These research notes consider sound poetry, its roots, and its practices in Europe and North America, as a dichotomy between a text-based experience and a performance of voice without words. Both the Futurist and Dada movements are outlined for their focus on phonetic sounds of speech rather than semantic meaning as a basis for sound poetry. The use of magnetic tape recording is also considered for its use by poets to explore new forms for their work, as well as to extend the notion of a poetry "reading." Examples are drawn from contemporary European and North American sound poets pushing the definition and context of their work.
The upshot is that sound poetry continues the dichotomy between poetry as a book-based experience, and the performance nature of traditional spoken word poetry. Sound poetry is positioned as an artistic form bridging literary and musical composition where phonetic (sounds / acoustic properties) aspects of human speech are foregrounded rather than semantic (meaning) and /or syntactic (process of constructing sentences) values. The word sound acknowledges the initial presence of text, but the result is voice without words, intended primarily for performance, a point reinforced by Jim Rosenberg, who says, ". . . the issue of how to resolve the linearity imposed by time on sound works with non-linear structure is a serious conundrum. Of course, I face this every time I do a "reading." I tend to think of an oral recitation of my non-linear work as something like pictures in a catalog—it isn't the real stuff, but gives an idea of what's there." (Jim Rosenberg. Email to John F. Barber, 14 February 2014).
The roots of sound poetry can be found in the Futurist and Dada movements and magnetic tape recording. Futurism rebelled against harmony and taste, dismissed themes from previous art movements, and glorified a future built upon speed, brevity, technology, youth, the triumph of humanity over nature. It was applied to many art forms, including sound. Dadaism continued the focus on phonetic sounds of speech rather than semantic meaning.
We might also point to rich African-American call and response literary and musical heritages based on shared, communal experiences. Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie brought the sounds of ancient Scottish and Irish mouth music to their scat singing. Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" (1970) and Wanda Coleman's poetry collection Mad Dog, Black Lady (Black Sparrow Press 1979) brought mainstream attention to spoken word poetry.
One might also point to emerging audio recording technologies, like magnetic tape, and how they encouraged practitioners of sound poetry to explore new forms for their work, especially the use of audio collage, multiple, overlain, and often manipulated voices in order to extend the notion of a "reading." Recording technologies made it possible for sound artists to create new and interesting shared, communal, aural contexts in which alternative political ideologies in shared, communal spaces could be raised, discussed, and acknowledged together. The desired result was poetry that can only exist as sound.
From these roots, spoken word poetry describes a range of performing arts providing outlets for frank voices and views regarding religion, politics, sex, and gender, all socially taboo subjects. These affordances (potentials for particular actions) continue the dichotomy between poetry as a book-based experience, and the performance nature of spoken word poetry and the sound poetry tradition it follows.
Roots of sound poetry can be traced to the Italian Futurist movement. Futurism rebelled against harmony and taste, dismissed themes from previous art movements, and glorified a future built upon speed, brevity, technology, youth, the triumph of humanity over nature. It was applied to many art forms, including sound. Resources and listening experiences available.
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944) launched the Futurist movement in Italy with publication of his Manifeste du futurisme [Manifesto of Futurism] (5 February 1909, La gazzetta dell'Emilia; reprinted 20 February 1909 on the front page of La Figaro, Paris). Marinetti declared passionate loathing for everything old, especially politics and artistic tradition. He rebelled against harmony and taste, dismissed themes from previous art movements, and glorified a future built upon speed, brevity, technology, youth, the triumph of humanity over nature. Publishing manifestos became a feature of Futurism, and many, on topics including painting, architecture, religion, clothing, even cooking, followed.
In practice, artists applied Futurism to painting, sculpture, performance, poetry, dance, and sound
works. Marinetti, for example, a poet, developed the concept of parole in liberta (roughly,
words in freedom). His scope included the page on which his poetry was printed as well as the sound
of a voice reciting them. He experimented with typography, scattering words of different sizes, in
different typefaces, over the page, freeing them from the tyranny of the paragraph, visually
representing the sounds of the words as they might be spoken by the poet. In speaking his poetry,
Marinetti experimented with onomatopoeias to create the sound effects he visualize with typography.
