Podcast: Interview with Poet Marilyn Bowering (1984)

Marilyn Bowering, in 2016. (Photo courtesy of marilynbowering.com)

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1984, I sat down with Canadian poet, novelist and playwright Marilyn Bowering.

Marilyn Bowering published her first book of poetry, The Liberation of Newfoundland, in 1973. When we spoke in 1984, her seventh, The Sunday Before Winter, had just been released. The book would earn her a nomination for a Governor General's Award later that same year. She went on to garner a second nomination in 1996 for Autobiography. Bowering's most recent book of poetry, entitled Threshold, was published in 2015.

– Kevin Courrier.

Here is the full interview with Marilyn Bowering as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1984.

– Kevin Courrier is a freelance writer/broadcaster, film critic and author (Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa, Randy Newman's American Dreams, 33 1/3 Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, Artificial Paradise: The Dark Side of The Beatles Utopian Dream). Courrier teaches part-time film courses to seniors through the LIFE Institute at Ryerson University in Toronto and other venues. His forthcoming book is Talking Out of Turn: A Collection of Reviews, Interviews and Remembrances currently being assembled on Blogger. 

Tom Fulton was the host and producer of On the Arts for CJRT-FM in Toronto for 23 years, beginning in 1975.