Jason Camlot was chatting with his new boss in the English department of what was then Montreal鈥檚 Sir George Williams University in 1999, when he spotted a dusty cardboard box of 80 reel-to-reel tapes in a corner of the department head鈥檚 office.

He asked about it. Oh, he was told, it鈥檚 just a bunch of old poetry readings from the 鈥�60s and 鈥�70s that nobody鈥檚 ever heard.

He never forgot that dusty box. About seven years ago, he tracked it down, found an old reel-to-reel machine, and started to listen.

鈥淚t was this incredible reading series,鈥� said Camlot. 鈥淎ll the biggest names in North American poetry were there, all recorded in beautiful sound.鈥�

As it turned out, a lot of other universities had similar dusty boxes. And now, Camlot鈥檚 discovery has grown into SpokenWeb, a digitized bonanza of thousands of hours of readings and off-the-cuff remarks from Canada鈥檚 greatest writers during the time when the nation鈥檚 literature was being invented.

They鈥檙e all there: Margaret Atwood, W.O. Mitchell, Mavis Gallant, Rudy Wiebe, Michael Ondaatje, Al Purdy, Irving Layton 鈥� a national pride of literary lions, roaring once again.

The boxes from Sir George Williams 鈥� now Concordia University 鈥� feature 60 different poets, including international luminaries Alan Ginsberg and Jose Luis Borges.

鈥淚t鈥檚 an incredible privilege to be the custodians of this vast trove of literary culture,鈥� said Michael O鈥橠riscoll, an English and film studies professor at the University of Alberta, who鈥檚 also working with SpokenWeb.

The project has grown to include 14 collections, 13 institutions, seven partner institutions, five community partners and more than 50 researchers. It has logged about 7,000 hours of performance.

鈥淓very collection has its own story,鈥� said O鈥橠riscoll.

One organizer of a Montreal poetry series had a box of old Mini Discs sitting next to his microwave. A professor at the University of British Columbia Okanagan got boxes of recordings from a local poet who showed up with them in the trunk of her car. The media library at the University of Alberta turned out to have 3,000 recordings in boxes that had never even been opened.

Each recording has been meticulously annotated by the name of the writer, location, date and works read. The remarks are transcribed. It takes about three hours to log one hour of tape.

The recordings offer much more than readings. The writers introduce their works, answer questions, talk about themselves and muse about what it is they鈥檙e trying to achieve.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e extremely interesting and informative about, not just the poems, but about what they imagined it meant to be a poet in the world,鈥� said Camlot. 鈥淭hey are performing that role.鈥�

Many of the readings buzz with energy.

鈥淚鈥檓 very glad to see so large a turnout this evening,鈥� Irving Layton tells an audience in 1967. 鈥淚 am very heartened by it, very moved.鈥�

Margaret Atwood invites people in a standing-room-only crowd from 1974 to come to the front and sit on the floor, then cuts her reading short because the hall is so full it gets unbearably hot.

鈥淗ow are you doing?鈥� she asks her listeners. 鈥淚s it hot and steamy? Has anybody died yet?鈥�

鈥淲e鈥檙e at a peak moment in public poetry culture,鈥� said O鈥橠riscoll. 鈥淭he rooms are clearly packed.鈥�

After six years of work, SpokenWeb is in its final year. When it鈥檚 done in early 2024, students can study writers鈥� remarks, scholars can track changes in the performance of a particular piece and literature lovers can savour their favourite works in the voices of those who penned them 鈥� all from a single, searchable online portal.

Something happens when a poem moves from eye to ear, said Camlot.

鈥淎 lot of what we鈥檙e hearing is a poet doing their best to communicate some of their intentions 鈥� but discovering some surprises, even to themselves, from the words they鈥檝e put on the page,鈥� he said.

鈥淓very time we listen to these, we鈥檙e learning new things. It鈥檚 almost too early to assess their value.鈥�

SpokenWeb is not only a literary resource but an invaluable repository of cultural history. Most of the writers it documents were in the first generation of Canadian writers to achieve any kind of a national and international audience.

SpokenWeb is the sound of CanLit being born.

鈥淲e鈥檙e in the early days of showing the vast potential of these things for the way we understand ourselves, our understanding of how Canada was wanting to imagine its best self,鈥� Camlot said.

鈥淲hat we鈥檙e hearing in the poets are attempts to articulate what Canada may be. That鈥檚 something we still should be thinking about very deeply.鈥�

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press