An early example is "Battaglia, Peso + Odore" (1912), performed here by Luigi Pennone and Arrigo
Lora-Totino.
Source: Futura,
Poesia Sonora [Future, Sound Poetry] (Cramps Records 5204-001, Milan, Italy,
1978, seven vinyl LP box set; reissued as CRSCD 091-095, Milan, Italy, 1989, five-CD set).
"Dune, parole en libertà [Dune, words-in-freedom]" (1914; score available here) was
another seminal work by Marinetti. Here is an interpretation by Luigi Pennone and Arrigo
Lora-Totino.
Source: Futura,
Poesia Sonora [Future, Sound Poetry] (Cramps Records 5204-001, Milan, Italy,
1978, seven vinyl LP box set; reissued as CRSCD 091-095, Milan, Italy, 1989, five-CD set).
With "Zang Tumb Tumb. Adrianopoli, Ottobre 1912" (Milan: Edizioni Futuriste de "Poesia," 1914), an account of the sounds and noises of the battle of Adrianopolis (Turkey) in 1912 during the Italo-Turkish War (1911-1912), Marinetti provides poetic and literary impressions of mechanized warfare, artillery shelling, bombs, and explosions in a variety of typefaces.
Marinetti's recording of "La Battaglia di Adrianopoli [The Battle of Adrianople]" (1924), a sound
poem recounting his experiences at the battle of Adrianopolis, is often mistakenly said to be of
"Zang Tumb Tumb." Marinetti's recording "La Battaglia di Adrianopoli" was issued by the Societa
Nazionale del Grammofono (La Voce del Padronne, R6915, 1924). Marinetti, recited the poem in his
native Italian, creating the sounds of machine guns, canons, and explosions with his voice,
exacerbates the effect of the poem.
Source: Il Futurism (La Voce Del Padrone, Milan, Italy, 3 C 065-17982, 1978)
Musica Futurista: The Art of Noises (Cramps Records Collana Multhipla, 5204 002, edited
by Daniele Lombardi, two vinyl LP set, 1980).
NOTE: Cramps Records discography notes Musica Futurista as catalog #5204 002 released
with Cramps number and Multhipla label. Catalog #5206 308-309 is perhaps for a 100 copies box set
limited edition. LEARN more.
Inspired by Marinetti, Luigi Russolo (1885-1947) wrote L'Art des bruits [The Art of Noises] (Milan, Direction du mouvement futuriste, 11 March 1913).
"Although the characteristic of noise is to brutally bring us back to life, the art of noises must
not be limited to a mere imitative reproduction. The art of noises will extract its main emotive
power from the special acoustic pleasure that the inspired artist will obtain in combining
noises."
—Luigi Russolo
Russolo also designed, constructed, and experimented with a series of acoustic noise-generating devices called Intonarumori [noise intoners] that permitted performers to control the pitch and dynamics of the sounds they generated. Russolo's work is often cited as an inspiration for Futurist and Dadaist sound poetry. LEARN more.
In Russia, Futurism developed around the experiments of Velemir Khlebnikov (1885-1922) and Aleksej
Kruchenykh (1886-1968) to abstract language into sounds rather than meanings. They called this
approach zaum. Their pioneering work formed the basis for what we now call "sound poetry."
Here are two examples of zaum by Kruchenykh, performed by Valerij Voskobojnikov. First, "Kr
dei macelli" (1920).
Futura, Poesia
Sonora [Future, Sound Poetry] (Cramps Records 5204-001, Milan, Italy, 1978, seven
vinyl LP box set; reissued as CRSCD 091-095, Milan, Italy, 1989, five-CD set).
And, then, "Zanzera, veleno" (1922).
