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Fonds

Peter Quartermain fonds

A lime green cassette. The title reads, "Fel Santos & Listening Center." Below reads, "Aklopolis."

Peter Quartermain’s fonds consists of 196 cassette tapes (initially 180, with an accrual of 16 additional tapes in winter of 2022). These recordings were donated to the SoundBox Collection by Peter and Meredith Quartermain. Peter Quartermain recorded many of his lectures as a professor of English at UBC Vancouver, as a means of making lecture/seminar content accessible to students long before this became a mainstream practice through online learning management systems. The tapes in this fonds were recorded over a span of more than 40 years, from 1961 to 2003, and many relate to Quartermain’s research on poet Basil Bunting, including radio broadcasts, interviews, events, and a graduate course on Bunting. Quartermain’s collection includes far more than just lectures, however. There are also home recordings of Peter Quartermain reading fiction, recordings of sound poetry performances, book launches, radio performances, and poetry readings. There are also several lectures given by other poets and professors who are Quartermain’s contemporaries, some specifically kept for class use, as well as many tapes of the New Poetics Colloquium of the Kootenay School of Writing (KSW) featuring lectures and readings by various poets. His focus on accessibility both in the classroom and in poetry as an art form through his work on queer poetics and marginal poetry can be found in the hundreds of hours of recordings here.

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Fonds

George Bowering fonds

A cassette tape with a black and white label. In the section labelled "Subject," in handwriting reads, "Warren, Roy, Moon, etc."

Okanagan writer George Bowering donated this fonds to the SoundBox collection in 2019. Made up of 19 cassette tapes, Bowering’s recordings range from the  public (radio interviews and events) to the private (life with his young daughter Thea), making the contents unique. These cassettes were recorded between 1968 and 1987, and  they contain interviews with poets, readings and events, and audio documentation of historically relevant events. Of particular interest, due to its historical importance and its dissimilarity to other items in the SoundBox Collection, is a recording of several writers watching the 1969 moon landing on television. There is also an audio collage created by George Bowering including excerpts from television, radio, and portions of conversations, and a conversation between authors.

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Fonds

Frank Davey fonds

A reel-to-reel magnetic recording tape case. The left reads, "Sony. Professional recording tape, PR-150. Capture the strength and delicacy of every sound." The right features an outline of a reel-to-reel.

The Frank Davey fonds, donated to the SoundBox Collection in 2014, is made up of 18 cassette and reel-to-reel recordings. The dates of these recordings range from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, with a focus on poetry readings and poetics lectures. Davey was an editor and co-founder of the Canadian poetry newsletter TISH, and many of the recordings reflect this by featuring TISH co-editors and collaborators. Of special interest is a 1970 interview with the donor, Frank Davey, about his then-recently-published book, Weeds.

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Fonds

Fred Wah fonds

A reel-to-reel magnetic tape case. The cover reads, "Magnetic Recording Tape," is overlaid diagonally across the beige cover.

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 creating personal recordings of events and collecting 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 Bunting 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 Vancouver, several are international, ranging from Buffalo, NY to Wisconsin and San Francisco.

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Fonds

Robert Hogg fonds

A reel-to-reel magnetic recording case. In handwriting reads, "Robert Duncan. Poetry reading. October 9th, 1979." The case features a large circular pattern of circles ranging from indigo to orange.

Between 1963 and 2003, Canadian poet and professor Robert Hogg made sound and video recordings pertaining to his life as a poet, teacher, and researcher. His fonds is made up of 34 cassette tapes, 6 reel-to-reels, and 2 video recordings, most of which showcase readings and interviews of himself and his contemporaries. Hogg was a co-editor and affiliated poet of TISH newsletter. He traveled to different areas of Canada and the United States to take part in poetry events and debates that showcase the dynamic changes in the poetry scenes at the time.

Hogg’s collection is unique in that it contains items one would expect to find (such as Robert Hogg reading his work There is No Falling at various events in Vancouver), but also houses reflexive items such as poets discussing the creation of their own literary archives as an aspect of their creative work. Hogg’s recordings span across 40 years and contextualize both his PhD research (a study on the works of Charles Olson) and his collaborations with other members of TISH, making these recordings a valuable resource documenting both the Canadian poetry movement and the poets themselves.

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