Fred Wah is responsible for many of the recordings we have of West Coast poetry. In May, 2022 Fred Wah donated this fonds, which consisted of 103 reel-to-reel tapes, to the SoundBox Collection. Between 1961 and 1978, Wah made home recordings, as well as personal recordings of events, and collected professional recordings related to the West Coast poetry scene in the 1960s through to the 1980s. While all of the items in this collection have much to tell us about TISH and related poetry scenes, this fonds is distinct due to the focus on the 1960s and 1970s. Recordings of note include a ‘wedding gift’ recording of Robert Duncan’s poetry reading, which Duncan gave to Pauline Butling and Fred Wah at their wedding in 1963, and a lecture on psychedelia made by Charles Olson in Linwood, New York in the same year. The fonds includes the original tapes from the 1963 Vancouver poetry conference. While most of the readings recorded here were made in British Columbia, several are international, ranging from Buffalo, NY to Wisconsin and San Francisco.
| Recordings
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Fred Wah Reads from “Mountain”
Fred Wah reads from one of his earliest collections of poems.
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Gladys Hindmarch at South Slocan: A Boat Story (1969)
Gladys Hindmarch reads a story from “The Boat Stories” manuscript at South Slocan, B.C.
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Gladys Hindmarch at South Slocan: A Birth Account (1973)
From “Gladys Hindmarch at South Slocan… [A] Birth [Account], March 1973”
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Fred Wah at Malaspina College (1972)
This recording consists of a feature-length reading by Fred Wah, hosted by Morris Donaldson, at Malaspina College (now Vancouver Island University) in Nanaimo, B.C., 3 Feburary 1972. See the exhibit “World word alive”: Fred Wah at Malaspina” for further context. —Klara du Plessis