Today was Day 1 of a future-looking summit on the Fred Wah fonds in the SoundBox Collection. Dr. Laura Moss joined from UBC Vancouver as Dr. Karis Shearer, Marjorie Mitchell, Dr. Jodey Castricano, Dr. Klara du Plessis, Dr. Cole Mash, Sarah Cipes, and Sandra Yeboah met in UBC Okanagan’s AMP Lab. Some highlights include thinking about how Wah has been anthologized, his role as recordist and archivist, his varying performances of the poem “Mountain,” his role as community-maker alongside Pauline Butling, and much more.
@spokenweb@fccs.ubco@ecs_ubco@ubcolibrary@3lfem@dainty_monster@marjorie.mitchell@jaysea999@kmdup@c.a.mash@sarah.dawn.archives@soy_gh
April is National Poetry Month! Follow along to receive daily glimpses of poetry straight from the AMP Lab’s SoundBox Collection.
DAY 17: Interim post to look ahead to future work on the Fred Wah fonds. Cole Mash, Sandra Yeboah, Klara du Plessis, Sarah Cipes, and Karis Shearer are happy to visit new acquisitions in the UBCO Special Collections and Archives. Thanks to Lisa Clarke (Library Services Assistant) and Alex Liu (Acting University Archivist).
@spokenweb@fccs.ubco@ecs_ubco@ubcolibrary@ubco_specialcollections@c.a.mash@soy_gh@kmdup@sarah.dawn.archives@dainty_monster
On 13 April, the SpokenWeb UBCO team presented at the FCCS Research Celebration alongside colleagues. Speakers included the lead researcher, Karis Shearer, co-applicant, Marjorie Mitchell, postdoctoral fellow, Klara du Plessis, and graduate research assistant, Sarah Cipes.
📷 Joanne Gervais
@spokenweb@fccs.ubco@ecs_ubco@dainty_monster@marjorie.mitchell@kmdup@sarah.dawn.archives
April is National Poetry Month! Follow along to receive daily glimpses of poetry straight from the AMP Lab’s SoundBox Collection.
DAY 11: In “World word alive,” a digital exhibit on Fred Wah’s 1972 reading at Malaspina College, Klara du Plessis provides a critical introduction to a performance that features early writing from his collections Lardeau, Mountain, and Among. In this recording, one can hear how coherently Wah has structured his curation around a thematic and conceptual concern with place.
Listen to the full event recording at https://soundbox.ok.ubc.ca/world-word-alive-fred-wah-at-malaspina/
@spokenweb@fccs.ubco@ecs_ubco@ubcolibrary@kmdup
April is National Poetry Month! Follow along to receive daily glimpses of poetry straight from the AMP Lab’s SoundBox Collection.
DAY 2: Listen to Sharon Thesen and Daphne Marlatt read at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, Kelowna, on 16 May 2025 as part of the Re-Sounding Poetries institute and within the context of Hearing the Interior, an exhibition co-curated by Karis Shearer and Erin Scott. In a documentary post about the exhibition and reading, Shearer writes, “While Fred Wah and Pauline Butling intended to participate, owing to circumstances, they were not able to attend. They were nevertheless made present by Erin Scott, Deanna Fong, and Klara du Plessis who read work by Wah and Butling.”
Listen to the full event recording at https://soundbox.ok.ubc.ca/hearing-the-interior/
Follow over the next days to listen to curated excerpts from the recording.
@spokenweb@fccs.ubco@ecs_ubco@ubcolibrary@dainty_monster@erin.h.scott
April is National Poetry Month! Follow along to receive daily glimpses of poetry straight from the AMP Lab’s SoundBox Collection.
DAY 1: The SoundBox Collection contains literary audio that represents important UBC, BC, and Canadian cultural heritage. The related website includes a range of curated recordings, archival exhibits, and more that inspire new research and can be fruitfully integrated into the classroom. As can be seen from the featured authors, the SoundBox Collection proudly amplifies a diverse range of poets, including women, queer folks, and people of colour.
Sound on! The archival audio excerpt playing on this reel is the opening lines from Daphne Marlatt’s 1969 recording of leaf leaf/s.
Continue listening at https://soundbox.ok.ubc.ca
@spokenweb@fccs.ubco@ubcokanagangraduatestudies
The SpokenWeb UBCO team offers our congratulations to Daphne Marlatt who is one of ten honorary degree recipients at UBC’s Spring convocation. So well deserved! 🎉 We feel fortunate that Marlatt has been such a generous supporter of the research and creative activities of the SpokenWeb UBCO, mentoring emerging writers and literary scholars, leading a Master Class in the AMP Lab, and reading in Kelowna at “Poetry Off the Page” (2013), Performing the Archive” (2019) hosted by Megan Butchart (BA English) and IWC, and at “Hearing the Interior” (2025). We are so grateful for the time and expertise she has offered students and faculty at UBC’s Okanagan campus, and the larger public. Read more about the honorary degree recipients below and in our stories!
