July 15, 2024 | 43:28 | S2:E1
EPISODE NOTES
University of Exeter undergraduates Sofie Drew and Emily Chircop carry out a close listening of a 1980 recording of Sharon Thesen reading from her first book Artemis Hates Romance at George and Angela Bowerings' house. Drew and Chircop's conversation focuses on the intimacy, sociality, and ambiguity of the recording, and how this shapes interpretation. The episode features multiple archival clips from the digitized cassette tape, alongside interview audio from Karis Shearer and George Bowering. “Sharon Thesen's Reading at the Bowerings’” was co-produced by Emily Chircop and Sofie Drew as part of the Press Play project. The SoundBox Collection is part of the SpokenWeb SSHRC Partnership Grant.
Sofie Drew is a Classical Studies and English undergraduate student at the University of Exeter who is particularly interested in creative writing and poetry. She is the current Head of Poetry of the University of Exeter’s creative writing journal, ‘Enigma’, and was recently elected as Journal Director for the next year. Having written and directed an audio drama as part of the BBC New Creatives scheme, and written another audio drama as part of the “United Kingdoms” series which aired on BBC Radio 4, she is looking forward to working on further writing projects. Follow Sofie on Instagram: @sofiefdrew
Emily Chircop is an English and Communications undergraduate student at the University of Exeter, who has been working on podcasts since 2020. She is the co-founder of Archives Abound, an online student-run publication. Her main interests include early modern theatre and digital humanities, and she enjoys exploring texts by considering medium, performance, and representation of identities. Follow Emily on Instagram: @e.chircop
Karis Shearer is Associate Professor of English at UBC's Okanagan campus, specializing in literary audio, poetry, and archives. She is UBCO lead researcher on the SpokenWeb SSHRC Partnership Grant and co-produces the SoundBox Signals podcast series. She is a guest contributor to this episode.
George Bowering was born in Penticton, B.C. and grew up in Oliver. At UBC, Bowering was one of the founding editors of TISH. Bowering is a prolific poet, novelist, essayist, and critic, who has written over 80 books and 35 chapbooks to date. Some of his honours include the Governor General’s Award in both poetry (1969) and fiction (1980), and the Order of Canada (2002). Bowering lives in Vancouver.
Sharon Thesen was born in Tisdale, Saskatchewan. She spent spent most of her early years in Kamloops and Prince George, eventually moving to Vancouver to study and teach. In 2005 she joined UBC Okanagan where she is now Professor Emerita. Thesen is the author of 11 books of poetry including a number of chapbooks. Her books have been finalists for a number of prestigious awards including the Governor-General’s Award and the Dorothy Livesay Prize; her book of poems A Pair of Scissors won the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. She currently lives in Lake Country, BC.
These readings helped inform our research and/or may be of interest to listeners of this episode.
“Side A: Sharon Thesen's Reading at [George and Angela] Bowerings'” from Sharon Thesen fonds, nd. 2019.002.002, SoundBox Collection, AMP Lab at UBC Okanagan, Kelowna, B.C. https://soundbox.ok.ubc.ca/sharon-thesens-reading-at-bowerings/
Sharon Thesen’s “The Fire”: Studio Reading of “The Fire.” Ed. Amy Thiessen.
https://sharonthesenthefire.omeka.net/reading
Thesen, Sharon. Artemis Hates Romance. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1980.
Thesen, Sharon. Refabulations: Selected Longer Poems. Ed. Erin Moure. Talonbooks, 2023.
https://talonbooks.com/books/?refabulations
SpokenWeb Podcast Season 1 Episode 1 “Stories of Spoken Web”:
https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/stories-of-spokenweb/
SpokenWeb Podcast Season 1 Episode 2 “Sound Recordings Are Weird”: https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/sound-recordings-are-weird/
The Capilano Review, The Sharon Thesen Issue. Spring 2008.
https://thecapilanoreview.com/issues/spring-2008-the-sharon-these-issue/
Specifically, Thea Bowering’s article “Sharon Thesen: Poem in Memory, and growing up there”
https://journals.sfu.ca/capreview/index.php/capreview/article/view/2674/2674
SHOW CONTRIBUTORS
Emily Chircop
Sofie Drew
George Bowering
Karis Shearer
Sharon Thesen