Source: Futura,
Poesia Sonora [Future, Sound Poetry] (Cramps Records 5204-001, Milan, Italy,
1978, seven vinyl LP box set; reissued as CRSCD 091-095, Milan, Italy, 1989, five-CD set).
The focus on sound poetry, especially on phonetic sounds of speech rather than semantic meaning, inherited from the Futurists, remained strong for the Dadaists, and provides another way to explore the roots of sound poetry. Resources and listening experiences available.
On 1 February 1916, German author and poet Hugo Ball (1886-1927) and his companion Emily Hennings, founded Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland. The press release for the opening explained the purpose of the new nightclub.
"Cabaret Voltaire. Under this name a group of young artists and writers has been formed whose
aim is to create a centre for artistic entertainment. The idea of the cabaret will be that guest
artists will come and give musical performances and readings at the daily meetings. The young
artists of Zurich, whatever their orientation, are invited to come along with suggestions and
contributions of all kinds."
—Zurich, February 2, 1916, Dei Flucht aus der Zeit [Flight out of Time: A Dada
Diary]. (Munich, 1927). Trans. Ann Raimes. The Viking Press, 1974, p. 50.
Marcel Janco, Richard Huelsenbeck, Tristan Tzara, and Jean Arp, all radically experimental artists seeking to change the face of their disciplines, answered the call with their art and energy. In addition to paintings, the cabaret featured spoken word, dance, and music, as well as new forms of performance like sound poetry and simultaneous poetry, poème simultané.
One notable example was "L'amiral Cherche Une Maison à Louer [The admiral looks for a house
to rent]" performed 29 March 1916 by Richard Hulsenbeck, Marcel Janco, and Tristan Tzara, all
whistling, singing, grunting, coughing, and speaking at the same time. Here is a rendition of
that performance recorded by the Italian Trio Exvoco (Hanna Aurbacher, Theophil Maier, and Ewald
Liska).
Source: Futura, Poesia
Sonora [Future, Sound Poetry] (Cramps Records 5204-001, Milan, Italy, 1978,
seven vinyl LP box set; reissued as CRSCD 091-095, Milan, Italy, 1989, five-CD set).
In his diary entry for 30 March 1916, Ball described simultaneous poetry. "[The] 'poème
simultanè' [simultaneous poem] . . . is a contrapuntal recitative in which three or more
voices speak, sing, whistle, etc., at the same time in such a way that the elegiac, humorous, or
bizarre content of the piece is brought out by these combinations. In such a simultaneous poem,
the willful quality of an organic work is given powerful expression, and so is its limitation by
the accompaniment. Noises (an rrrr drawn out for minutes, or crashes, or sirens, etc.) are
superior to the human voice in energy."
—Dei Flucht aus der Zeit [Flight out of Time: A Dada Diary]. (Munich, 1927).
Trans. Ann Raimes. The Viking Press, 1974, p. 57.
This focus on sound poetry, especially on phonetic sounds of speech rather than semantic meaning, inherited from Marinetti and the Futurists, remained strong for the Dadaists.
"Marinetti sends me Parole in Liberta by himself, [Francesco] Cangiullo, [Paolo]
Buzzi, and [Corrado] Govoni. They are just letters of the alphabet on a page; you can roll up
such a poem like a map. The syntax has come apart. The letters are scattered and assembled again
in a rough-and-ready way. There is no language any more, the literary astrologers and leaders
proclaim; it has to be invented all over again. Disintegration right in the innermost process of
creation."
—Hugo Ball, 9 July 1916, Dei Flucht aus der Zeit [Flight out of Time: A Dada
Diary]. (Munich, 1927). Trans. Ann Raimes. The Viking Press, 1974, p. 25.
During the 14 July 1916 first public Dada evening at Cabaret Voltaire, most probably before his own performance, Ball read his manifesto, often known as "The First Dada Manifesto," which served as an introduction to his sound poems, and foregrounded his concern with the primacy of the word in language.
