Short Range Poetic Device

Poetry and Poetics Streaming Against the Totality

Short Range Poetic Device was a four-part radio show organized and hosted by Stephen Collis and Roger Farr during the Vancouver Winter Olympics as part of Vivo Media Arts’ “Safe Assembly” project. Vivo was one of the few Vancouver arts organizations which did not accept Olympic money, and it organized “Safe Assembly” as a means of meeting the games critically and creatively through a number of programs. Ready to broadcast on FM 91.5, Vivo’s radio transmitter was shut down on the eve of the games by Industry Canada and VANOC. Short Range Poetic Device, and the other broadcasts, went ahead on live internet feed.

Each show hosted a number of Vancouver poets, nearly all of whom were involved in anti-Olympic activities of one sort or another. The poets read from their work and discussed the role of poetry in contemporary struggles, the politics of poetic form, protest genres and both political and literary “tactics.”

These sound recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the authors. © 2010 the respective poets. Used with permission of Stephen Collis and Roger Farr. Distributed by PennSound.