CLASSIFICATION
Swallow ID:
5376
Partner Institution:
Simon Fraser University
Source Collection Label:
Reading in BC Collection
Sub Series:
Reading in BC Collection
ITEM DESCRIPTION
Title:
Lecture #3: Jack Spicer at Tallman’s house in Vancouver on June 17, 1965 part 1 of 2 #753
Title Source:
cassette and j-card
Language:
English
Production Context:
Home recording
Genre:
Reading: Poetry
Identifiers:
[]
Rights
Rights:
Copyright Not Evaluated (CNE)
CREATORS
Name:
Spicer, Jack
Dates:
1925-1965
Role:
"Speaker",
"Reader"
CONTRIBUTORS
MATERIAL DESCRIPTION
Image:
Recording Type:
Analogue
AV Type:
Audio
Material Designation:
Cassette
Physical Composition:
Magnetic Tape
Storage Capacity:
T02:10:00
Extent:
1/8 inch
Track Configuration:
2 track
Playback Mode:
Stereo
Sound Quality:
Excellent
Physical Condition:
Good
Other Physical Description:
Black and white clear jewel case with J-card
DIGITAL FILE DESCRIPTION
Channel Field:
Stereo
Sample Rate:
44.1 kHz
Duration:
T00:46:51
Size:
58.1 MB
Bitrate:
32 bit
Encoding:
WAV for master files and .MP3 for online files
Channel Field:
Stereo
Sample Rate:
44.1 kHz
Duration:
T00:46:51
Size:
60.8 MB
Bitrate:
32 bit
Encoding:
WAV for master files and .MP3 for online files
Dates
Date:
1965-06-17
Type:
Performance Date
Source:
J-card
LOCATION
Address:
2527 West 37th Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Venue:
Warren Tallman’s House
Latitude:
49.23722
Longitude:
-123.11556
Notes:
Tallman and family lived in the '50s & '60s at 2527 West 37th Ave in Kerrisdale and this was where quite a few talks and reading were held and recorded.
CONTENT
Contents:
Side Track No. Comments
One 008 Side one begins with introduction by Spicer on talking about and reading a poem in process, with the possibility this could ruin the poem
032 He will give some background to the process of his poem. He asks the audience to imagine that he has started to write a poem that he is one quarter to halfway through and invites questions on the process of this poem and how he would treat a poem he was starting now
093 Someone asks what Spicer is worried about
094 Questions begin before the reading of the poem-in-process beginning with someone asking if he wants the audience to write his poem. Spicer responds, no, but that it is a possible problem when reading an unfinished work
095 Spicer responds with a discussion of the previous Vancouver poems he wrote, one of which was a section of a long poem called The Book of Magazine Verse
122 Spicer describes his numbering and sectioning process
145 Spicer thought of writing poems for magazines that wouldn’t print them. General laughter
139 Questioner asks if at this point he sees several directions at once
160 Spicer says he tries many directions and that this book, although good, is not that good… it may go down the drain
173 The first of many questions about the mind being an empty vessel
188 Spicer considers the necessity of the element of chance in a poet’s work
189 Q; Is it possible that the voice could tell you the third part first?
212 Spicer says he’s never changed chronological order, but it is possible and he would like to. But then whatever you’d like to do, is a very bad idea in a poem
220 Spicer on the poet’s own rules. Rules can be arbitrary you can have rules that you cheat from, you can change the rules
238 Are you cheating at this game if you use the dream?
241 Spicer explains this question is in reference to Vancouver poems that were almost edited directly from drams he had in Vancouver in May, 1965
249 Spicer thinks a dream is the same as any other piece of furniture in the room. But he doesn’t see the dream as being a meditation thing
285 Questions about dictated thoughts – where, when, how they came to Spicer
347 Q: Is dictation usually in words or images or combinations of these?
348 Spicer says it comes never in images, sometimes in rhythms
350 Dorothy Livesay interjects that Hopkins heard the music and the rhythm and finally had to write The Wreck of the Deutschland
354 Spicer says his Arthur poem mentions the noise in the head of the poem which dictates itself in rhythm, which always is in rhythm you don’t want