"Dada is a new tendency in art. One can tell this from the fact that until now nobody knew anything about it, and tomorrow everyone in Zurich will be talking about it. Dada comes from the dictionary. It is terribly simple. In French it means 'hobby horse'. In German it means 'good-bye', 'Get off my back', 'Be seeing you sometime'. In Romanian: 'Yes, indeed, you are right, that's it. But of course, yes, definitely, right'. And so forth.
"An International word. Just a word, and the word a movement. Very easy to understand. Quite terribly simple. To make of it an artistic tendency must mean that one is anticipating complications. Dada psychology, dada Germany cum indigestion and fog paroxysm, dada literature, dada bourgeoisie, and yourselves, honoured poets, who are always writing with words but never writing the word itself, who are always writing around the actual point. Dada world war without end, dada revolution without beginning, dada, you friends and also-poets, esteemed sirs, manufacturers, and evangelists. Dada Tzara, dada Huelsenbeck, dada m'dada, dada m'dada dada mhm, dada dera dada, dada Hue, dada Tza.
"How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid of everything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanised, enervated? By saying dada. Dada is the world soul, dada is the pawnshop. Dada is the world's best lily-milk soap. Dada Mr Rubiner, dada Mr Korrodi. Dada Mr Anastasius Lilienstein. In plain language: the hospitality of the Swiss is something to be profoundly appreciated. And in questions of aesthetics the key is quality.
"I shall be reading poems that are meant to dispense with conventional language, no less, and to have done with it. Dada Johann Fuchsgang Goethe. Dada Stendhal. Dada Dalai Lama, Buddha, Bible, and Nietzsche. Dada m'dada. Dada mhm dada da. It's a question of connections, and of loosening them up a bit to start with. I don't want words that other people have invented. All the words are other people's inventions. I want my own stuff, my own rhythm, and vowels and consonants too, matching the rhythm and all my own. If this pulsation is seven yards long, I want words for it that are seven yards long. Mr Schulz's words are only two and a half centimetres long.
"It will serve to show how articulated language comes into being. I let the vowels fool around. I let the vowels quite simply occur, as a cat meows . . . Words emerge, shoulders of words, legs, arms, hands of words. Au, oi, uh. One shouldn't let too many words out. A line of poetry is a chance to get rid of all the filth that clings to this accursed language, as if put there by stockbrokers' hands, hands worn smooth by coins. I want the word where it ends and begins. Dada is the heart of words.
"Each thing has its word, but the word has become a thing by itself. Why shouldn't I find it? Why can't a tree be called Pluplusch, and Pluplubasch when it has been raining? The word, the word, the word outside your domain, your stuffiness, this laughable impotence, your stupendous smugness, outside all the parrotry of your self-evident limitedness. The word, gentlemen, is a public concern of the first importance."
For Ball, the sounds of words were most important. They were the "innermost alchemy of the word," the "last and holiest refuge" of poetry. In this diary entry, Ball describes his own efforts to develop and deliver a sound poem entitled "Gadji-beri-bimba."
"I have invented a new genre of poems, 'Verse ohne Worte,' [poems without words] or
Lautgedichte [sound poems], in which the balance of the vowels is weighed and
distributed solely according to the values of the beginning sequence. I gave a reading of the
first one of these poems this evening. I had made myself a special costume for it. My legs were
in a cylinder of shiny blue cardboard, which came up to my hips so that I looked like an obelisk
. Over it I wore a huge coat collar cut out of cardboard, scarlet inside and gold outside. It
was fastened at the neck in such a way that I could give the impression of winglike movement by
raising and lowering my elbows. I also wore a high, blue-and-white-striped witch doctor's hat. .
. . I was carried onto the stage in the dark and began slowly and solemnly:
gadji beri bimba
glandridi lauli lonni cadori
gadjama bim beri glassala
glandridi glassala tuffm i zimbrabim
blassa galassasa tuffm i zimbrabim . . .
