CLASSIFICATION
Swallow ID:
1302
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:
George Bowering, The Poetry Series, 3 March 1967
Title Source:
Cataloguer
Title Note:
Title does not follow the typical formula for this collection, as this reading did not take place at Sir George Williams University, but rather in Bowering's home
Language:
English
Production Context:
Home recording
Genre:
Reading: Poetry
Identifiers:
[]
Rights
CREATORS
Name:
Bowering, George
Dates:
1935-
Role:
"Author",
"Performer"
Notes:
Poet, novelist, anthologist and critic George Bowering was born in Penticton, British Columbia in 1935. In 1954 he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force until 1957, when he pursued a Bachelor’s degree in 1960 and a Master’s degree in 1963 from the University of British Columbia. With fellow poets Frank Davey, David Dawson, James Reid, Fred Wah and critic Warren Tallman, he founded Tish in 1961, a poetry newsletter which had monumental reverberations across Canada. This magazine, influenced by styles of the Black Mountain Poets and of the East Coast poetry of Louis Dudek, Raymond Souster and Irving Layton, brought a “new wave” of poetry to Canada. Bowering’s first collection of poetry began with Sticks and Stones (Tishbooks, 1962) with a preface written by Robert Creeley, and was followed by Points on the Grid (Contact Press, 1964) and Man in Yellow Boots (El Corno Emplumado, 1965). Bowering also founded the magazine Imago (1964-1974), which featured critical essays and poetry, and he also contributed to Open Letter as an editor. Bowering then moved eastwards, teaching at the University of Calgary from 1963-1966, enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the University of Western Ontario. A year later, Bowering accepted a position as the writer-in-residence in 1967 at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) in Montreal, becoming a lecturer in 1967-1971. Bowering joined the Sir George Williams University Poetry Reading Series Committee in the fall of 1967, which was being run by Roy Kiyooka, Stanton Hoffman and Howard Fink. In 1972 he left Montreal and began a long career teaching at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. He has published over fifty books of poetry, prose, short stories, essays, reviews, plays as well as pieces that combine and defy genres. A selection of his publications are as follows: Genève (Coach House Press, 1971), Autobiology (New Star Books, 1972), Curious (Coach House Press, 1973), In the Flesh (McClelland & Stewart, 1974), Allophanes (Coach House Press, 1976), Burning Water (Beaufort Books, 1980), Caprice (Penguin Books, 1988), Harry’s Fragments (Coach House Press, 1990), Rewriting my Grandfather (Nomados, 2005), Baseball Love (Talonbooks, 2006) and Shall I Compare: July 2006 (George Bowering, 2008). Bowering published his interview with Black Mountain poet Robert Duncan: An Interview, (Coach House Press, 1971), a book-length study on Canadian poet Al Purdy: Al Purdy (Copp Clark, 1970) along with editing several anthologies such as Vibrations: Poems from Youth (Cage, 1970), Fiction of Contemporary Canada (Coach House Press, 1980) and Likely Stories: A Postmodern Sampler (Coach House Oress, 1992). Bowering has won two Governor General Awards, for poetry in 1969 for Rocky Mountain Foot (McClelland & Stewart, 1968) and The Gangs Kosmos (Anasi, 1969); one for fiction in 1980 for Burning Water (Beaufort Books, 1980). George Bowering continues teaching, inspiring and writing at the Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.
CONTRIBUTORS
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:
BASF
Sound Quality:
Good
DIGITAL FILE DESCRIPTION
Duration:
00:32:58
Content:
George Bowering
00:00:00
First of all, my apologies for being so late with the tape, and a footnote that the noise in the background, if there is any, will be my wife making supper.
Unknown
00:00:12
Ambient sound.
George Bowering
00:00:17
First I'll read, first I'll read from my first book, Points on the Grid.
Unknown
00:00:27
[Cut in tape].
George Bowering
00:00:32
This book published in 1964, by Contact Press. The first poem I'll read is the one called "Trail" [feedback sounds].
George Bowering
00:00:49
Reads "Trail" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:01:36
"Locus Solus".