363 Spicer says you can always get poems if you know how to empty yourself
377 Q: Where does the craft and the intelligence of the poet enter into the poem?
380 Spicer says intelligence is part of the furniture and craft is something you want to get out of the house so enough ghosts can get into the house. You have to learn to take out the majority of your craft
396 Spicer turns to the poems (from Book of Magazine Verse) “Two Poems for The Nation”
416 Ends
417 “Six Poems for Poetry Chicago”
425 Two
437 Three
439 Tape fades out and seems to begin again at 425 (above)
449 Four
457 Five
472 End
473 TISH Poems 1
482 Two
489 Three
498 End
499 “Four Poems for Ramparts”
521 Three
529 Four
540 Ends
541 Four Poems for The St. Louis Sporting News
551 Two
560 Three
569 Four
578 Ends
579 “Poems for the Vancouver Festival”
604 Tape ends in the middle of #3
Continued on Side Two
Two 005 Side two begins mid-reading by Spicer
013 Questions begin with wanting to know how long Spicer had been working on this poem
018 Spicer discusses writing The Vancouver poems in Vancouver. Spicer says the current poems are in a mess, not knowing what they want to be
056 Spicer asks what is the audience’s reaction to the poems just read (presumably the Vancouver poems) – do the voices come through?
058 Various subjective comments from audience
113 Spicer feels the poem will move closer toward building the city instead of the celebration of the city as the Textbook of Poetry did
149 Jamie sees the Vancouver Poems as being intimately connected wi5th the baseball image of the city – the diamond image connected with the city’s pearl in the sea image
175 Spicer says he wrote the poem after going to “that awful place where the ferry boats are” – (Horseshoe Bay)
188 Spicer explains his use of the term ‘measure’ as it relates to the city and walking through it
253 Questioner argues that there must be a voice which is inherently that of the poet and not the furniture cluttering the mind
255 Spicer disagrees
276 Spicer goes into music and Stravinsky to elaborate his point
302 Questioner asks if not all of the questions directed at Spicer contain a doubt that Spicer’s skills, personality, accomplishment with language are ruled out when the upside is dictating the poem. If people are not wondering if you’re there, Jack Spicer?
313 Spicer agrees that people don’t believe him, but that they may believe him if there were to try it
329 Spicer is asked – again – if he sees the dictation of the poem as a meditative process instead of some technique of poetry
330 Spicer says Cezanne (his favourite painter) likely never meditated a day in his life, but he managed to have his last 10 years of painting pure of anything which he intended which is something that Kandinsky (nice painter) never did
339 Spicer points out that he doesn’t expect anyone to take his word on it, but he would like to see people experiment with it
347 Spicer goes back to the discussion of his mind being a blank as he works. It is an impossible process to make your mind a blank – He points to the process of playing an instrument as an example
363 Interjection from listener claiming Spicer to have given the best and most accurate description of the production of art he has ever heard
376 Same speaker says Copland once remarked that the best performances always are those just this side of disaster. He says this is so much like Spicer’s idea of taking a change and risking it
386 Spicer says Ernst Block came to CAL and was pleased by the fact that Toscanini said he wouldn’t play anything by Block because it was too bloody. Bloch realized he had to play the dance between the tensions of bloody and too bloody
403 Q: How do you judge what comes through to be a true message, what do you want to say?
407 Spicer uses the analogy of baseball again calling the poet a catcher who likes to think of himself as a pitcher. Diverges into a baseball pitching anecdote denoting how a pitcher gets pleased with something he’s done
457 Q: about the magazine verse poem and Spicer’s comment about being becalmed or not becalmed
474 Spicer asks what people thought about the lemon. Discussion ensues about oranges and lemons and oval as the wrong description of a lemon
515 Student remarks that it seemed like a Romantic poem compared to the Heads of the Town Up to the Aether which gave Spicer’s bitterness
526 Spicer asks if anyone saw the connection with the oranges and the last baseball poem
531 Spicer says Abner Doubleday was one of the first inventors of baseball and the first president of the American Theosophical Society. Debate continues as to whether baseball belongs to Vancouver, or to Canada, or not. Discussion dissolves into laughter and general chaos.
537 Dorothy Livesay suggests the poem is about Spicer, about the States, it’s not Canadian. She says baseball is an American game; here they play soccer and cricket. She is generally laughed and booed down
Notes:
SFU BC Readings formatting
NOTES
Type:
General
Note:
Jack Spicer: Lecture #3,
June 17, 1965
Recorded at Tallman's
part I
side 1: 45:30
side 2: 45:10
MASTER
DOLBY B
#753
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