[At the end] I then noticed that my voice had no other choice but to take on the ancient cadence
of priestly lamentation, that style of liturgical singing that wails in all the Catholic
churches of the east and west. I do not know what gave me the idea of this music, but I began to
sing my sequences of vowels in a church style like recitative, and tried not only to look
serious but to force myself to be serious. . . . Then the lights went out, as I had ordered, and
bathed in sweat, I was carried down off the stage like a a magical bishop."
—Hugo Ball, 23 June 1916, Dei Flucht aus der Zeit [Flight out of Time: A Dada
Diary]. (Munich, 1927). Trans. Ann Raimes. The Viking Press, 1974, pp. 70-71.
Ball's diary entry speaks to a 22 June 1916 performance of "Gadji-beri-bimba." A program for The First Dada Evening, 14 June 1916, notes a performance (in costume) as well.
gadji beri bimba glandridi laula lonni cadori
gadjama gramma berida bimbala glandri galassassa laulitalomini
gadji beri bin blassa glassala laula lonni cadorsu sassala bim
gadjama tuffm i zimzalla binban gligla wowolimai bin beri ban
o katalominai rhinozerossola hopsamen laulitalomini hoooo
gadjama rhinozerossola hopsamen
bluku terullala blaulala loooo
zimzim urullala zimzim urullala zimzim zanzibar zimzalla zam
elifantolim brussala bulomen brussala bulomen tromtata
velo da bang band affalo purzamai affalo purzamai lengado tor
gadjama bimbalo glandridi glassala zingtata pimpalo
ögrööööö
viola laxato viola zimbrabim viola uli paluji malooo
tuffm im zimbrabim negramai bumbalo negramai bumbalo tuffm i zim
gadjama bimbala oo beri gadjama gaga di gadjama affalo pinx
gaga di bumbalo bumbalo gadjamen
gaga di bling blong
gaga blung
No recordings were made of Ball's performance, but here is "Gadji-beri-bimba" performed by Trio
Exvoco (Hanna Aurbacher, Theophil Maier, and Ewald Liska).
Source: Futura, Poesia
Sonora [Future, Sound Poetry] (Cramps Records 5204-001, Milan, Italy, 1978,
seven vinyl LP box set; reissued as CRSCD 091-095, Milan, Italy, 1989, five-CD set).
The Talking Heads, an American New Wave band, used "Gadji-beri-bimba" as the basis for "I
Zimbra," a song included on their 1979 record album Fear of Music.
Ball's most notable poem without words is perhaps "Karawane" (1916; score available here). Here is a
recording of Ball performing "Karawane" at Cabaret Voltaire just before its closing in
July-August 1916.
Here are five different interpretations of Ball's "Karawane." The first is by the Italian Trio
Exvoco (Hanna Aurbacher, Theophil Maier, and Ewald Liska).
Source: Futura, Poesia
Sonora [Future, Sound Poetry] (Cramps Records 5204-001, Milan, Italy, 1978,
seven vinyl LP box set; reissued as CRSCD 091-095, Milan, Italy, 1989, five-CD set).
Next, a performance by Canadian sound poet Christian Bök.
Jerome Rothenberg with Jean-Charles Francois, percussion, and Bertram Turetzky, bass.
Source: Sightings, Jerome Rothenberg: Poems 1960-1983 (Contemporary Poetics
Research Centre, Optik Nerve for Birkbeck College, Rockdrill CD#6, 2004).
Anat Pick is an Isreali sound poet and performer, with a deep interest in Dada sound poetry.
Source: Voice: Dada Sound Poetry 2008, CD.
Marie Osmond recorded her interpretation of "Karawane" for the Ripley's Believe It or
Not television program in the mid-1980s. The focus of the segment was sound poetry.
Osmond was to read "Karawane" from a cue card. But, she looked directly into the camera, and
recited the poem from memory, completely surprising everyone.
Source: Video
of Osmond's recital.
Although not Dada, or connected to Hugo Ball or "Karawane," the Language Removal Services
website provides interesting examples of what is left after removing words. Listen to this
example from "The California Recall Debate," where, even without voice, you can still recognize
the speaker.