George Bowering
00:01:40
Reads "Locus Solus" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:02:42
I might mention that the difference between this book and the other one is that more often you'll see on the page in this book that I've been working out certain ideas about poetics
, certain ideas about syntax
, ideas about how to get the page down on the poem, all the things the Tish poets
were working out in the early 1960s. As an example, the poem, "Walking Poem".
George Bowering
00:03:14
Reads "Walking Poem" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:04:22
I might mention, according to our poetics, or according to my poetics in that poem you'll see things operating such as a rhyme between the word 'shadow' and the word 'bashful'. "Family".
George Bowering
00:04:39
Reads "Family" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:05:33
The following is the poem that I think is the best in the book, and that I think most people whom I've talked to agree this is the best poem in the book. "Grandfather".
George Bowering
00:05:47
Reads "Grandfather" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:07:25
"For A.".
Annotation
00:07:28
Reads "For A." from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:07:49
One thing that separates Western Canada
from Eastern Canada
is the Spanish names of Western Canada and the Spaniards
left their names all the way up the coast, not only in California and Oregon. This poem, set partly in Vancouver
and partly on the rest of the B.C. coast is called "Spanish B.C.".
George Bowering
00:08:11
Reads "Spanish B.C" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:10:34
I suppose I'd better read the title poem, "Points on the Grid".
George Bowering
00:10:42
Reads "Points on the Grid" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:12:10
I might mention, just for the record, that many of the things that I learned and tried to practice in that first book, I learned originally from poets such as Robert Duncan
, Robert Creeley
, Charles Olson
, all of whom visited Vancouver and helped the young poets in Vancouver out, very much, in learning about poetry. Now I plan to read from The Man in Yellow Boots, published this year, 1965, and in this book, I tend to move away from experimentation
, although I still retain many of the things that I tried to work out in the first book. In this book one of the things that I often do is turn to more social issues. First though, let me read the love poem that begins the book, this poem called "To Cleave".
George Bowering
00:13:14
Reads "To Cleave" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:13:43
This book is a bilingual book, unfortunately not with French
, but with Spanish
and just this once I'm going to see if I can read the Spanish version of the poem I just read. Spanish is called "Penetrar".
George Bowering
00:13:58
Reads "Penetrar" from The Man in Yellow Boots in Spanish.
George Bowering
00:14:39
Incidentally as a poetic note, some of that scratching and scrabbling noise in the background is my two small dogs beating each other up. This poem called "Moon Shadow".
George Bowering
00:14:54
Reads "Moon Shadow" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:16:03
This then, is the other side of my poetry, this poem called "Vox Crapulous".
George Bowering
00:16:09
Reads "Vox Crapulous" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:17:31
Further in that vein, this poem’s written October 16, 1964: a momentous day. This poem is called "The Day Before the Chinese A-Bomb".
George Bowering
00:17:46.49
Reads "The Day Before the Chinese A-Bomb" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:18:29
This a longer poem, I think one of the two best poems in the book the other one being "The Descent", this poem's called "For WCW"
George Bowering
00:18:39
Reads "For WCW" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:21:16
This poem, written during our visit to Mexico
in 1964, called "Esta Muy Caliente" and the reason it's not called "Hace Mucho Calor" is because of something inherent in the Spanish language that those that know will understand.
George Bowering
00:21:35
Reads "Esta Muy Caliente" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:23:09
I think the following is the best poem in this book, it's called "The Descent", the title taken from a William Carlos Williams
poem of course.
George Bowering
00:23:18.83
Reads "The Descent" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:29:09
And the last poem in the book, "Breaking Up, Breaking Out".
George Bowering
00:29:14
Reads "Breaking Up, Breaking Out" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:30:03
Now, some newer poems, while there's time. This newest one called "The Oil", written after a drive to Edmonton
and back from Calgary
.
George Bowering
00:30:14
Reads "The Oil" [published later in Rocky Mountain Foot: a lyric, a memoir].
George Bowering
00:32:03
Here's a short poem called "I Saw".
George Bowering
00:32:07
Reads "I Saw".
