Listening Queerly for Queer Sonic Resonances in The Poetry Series at Sir George Williams University, 1966 to 1971

Abstract

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Royal Canadian Mounted Polic (RCMP) participated in and contributed to an international campaign to monitor queer people across North America. Part of this campaign involved tape recording queer people’s private conversations in Canada and creating archives of these audio data to build cases that would incriminate them and regulate their behaviours (Kinsman and Gentile 121). Conversely, in 1969, Canadian Justice Minister and Attorney General Pierre Elliot Trudeau passed Bill C-150 to decriminalize homosexual acts, which was followed by his now infamous public declaration, “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” While the bill may have improved some of queer people’s lived conditions, the public declaration reinforced the closeting of homosexuality as a private matter. During the same period, queer and feminist writers participated in public literary readings during which they listened to, and recorded, each other read and discuss poetry. What may have begun as literary gatherings evolved into opportunities for these writers to discuss their lived experiences as queer people and their political concerns. For instance, during The Poetry Series held at Sir George Williams University (hereafter sgwu) in Montreal from 1964 to 1975, which featured performances by canonical writers such as Margaret Listening Queerly for Queer Sonic Resonances in The Poetry Series at Sir George Williams University, 1966 to 1971