Another founder of Dada was Tristan Tzara (1896-1963), French poet and performance artist. Here
is a portion of a 1948 recording of Tzara reading his sound poem "Pour compte."
Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), a German painter, sculpter, designer, and writer, was another
influential Dadaist. His most famous work was "Ursonate" ("primeval sonata," 1922), comprised
entirely of sounds divorced from meaning. Here is a recording of Schwitters performing the
scherzo from this work.
Kurt Schwitter's "Ursonate" is often cited as the greatest sound poem ever written. Begun in 1919 as "Sonata in Urläten," the work grew in size and variation, finalizing at about forty minutes in length. A full rendition of "Ursonate" performed by his brother, Ernst Schwitter can be heard at the ubuweb website. The score can also be accessed at the same website, here
Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), French playwright, poet, actor, and theatre director, is noted for "Pour en Finir avec le Jugement de Dieu [To Have Done with the Judgment of God]," a radio play recorded in several sessions in the broadcasting studios of the Radiodiffusion française, Paris, between 22-29 November 1947. Artaud's work utilized tape recorders and radio to emphasize the more primal aspect of the human body and emotion, including the scream. It played only once before being banned from future broadcast. Here he is reading an excerpt of his work, entitled "The Dance of the Tutuguri."
Futura, Poesia Sonora [Future, Sound Poetry] (Cramps Records
5204-001, Milan, Italy, 1978, seven vinyl LP box set; reissued as CRSCD 091-095, Milan, Italy,
1989, five-CD set).
The Dadaists created three different categories of sound poetry . . .
Bruitist poems—invented by Richard Huelsenbeck. These phonetic poems were not so
different from those pioneered by Marinetti and other Futurists.
Simultaneous poems—invented by Tristian Tzara. The same poem was read in
different languages, by different persons, with different rhythms, tonalities.
Movement poems—sound poems accompanied by basic boy movements.
When the Cabaret Voltaire closed, July/August 1916, the artists disbursed and established Dada in Zurich, Berlin, Hanover, Cologne, Paris, and New York. Dada continued many Futurist concerns with visual arts, literature, poetry, art manifestos, art theory, theatre, and graphic design, seeking new forms of creativity and expression beyond the prevailing standards in art. By 1922, most Dadaists had moved on to surrealism. Dada influences can be traced there, and in avant-garde, Fluxus, downtown music, performance art, abstract art, and sound poetry.
New York Dada poet and performer Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874-1927) is well-known for her sound poem "Klink-Hratzvenga (Death-wail)" (The Little Review March 1920), written for elegiac vocalizations rather than words to express mourning over her husband's April 1919 suicide, just a year after his release from five years as a prisoner of war.
From its pioneering roots in Futurism and Dada, intended primarily for performance as voice without words, sound poetry, influenced by electronic literature, becomes words without voice, intended primarily for viewing, like little films.
In both the Futurist and Dada branches of sound poetry, note the emphasis on print or performance as these pioneering efforts preceded the wide availability of recording technology. From this background, sound poetry evolved into visual poetry and concrete poetry, both concerned primarily with visual arts issues as they might augment poetry. Visual poetry focused on the visual arrangement of text, images, and symbols thought important to conveying a poem's intended effect. Concrete poetry focused on typographical arrangement of the text to convey a poem's intended effect. This was considered as important as the meanings of the words, their rhythms, and rhyming.
Richard Kostelanetz provides an excellent overview and historical survey in his "Text Sound Art: A Survey". Kostelanetz concludes that sound art is consequential, but unavailable, except through its creating artists, or essays such as his own.
See also Steve McCaffrey's (member of the poetry performance group The Four Horsemen with bpNichol, Paul Dutton, and Rafael Barreto-Rivera) "Sound Poetry—A Survey" (from Sound Poetry: A Catalogue, edited by Steve McCaffery and bpNichol, Underwich Editions, Toronto, 1978).
