the Seneca, including the meaning of the sounds, the hey-ya and the way-oh-hey, that are very common in Indian poetry. Basically the way I do it is to present them visually on the page, and I can't do this in reading them, so I'm just going to select out of these poems that read easily. The purpose is curing, and well-being. Jerome Rothenberg 00:19:34 Reads ["Caw Caw the Crows Caw Caw" published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:19:49 Reads "Two more about a crow, in the manner of Zukofsky" [later published in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:05 Three poems about the owl, on the page, the vocables, the sounds, make the figure of an owl, even as in the singing of the song, the sound of the owl comes through. But here are just the words. Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:19 Reads "The Owl: One". Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:25 Reads "The Owl: Two". Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:32 Reads "The Owl: Three". Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:40 "A Song of My Song, In Three Parts”. Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:45 Reads "A Song of My Song, In Three Parts" [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:20:59 Reads “Three Ways to Screw Up on Your Way to the Doings” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:21:16 Buckets are important, to bring back soup and...The last one from this series. Jerome Rothenberg 00:21:31 Reads “Where the Song Went Where She Went & What Happened When they Met” [published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:22:15 The next are a little harder to do, but I hope I make it. The Senecas don't use many words. It's a kind of minimal poetry and the power is in the compression. The Navajos use more words, the poetry gets dense, and in addition they use many many non-verbal sounds. And in addition, they distort many of the words in the singing. So that if you translate just for the meaning, you're only getting a small part of what the Navajo is doing. And then in addition, everything is sung in the Navajo. So I began to translate a series called, because that's what they are, "The Seventeen Horse Songs of Frank Mitchell". Seventeen horse-blessing, horse-curing songs that were the property of a Navajo medicine man named Frank Mitchell. And the problem that came up for me, I couldn't translate just for meaning, I wanted to, you know, consider all of the factors that went into the poem. So I began to insert sounds corresponding to the sound of the English words as the Navajo had the meaning of the sounds, and to distort the words. And then it seemed to me that it was necessary to carry this further, to begin to sing the songs as well. Which came to me with great difficulty. But I've gotten through a number of them now, and what I'll do is sing one, the "Tenth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell," and then do a tape for three voices of another one of the horse songs. You'll notice the words are rather similar from one to another, the melody changes. In this, and the Navajos of course would know this, the hero, Enemy-Slayer, has gone to the house of his father, the sun up there, to bring back horses for the people. And in this Tenth Horse Song, it's mostly the father, the sun, speaking, telling him to bring the horses back to the house of his mother, you know, who everybody understands to be Changing Woman. Bring it back to the earth. And sometimes the voice of Enemy-Slayer comes into it. But the basic refrain is to "go to the woman, go to her." Jerome Rothenberg 00:25:24 Performs "Tenth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell" [from The 17 Horse-Songs of Frank Mitchell]. Audience 00:31:25 Applause. Jerome Rothenberg 00:31:38 The next one, and I guess the last piece in the first set, is the "Twelfth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell". The melody changes. Some of the distortions change. The burden changes, and now Enemy-Slayer contemplates the horses coming back to earth with him, in the same sequence. This is done on tape, with three voices. I think that's about all there is to say about it. Three voices. Jerome Rothenberg 00:32:23 Plays recording of "Twelfth Horse Song of Frank Mitchell", sung by three voices [from The 17 Horse-Songs of Frank Mitchell and published later in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Audience 00:39:42 Applause. Jerome Rothenberg 00:39:48 In fact, let me end this set with a live poem, I don't want to end with a machine. This is another Aztec poem called "The Flight of Quetzalcoatl". The plumed serpent, bird-snake man. In which he discovers that he's become old, and leaves and goes on a long journey, and is reborn as the morning star. Jerome Rothenberg 00:40:39 Reads "The Flight of Quetzalcoatl" [later published in Shaking the Pumpkin]. Audience 00:47:17 Applause. Unknown 00:47:20 [Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. George Bowering 00:47:20 Okay, we'll hold for about ten minutes, and open the doors and get cool, and then come back. Unknown 00:47:27 [Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:47:28 The second set will be a straight reading, whatever that means, from a long series of poems called "Poland/1931". A series of ancestral poems. So Poland is where the ancestors come from, for some number, hundreds of years. And that is Jewish Poland. And 1931, rather than 1921, is the year of my birth. And it's in a sense, though I don't keep to it too strictly, everything before that. To try to build up a world that I really don't know. Jerome Rothenberg 00:48:29 Reads "Poland/1931: The Wedding" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:50:46 Reads "The King of the Jews" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:51:52 The next one's called "The Key of Solomon". It's the name of a medieval, a series of medieval magical books that were supposed to go back to the times of Solomon . Jerome Rothenberg 00:57:07 Reads "The Key of Solomon" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:53:42 "The Beadle's Testimony." Because beadles were a demon. Jerome Rothenberg 00:53:47 Reads "The Beadle's Testimony" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:54:53 Two poems called "Soap". Jerome Rothenberg 00:54:57 Reads "Soap " [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:55:56 Reads "Soap II” [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:57:37 Reads "The Rabbi's Testimony" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 00:59:08 Reads "The Connoisseur of Jews" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:00:38 Reads "The Beards" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:03:32 Reads "The Mothers I" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:04:08 Reads "The Mothers II" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:04:43 Reads "The Mothers III" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:05:19 Reads "Milk & Honey I" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:06:00 Reads "Milk & Honey II" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:06:31 Reads "Ancestral Scenes" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:07:09 Reads "The Fathers" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:09:10 This one is called "Portrait of the Jew, Old Country Style". Jerome Rothenberg 01:09:16 Reads "Poland, 1931: Portrait of the Jew, Old Country Style" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:11:51 This is a longer one, called "The Student's Testimony" Jerome Rothenberg 01:12:04 Reads "The Student's Testimony" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:17:49 A somewhat shorter one, and then another long one, and then a quite short one and that's...that's it. Jerome Rothenberg 01:17:58 Reads "The Brothers" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:20:10 Reads "The Steward's Testimony" [from Poland/1931]. Audience 01:25:15 Laughter and applause [faint]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:25:20 Now, I'll end it with, I'll end it with two poems. "A Poem for the Christians". It's partly to...[Audience laughter]...it's a found poem from the prayer book. But you can see where there are changes, you know. [Audience laughter]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:25:42 Reads "A Poem for the Christians" [from Poland/1931]. Jerome Rothenberg 01:26:45 Reads "Fish and Paradise". END 01:27:32 [Cut off abruptly].

Notes:

Jerome Rothenberg reads poems published later in Shaking the Pumpkin (Doubleday, 1972) and from Poland/1931 (Unicorn Press, 1969).

NOTES

Type:

General

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Year-Specific Information: Jerome Rothenberg published Poland/1931 (Unicorn Press, 1969) and The Directions (Tetrad Press, 1969) with Tom Phillips and was teaching at the Mannes College for Music.

Type:

General

Note:

Local Connections: Direct connection to Sir George Williams University is unknown. Jerome Rothenberg was an influential member of contemporary American poetry, and had correspondences with other members of the poetry reading series, such as Robert Creeley, Paul Blackburn, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Kelly, Jackson Mac Low, bp Nichol, Gary Snyder and Diane Wakoski (please see Rothenberg’s papers for correspondences).

Type:

Cataloguer

Note:

Original transcript and print catalogue by Rachel Kyne Original print catalogue, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones Additional research and edits by Ali Barillaro

Type:

Preservation

Note:

Reel-to-reel tape>2 CDs>digital file