Abstract

In their public discussion at Simon Fraser University in 1978, the three poets Dorothy Livesay, Anne Marriott, and Irving Layton each emphasize the significance of print to the trajectory of modernist poetry written in the 1930s and 1940s. In this particular clip, Dorothy Livesay’s statement, that in the 1930s “Everything was the printed word,” is in response to a question posed by an audience member about the prevalence of public readings during this period. Given that the object of this blog series is an audio recording of a public event—specifically one that documents an oral history of the poets’ personal encounters and involvement with print—the audience member’s question draws attention to the shifting relationships between writers and readers (or listeners), and the different contexts for cultural transmission that have constituted Canadian literary culture more broadly between the 1930s and 1970s.