Peter Finch's "Sound Poetry", is an excellent overview with links to many examples of works by various international sound poets.
Similarly, Sound Poetry, a website maintained at the University of Buffalo, provides a list of sound poets and links to examples of their sound poetry.
Kenneth Goldsmith provides a section devoted to "The Futurist Movement: Howlers, Exploders, Crumplers, Hissers, and Scrapers" as part of his much larger and very informative "Bring Da Noise: A Brief Survey of Sound Art." For connections between literature and sound art, see Goldsmith's "Sound and The Literary Connection, also part of "Bring Da Noise" noted above.
Evolving affordances (potentials for particular actions) of computer technology have also had an
impact on the production and consumption of sound poetry. Computer speech synthesis was
introduced by Bell Laboratories in 1961 when an IBM 704 "sang" a rendition of "Daisy Bell
(Bicycle Built for Two)" composed in 1892 by Harry Dacre. The synthesized vocals were programmed
by John L. Kelly and Carol Lockbaum.
In homage to this first performance, which he witnessed, American author Arthur C. Clarke had the HAL 9000 computer, endowed with self-awareness, artificial intelligence, and the ability to vocalize its thoughts, observations, and memories, sing this song while being deprogrammed in a pivotal scene in the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
But, despite these creative endeavors, sound was overshadowed by the ability to animate text on computer screens, driving a return to the Futurist and Dada focus on the appearance of a poem's text. Hyperlinking, programmed or random jumps between chunks of text, replaced the Dada technique of drawing random words from a hat and helped return the primary emphasis to the visual. Even while trying to emulate vocalizations, the use of computer technology has, arguably, effectively removed them as the primary emphasis. No longer an intermedia, something between literature and music, as practiced by electronic literature, sound poetry, becomes much more visual in its representation. Rather than voice without words, intended primarily for performance, electronic literature poetry is words without voice, made for viewing, like little films.
The availability of magnetic tape recording encouraged practitioners of sound poetry to explore new forms for their work, especially the use of audio collage, multiple, overlain, and often manipulated voices in order to extend the notion of a "reading." The desired result was poetry that can only exist as sound.
The availability of magnetic tape recording encouraged practitioners of sound poetry to explore new forms for their work, especially the use of audio collage, multiple, overlain, and often manipulated, voices in order to extend the notion of a "reading." The desired result was poetry that can only exist as sound.
For example, François DuFrêne
(1930-1982), began, in 1953, a long series of experiments he called criythmes where he bypassed
text completely and recorded phonetic poems based on his own vocalizations directly to tape.
Listen, for example, to "Batteries vocales" crirythme (1959).
In 1957, Henri Chopin (1922-2008), following DuFrêne, began using tape recorders and studio
technologies like reverberation, echoes, and speed changes to manipulate tape recordings of his
voice. Such alterations, he thought, separated the voice from the words, creating an artistic
expression entirely about sound. Chopin, a little known but highly influential French concrete
and sound poet, created a large body of pioneering recordings in which he explored the body as a
sound source. Chopin called his work "poesie sonore" (poetic sound) as distinct from sound
poetry. His emphasis on the sound of vocalization is a reminder that language draws as much from
oral tradition(s) as classic literature, and his work continues to inspire that of contemporary
sound poets. In this recording of "Définition des Lettres Suivantes" performed by Chopin,
hear the similarities between himself and DuFrêne.
Source: Text-Sound
Festivals 10 Years (Fylkingen Records, FYLP 1010, LP, Sweden, 1977).
In March 1958, while living at the Beat Hotel in Paris, France, Brion Gysin (1916-1986), an English painter, poet, novelist, and performer, applied collage techniques first discovered by Surrealist painters to sound recording. While cutting framing mats for paintings, and slicing through a number of newspaper sheets placed underneath to protect the table top, Gysin realized the resulting bits of words could be recombined into something new.
For Gysin, audio cut-ups presented opportunities for linking words, sounds, and time through juxtaposition. The addition of spacing and voice inflection added characteristics not possible on the printed page. Gysin specifically explored permutation, a technique where words in a sentence, as well as syllables and phonemes within words, are recombined through all possible combinations.