George Bowering
00:32:20
Okay, when I've just about come to the end of this side of the tape and I don't think I'll use the other side so that you can use it for somebody else, and once again I'm terribly sorry for being so late with this tape, and also if that does seem a loss, I'm sorry for not saying more things about poetry, I've been doing that less and less the further and further I've been getting away from Vancouver. So, Merry Christmas!
END
00:32:58
Notes:
George Bowering reads from Points on the Grid (Contact, 1964), The Man in Yellow Boots (El Corno Emplumado, 1965) as well as one poem published later in Rocky Mountain Foot: a lyric, a memoir (1968).
List of Poems Read and Time Stamps:
00:00 - George Bowering introduces reading [INDEX: Points on the Grid ]
00:49 - Reads “Trail”
01:36 - Reads “Locus Solus” [INDEX: not on Howard Fink list of poems]
02:42 - Introduces “Walking Poem” [INDEX: Points on the Grid, Man in Yellow Boots, poetics, syntax, Tish poets in the early 1960’s]
03:14 - Reads “Walking Poem”
04:22 - Introduces “Family” [INDEX: poetics: rhyme]
04:39 - Reads “Family”
05:33 - Introduces “Grandfather”
05:47 - Reads “Grandfather”
07:25 - Reads “For A.”
07:49 - Introduces “Spanish B.C.” [INDEX: differences between Eastern and Western Canada, Spaniards on West Coast of North America, Vancouver]
08:11 - Reads “Spanish B.C.”
10:34 - Reads “Points on the Grid”
12:10 - Introduces “To Cleave” [INDEX: Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, Charles Olson, young poets in Vancouver, The Man in Yellow Boots, experimentation in poetry]
13:14 - Reads “To Cleave”
13:43 - Introduces “Penetrar” [INDEX: not on Howard Fink List.]
13:58 - Reads “Penetrar”
14:39 - Introduces “Moon Shadow”
14:54 - Reads “Moon Shadow”
16:03 - Introduces “Vox Crappulous”
16:09 - Reads “Vox Crappulous”
17:31 - Introduces “The Day Before the Chinese A-Bomb” [INDEX: October 16, 1964]
17:46 - Reads “The Day Before the Chinese A-Bomb”
18:29 - Introduces “For W.C.W.” [INDEX: “The Descent”, William Carlos Williams]
18:39 - Reads “For W.C.W.”
21:16 - Introduces “Esta Muy Caliente” [INDEX: written during trip to Mexico in 1964, Spanish language]
23:09 - Reads “Esta Muy Caliente”
23:09 - Introduces “The Descent” [INDEX: William Carlos Williams poem]
23:18 - Reads “The Descent”
29:09 - Introduces “Breaking Up, Breaking Out”
29:14 - Reads “Breaking Up, Breaking Out”
30:03 - Introduces “The Oil” [INDEX: drive from Edmonton to Calgary, poem from
unknown source]
32:03 - Reads “The Oil”
32:03 - Reads “I Saw” [INDEX: poem from unknown source]
32:20 - George Bowering closes the reading [INDEX: talking about poetry, being away from Vancouver, Merry Christmas!]
Howard Fink List of Poems:
“George Bowering” reading his own poetry
March 3, 1967
reel info: one, 5” tape, 3 3/4 ips, mono, one track, lasting 25 mins.
*note: some poems are missing from this list*
“Steps of love” is noted as being between “Walking Poem” and “Family”
Content Type:
Sound Recording
Title:
George Bowering Tape Box 1 - Back
Credit:
Drew Bernet
Content Type:
Photograph
Title:
George Bowering Tape Box 1 - Front
Credit:
Drew Bernet
Content Type:
Photograph
Title:
George Bowering Tape Box 1 - Spine
Credit:
Drew Bernet
Content Type:
Photograph
Title:
George Bowering Tape Box 1 - Reel
Credit:
Drew Bernet
Content Type:
Photograph
Dates
Date:
1967 3 3
Type:
Performance Date
Source:
Accompanying Material
Notes:
Date reference in "Howard Fink List"
LOCATION
Notes:
Bowering's home at the time
CONTENT
Contents:
George Bowering
00:00:00
First of all, my apologies for being so late with the tape, and a footnote that the noise in the background, if there is any, will be my wife making supper.
