Touched by that Fire: On Visionary Literature, with B. W. Powe Weird Studies

B. W. Powe is a Canadian poet, novelist, essayist and professor at York University, in Toronto. His work, though it covers an immense range of topics from politics and poetics to magic and technology, proceeds from a mystical apprehension of the universe as the locus of magical operations, the site of experiments in cosmic becoming. In his various books and essays, Powe continues a uniquely Canadian form of the visionary tradition whose luminaries include his former teachers Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye. In this episode, he joins JF and Phil for an exploration of the meaning, potency, and danger of the visionary in art and literature.


Header image: Detail of "Green Color" by Gausanchennai (Wikimedia Commons).


REFERENCES


B. W. Powe's website
B. W. Powe, The Charge in the Global Membrane
B. W. Powe, Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye: Apocalypse and Alchemy


Frank Lentricchia, "Last Will and Testament of an Ex-Literary Critic"
Lorca's concept of duende
Hildegard of Bingen's concept of viriditas
Gilles Deleuze, Cinema II
Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media
Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy
Marshall McLuhan, "Notes on William Burroughs"
Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture
John Clellon Holmes, beatnik
Northrop Frye, Canadian literary critic
Hildegard von Bingen, Ordo Virtutum
Joni Mitchell, "Woodstock"
Genesis 32, Jacob and the Angel
R. D. Laing, Scottish psychologist
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
Sylvia Plath, "Lady Lazarus"
Sylvia Plath, "Daddy"
Jack Kerouac, American writer
Allen Ginsberg, American poet
Lionel Snell, British philosopher and magician
Special Guest: B. W. Powe.