“The University of British Columbia will confer nine honorary degrees this spring, recognizing ten remarkable individuals for their exceptional leadership and impact.
Among this year’s recipients are Nobel Prize-winning chemist Sir David W. C. MacMillan; business leader and philanthropist Ryan Beedie; physician and former Canadian Medical Association President Dr. Alika Lafontaine; and acclaimed poet and novelist Daphne Marlatt.”
“Daphne Marlatt, Doctor of Letters
Poet, novelist, editor, and cultural innovator, Daphne Marlatt stands among Canada’s most influential literary voices. For more than five decades she has expanded the boundaries of Canadian writing, crafting a body of work that is deeply attentive to language, place, and the interwoven histories of inhabitants. Her groundbreaking poetry collections and prose works have reshaped the possibilities of feminist and experimental writing in Canada.”
Join Dr. Jason Camlot, Dr. Katherine McLeod and SpokenWeb podcast team members Maia Harris and Emily Stuchbery for an orientation session about “sound-based scholarship” and an opportunity to consider how you might use sonic approaches to explore your own critical thinking, research and creative practices.
This two-hour session will include:
- An introduction to sound-based scholarship and scholarly podcasting
- Information about SpokenWeb’s new Literary Listening Podcast series and how you can get involved as a producer of your own podcast episode
-An opportunity to workshop your own ideas for creating and producing a work of sonic scholarship or a creative/critical soundwork for publication
When: Thursday, March 26th, 2026, 3:00pm to 5:00pm
Where: Room LB 659.04, on the 6th floor of the McConnell Library Building (Dept. of English)
All are welcome! Whether you are an avid podcast listener, a curious novice, or an experienced podcaster or sound practitioner interested in exploring how you might use sound production as a scholarly and critical medium of production and dissemination, we hope to see you there!
Please RSVP by following the 🔗 in bio or by scanning the QR code!
In the new online exhibit, “It really was an elaborate trip,” Dr. Karis Shearer and Paige Hohmann present a 1959 interview between Frank Davey and Earle Birney. In the transcribed and discussed excerpt, Birney remembers his travels to Vernon where he wrote his very first poems.
The culturally significant reel-to-reel recording of this event is housed at UBCO as part of the Frank Davey Fonds and the SoundBox Collection, directed by Dr. Karis Shearer. An excerpt of the digitized reading is available to be streamed open access for research and pedagogical purposes.
https://soundbox.ok.ubc.ca/it-really-was-an-elaborate-trip-earle-birney-on-work-writing-and-the-bc-southern-interior/
@spokenweb@dainty_monster@fccs.ubco@ubcokanagan
In the new online exhibit, “World word alive,” Dr. Klara du Plessis presents a 1972 reading by Fred Wah at Malaspina College in Nanaimo, B.C. She considers his early career status, his relationship to the land, especially in his first three collections, Lardeau (1965), Mountain (1967), and Among (1972), and his interconnection with place and community.
The culturally significant reel-to-reel recording of this event is housed at UBCO as part of the Fred Wah Fonds and the SoundBox Collection, directed by Dr. Karis Shearer. The digitized reading is available to be streamed open access for research and pedagogical purposes.
https://soundbox.ok.ubc.ca/world-word-alive-fred-wah-at-malaspina/
@spokenweb@kmdup@dainty_monster@wahrus@fccs.ubco@ubcokanagan
You may have seen the (un)official soft launch of a new podcast series from SpokenWeb called Literary Listening... Well we hope you're ready for it's official hard launch!
The Literary Listening Podcast has arrived. This new series from The SpokenWeb network dedicated to the history of listening and sounding in literature and beyond. The first (official) episode will feature a conversation between Jason and world renowned musicologist, author, and academic Nina Sun Eidsheim. Look out for that this March. Don't forget to follow us on our existing RSS feed @ SpokenWebPodcast everywhere you listen in advance of Episode 1.
Are you interested in contributing? Send us your pitch for this brand new series, we'd love to hear from you!
https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/pitch-us/
Is this the last SpokenWeb Podcast episode?
Or is the first Literary Listening Episode?
You'll have to listen to find out (link in bio)!
Welcome to the (un)official (soft) launch of the Literary Listening Podcast. This new series will be on the existing SpokenWeb RSS feed, so you can continue to find us @ The SpokenWeb podcast anywhere you listen. Check out this series' new home for more information (link in bio)!
But in this bonus episode (S1-E0), producer Maia Harris and co-host Emily Stuchbery take you behind the curtain, we say goodbye to The SpokenWeb Podcast and introduce the all new Literary Listening Podcast. The episode features contributions from past team members, a sneak peak at VOLUME!: Sonic Scholarship in Literary Studies, and a special preview of the Literary Listening Podcast.