Unknown
00:00:12
Ambient sound.
George Bowering
00:00:17
First I'll read, first I'll read from my first book, Points on the Grid.
Unknown
00:00:27
[Cut in tape].
George Bowering
00:00:32
This book published in 1964, by Contact Press. The first poem I'll read is the one called "Trail" [feedback sounds].
George Bowering
00:00:49
Reads "Trail" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:01:36
"Locus Solus".
George Bowering
00:01:40
Reads "Locus Solus" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:02:42
I might mention that the difference between this book and the other one is that more often you'll see on the page in this book that I've been working out certain ideas about poetics
, certain ideas about syntax
, ideas about how to get the page down on the poem, all the things the Tish poets
were working out in the early 1960s. As an example, the poem, "Walking Poem".
George Bowering
00:03:14
Reads "Walking Poem" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:04:22
I might mention, according to our poetics, or according to my poetics in that poem you'll see things operating such as a rhyme between the word 'shadow' and the word 'bashful'. "Family".
George Bowering
00:04:39
Reads "Family" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:05:33
The following is the poem that I think is the best in the book, and that I think most people whom I've talked to agree this is the best poem in the book. "Grandfather".
George Bowering
00:05:47
Reads "Grandfather" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:07:25
"For A.".
Annotation
00:07:28
Reads "For A." from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:07:49
One thing that separates Western Canada
from Eastern Canada
is the Spanish names of Western Canada and the Spaniards
left their names all the way up the coast, not only in California and Oregon. This poem, set partly in Vancouver
and partly on the rest of the B.C. coast is called "Spanish B.C.".
George Bowering
00:08:11
Reads "Spanish B.C" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:10:34
I suppose I'd better read the title poem, "Points on the Grid".
George Bowering
00:10:42
Reads "Points on the Grid" from Points on the Grid.
George Bowering
00:12:10
I might mention, just for the record, that many of the things that I learned and tried to practice in that first book, I learned originally from poets such as Robert Duncan
, Robert Creeley
, Charles Olson
, all of whom visited Vancouver and helped the young poets in Vancouver out, very much, in learning about poetry. Now I plan to read from The Man in Yellow Boots, published this year, 1965, and in this book, I tend to move away from experimentation
, although I still retain many of the things that I tried to work out in the first book. In this book one of the things that I often do is turn to more social issues. First though, let me read the love poem that begins the book, this poem called "To Cleave".
George Bowering
00:13:14
Reads "To Cleave" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:13:43
This book is a bilingual book, unfortunately not with French
, but with Spanish
and just this once I'm going to see if I can read the Spanish version of the poem I just read. Spanish is called "Penetrar".
George Bowering
00:13:58
Reads "Penetrar" from The Man in Yellow Boots in Spanish.
George Bowering
00:14:39
Incidentally as a poetic note, some of that scratching and scrabbling noise in the background is my two small dogs beating each other up. This poem called "Moon Shadow".
George Bowering
00:14:54
Reads "Moon Shadow" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:16:03
This then, is the other side of my poetry, this poem called "Vox Crapulous".
George Bowering
00:16:09
Reads "Vox Crapulous" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:17:31
Further in that vein, this poem’s written October 16, 1964: a momentous day. This poem is called "The Day Before the Chinese A-Bomb".
George Bowering
00:17:46.49
Reads "The Day Before the Chinese A-Bomb" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:18:29
This a longer poem, I think one of the two best poems in the book the other one being "The Descent", this poem's called "For WCW"
George Bowering
00:18:39
Reads "For WCW" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:21:16
This poem, written during our visit to Mexico
in 1964, called "Esta Muy Caliente" and the reason it's not called "Hace Mucho Calor" is because of something inherent in the Spanish language that those that know will understand.
George Bowering
00:21:35
Reads "Esta Muy Caliente" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:23:09
I think the following is the best poem in this book, it's called "The Descent", the title taken from a William Carlos Williams
poem of course.
