George Bowering and David McFadden: Performing the Spoken Word Archive

Friday October 12, 2012
Exhibits at 6:00 P.M.
Reading at 7:00 P.M.
H-110, Henry F. Hall Building, Concordia University

1455 De Maisonneuve Street West
(514) 848-2424 ext. 2340

The SSHRC IG SpokenWeb Research Team is pleased to announce its first event in the “Performing the Spoken Word Archive” series. The event will be held Friday, October 12th, 2012 at 6:00 P.M. in H-110 of the Hall Building (1455 De Maisonneuve West), and will feature readings from poets George Bowering and David McFadden. Bowering is the recipient of two Governor General Awards for poetry and one for fiction, and is the author of more than ninety books. McFadden has published over fifteen collections of fiction and poetry and has been a nominee for the Governor General’s Award and the Griffin Prize for poetry, among other honors.

As a live event component to the SpokenWeb project, an online digital spoken word archive, the series explores various ways that the archive can re-enter public space and become performance. In this event the authors will “read alongside their past selves”–that is, selections of archival audio recorded during the Sir George Williams University Poetry Reading Series (1967-1974). The readings will be followed by a panel discussion on the audio archive and the social and cultural import of the poetry reading, with Stuart Ross, Jason Camlot and Darren Wershler. The event will also feature an exhibition of period photos from the Concordia Archives, an interactive sound installation by Max and Julian Stein, and audience members can participate in an oral history memory clinic, where they will be invited to record their experiences with performed poetry.

Check out our blog post about this event here