George Bowering English 414 Lecture 3 at SFU on September 17, 1973 #662

CLASSIFICATION

Swallow ID:
5770
Partner Institution:
Simon Fraser University
Source Collection Label:
Reading in BC Collection
Sub Series:
Reading in BC Collection

ITEM DESCRIPTION

Title:
George Bowering English 414 Lecture 3 at SFU on September 17, 1973 #662
Title Source:
cassette and j-card
Title Note:
On J-card: English 414 Lecture 3 Sept. 17, 1973; Imagism continued
Language:
English
Production Context:
Classroom recording
Genre:
Speeches: Talks
Identifiers:
[]

Rights

Rights:
Copyright Not Evaluated (CNE)

CREATORS

Name:
Bowering, George
Dates:
1935-
URL:
http://viaf.org/viaf/34469976
Role:
"Speaker"

CONTRIBUTORS

MATERIAL DESCRIPTION

Image:
Image
Recording Type:
Analogue
AV Type:
Audio
Material Designation:
Cassette
Physical Composition:
Magnetic Tape
Extent:
1/8 inch
Generations:
Second generation from Reel-to-Reel
Sound Quality:
Good
Physical Condition:
Excellent
Other Physical Description:
Black and white clear jewel case with J-card

DIGITAL FILE DESCRIPTION

Channel Field:
Stereo
Sample Rate:
44.1 kHz
Duration:
T00:30:16
Size:
38.5 MB
Bitrate:
32 bit
Encoding:
WAV for master files and .MP3 for online files
Channel Field:
Stereo
Sample Rate:
44.1 kHz
Duration:
T00:30:42
Size:
35.7 MB
Bitrate:
32 bit
Encoding:
WAV for master files and .MP3 for online files

Dates

Date:
1973-09-17
Type:
Performance Date
Source:
J-card

LOCATION

Address:
8888 University Dr, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6
Venue:
Simon Fraser University
Latitude:
49.2784
Longitude:
-122.9231
URL:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/102254132

CONTENT

Contents:
Side Track No. Comments One 000 012 H.D. (Bowering explains that he is aiming towards selections from War Trilogy) 019 What Imagism did to poetry 021 T.E. Hume – “A lecture on Modern Poetry”. Modern poetry at that time meant what the Imagists were doing and to a certain extent Symbolists and English poets 029 Modern art makes its break with the Victorians in that “it no longer deals with heroic action. It has become definitely and finally introspective and deals with expression and communication of momentary phases in the poet’s mind” 035 Explains different relationship of reader to writer caused by shift in perspective: Impression vs. described action. Outlines implications of this with examples 060 Revelations rather than deliver. Likens Imagists to psychologists 074 H.D. and Freud 082 Freudian analysis – dredging up of an image 090 Freud actually did have a couch and sexually harassed H.D., George informs us 0100 Reader’s participation in meaning 0113 Writer’s non-interference 0118 What does the iambic pentameter do to us? Looks at Pope’s poetry. Talks about its structure 0137 Why is the structure there? 0147 Free verse is the scariest phrase in literature 0160 French meaning different from English. Defined in a negative sense 0172 Prescribed forms like airplane flight; free verse, like a bird’s 0189 Synthesis between different structures is what free verse does. Body is the determinant 0200 Highly structured works and automatic pilots 0216 Rhythm and images 0239 How can one portray a dream without converting it into a conscious censored pattern? 0250 George’s diary entry from 1961 0261 Inability of language to explain dreams 0270 Social contract and manipulation 0284 Hopkins 0301 Begin with sound 0314 Reads from “Music of Poetry”, T.S. Eliot. Inner and outer unity. Organic form 0340 What has been thrown out in free verse 0346 Williams – measure and metre 0364 Cadence replaces metre as ordering principle 0400 Still waiting for definition of cadence from students, Bowering offers the word cadaver because it has same root 0408 George offers definition – “where the foot falls” 0414 Definition applied to English and Latin, qualitative and quantitative, respectively 0419 Parallel with music (i.e. cadenza) 0439 Cadence verse (as far as rhythm is concerned) and the English language 0447 E.A. Poe and the scansion of verse (in English), characterizing how to put a poem together moment by moment 0461 The difference between a good H.D. poem and a bad H.D. poem is determined by the degree to which she “meddles” 0465 Pound thought H.D. was getting “too mystical” 0472 What is being sought in an Imagist poem “to discover the inevitable” 0483 Pope’s form social convention – English isn’t spoken in iambic 0496 Recommends John Gould Fletcher’s book Irradiations Sand and Spray. The preface describes how one goes about making an Imagist poem 0506 Paraphrases T.E. Hume – Images are the only way to communicate with each other (verbal or pictorial) 0536 What is the poet’s job? To communicate with images; make those images fresh and make the combinations of those images fresh 0545 Craze to find new imagists (Imagists and Surrealists) and to rely as little as possible on descriptions, abstractions, and ‘function’ words (i.e. of, about, by for, from, until, etc.) 0555 Contrasts with 18th century verse which relied on function words in order to be iambic 0578 Images for imagists not there to decorate the verse or illustrate an argument (as in 18th century especially) Bowering offers other examples 0613 In England in 1914 the Imagists were ridiculed (and in U.S.A.) 0619 Gertrude Stein’s writing became a joke but her name became a household word. The situation was not this extreme for the Imagists 0633 Imagists views became truisms about verse later on 0665 Bowering stresses that every Imagist poem is by its own terms a failure because they had to compromise with language. Each making of poetic language is a compromise. Measuring the poem moment by moment works against the knowledge that it is a compromise. Quotes Pound “compromise as little as you can”. Bowering says this means “stay awake” when writing and reading the poem. Recommends Chapter 8 in ABC Of Reading, p. 63 0696 Will look at the first H.D. poems next time Two Side two is blank
Notes:
SFU BC Readings formatting

NOTES

Note:
Voice is clear but there is a low buzz throughout

RELATED WORKS

Tools