George Bowering
00:23:18.83
Reads "The Descent" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:29:09
And the last poem in the book, "Breaking Up, Breaking Out".
George Bowering
00:29:14
Reads "Breaking Up, Breaking Out" from The Man in Yellow Boots.
George Bowering
00:30:03
Now, some newer poems, while there's time. This newest one called "The Oil", written after a drive to Edmonton
and back from Calgary
.
George Bowering
00:30:14
Reads "The Oil" [published later in Rocky Mountain Foot: a lyric, a memoir].
George Bowering
00:32:03
Here's a short poem called "I Saw".
George Bowering
00:32:07
Reads "I Saw".
George Bowering
00:32:20
Okay, when I've just about come to the end of this side of the tape and I don't think I'll use the other side so that you can use it for somebody else, and once again I'm terribly sorry for being so late with this tape, and also if that does seem a loss, I'm sorry for not saying more things about poetry, I've been doing that less and less the further and further I've been getting away from Vancouver. So, Merry Christmas!
END
00:32:58
Notes:
George Bowering reads from Points on the Grid (Contact, 1964), The Man in Yellow Boots (El Corno Emplumado, 1965) as well as one poem published later in Rocky Mountain Foot: a lyric, a memoir (1968).
NOTES
Type:
General
Note:
Year-specific Information:
In 1967, George Bowering had been hired at Sir George Williams University and was on the Reading Series Committee. Bowering was also editing his magazine Imago in Montreal.
Type:
General
Note:
Local connections:
George Bowering was very influential in promoting and enriching the Vancouver poetry scene in the early 1960s, through his magazines Tish and Imago as well as the hundreds of connections he made with other poets. His early connections with the Black Mountain Poets and the relationships he made with Canadian poets from Vancouver across Canada to Montreal have been essential because he bridged the gap of distance and made new types of poetry available to young poets. Montrealer Louis Dudek wrote that Bowering’s “most important contribution to the new generation of Montreal poets was the institution of a series of readings at Sir George [Williams University] which exposed them to the diverse experimentation that was taking place across Canada and the U.S.”[1] . Bowering has anthologized many Canadian poets, as well as publishing over fifty books of his own writing, establishing himself as an important figure in Canadian poetry.
Type:
Cataloguer
Note:
Original transcript, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones
Additional research and edits by Faith Paré (2020) & Ali Barillaro (2021)
Type:
Preservation
Note:
Reel-to-reel tape>CD>digital file
RELATED WORKS
Citation:
Bowering, George. Rocky Mountain Foot: a lyric, a memoir. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1968.
Citation:
Bowering, George. The Concrete Island: Montreal poems, 1967-1971. Montreal: Vehicule Press, 1977.
Citation:
Bowering, George. Points on the Grid. Toronto: Contact Press, 1964.
Citation:
Bowering, George. (ed). The Contemporary Canadian Poem Anthology. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1984.
Citation:
Farkas, Andre & Ken Norris, ed. Montreal English Poetry of the Seventies. Montreal: Vehicule Press, 1977.
Citation:
Geddes, Gary (ed). Fifteen Canadian Poets Times Two. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Citation:
Mandel, Eli (ed). Poets of Contemporary Canada 1960-1970. Montreal: McClelland and Stewart, 1972.
Citation:
Miki, Roy. “Bowering, George (1935-)”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. Ed. Benson, Eugene; Conolly, L.W. London: Routledge, 1994.
Citation:
Miki, Roy. A Record of Writing: an annotated and illustrated bibliography of George Bowering. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1990.
Citation:
Quartermain, Peter and Meredith. "George Bowering." Canadian Writers Since 1960:
First Series. Ed. William H. New. Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 53. Detroit: Gale Research, 1986.
Citation:
Davey, Frank. From There to Here: A Guide to English-Canadian Literature Since 1960. Ontario: Press Porcepic, 1974 .
Citation:
Bowering, George and Sergio Mondragon. The Man in Yellow Boots. Mexico: El Corno Emplumado, 1965.