Permutation was an avant-garde technique, previously used systematically by American writer Gertrude Stein (1874-1946). By taking a single phrase and working through all possible combinations of order, Gysin created focused, elegant sound-text poetry making new realms of implied meaning apparent.
In 1960, Gysin was commissioned to produce sound works for broadcast on the BBC radio program
The Permutated Poems of Brion Gysin. "I Am That I Am" is a permutation of Biblical
text, creating geometrically progressive worlds until it fades into silence.
Source: Mektoub: Recordings
1960-1981. (Perdition Plastics, PER 004, CD and LP, 1995).
Other examples following this same principle include "No poets don't own words" (1962).
Source: Mektoub: Recordings
1960-1981. (Perdition Plastics, PER 004, CD and LP, 1995).
"I've come to free the words."
Source: Mektoub: Recordings
1960-1981. (Perdition Plastics, PER 004, CD and LP, 1995).
"Kick that habit man" (1959).
Source: Mektoub: Recordings
1960-1981. (Perdition Plastics, PER 004, CD and LP, 1995).
and "Recalling all active agents" with its use of multiple voices.
Source: Mektoub: Recordings
1960-1981. (Perdition Plastics, PER 004, CD and LP, 1995).
Beyond text, Gysin applied his cut-up technique and permutation to sounds. "Pistol Poem" (1960)
permutes a series of pistol shots heard from different distances, overlain with Gysin's voice
sounding like the sergeant directing the shots. Beyond the BBC broadcast, this work was included
in the 1960 performance in Paris of Le Domaine Poetique, a showcase for experimental works by
Gysin, DuFrêne, Chopin, and Bernard Heidsieck.
Source: Mektoub: Recordings
1960-1981. (Perdition Plastics, PER 004, CD and LP, 1995).
"Vocal Cut-Up" uses vocalizations distorted and/or modified by manipulating the reel-to-reel
tape recorder.
Source: Mektoub: Recordings
1960-1981. (Perdition Plastics, PER 004, CD and LP, 1995).
"Sound Poem" relies heavily on the tape recorder to manipulate vocalizations.
Source: Mektoub: Recordings
1960-1981. (Perdition Plastics, PER 004, CD and LP, 1995).
Gysin knew that surrealist painters had recombined bits of materials on their canvases for
years. Why not use these painting techniques for literary endeavors? He shared his cut-up
techniques with American writer William S. Burroughs, who applied them to his novel Naked
Lunch and changed the landscape of American literature. Burroughs and Gysin
experimented with cut-up text into the mid-1960s. Their idea was that collage, randomness, and
simultaneity, all first proposed and used by the Dadaists, destroyed conventional notions of
linear narrative, and freed author and audience to detect an alternate, perhaps underlying,
reality. During a 20 April 1976 lecture at the Naropa Institute Jack Kerouac School of
Disembodied Poets in Boulder, Colorado, Burroughs went to great lengths to explain the
background of tape cut-ups to his audience. In this sample from his lecture, entitled "Origin
and Theory of the Cut-Ups," Burroughs' detached, unrelenting monotone delivery adds a surprising
poignancy to the surreal sound poetry of cut-ups.
Source: Breakthrough
in Grey Room. (Sub Rosa, SUB 33005-8, LP, Belgium, 1986).
Contemporary European sound poets using tape recording include Bernard Heidsieck (1928-), from
Paris, who works with recordings spoken by himself, recorded on the streets, or from the radio. His
work, which he calls "poesie action" (poetic action), places the voices of television and radio news
announcers, and the voice of a more intimate narrator (Hiedsieck?), against a background of
miscellaneous noises. Here is a sample from "Carrefour de la Chaussee d'Antin [Crossroads of the
Roadway to Antin]" (1972).
"Le Carrefour de La Chaussee d'Antin" at the
Internet Archive website.
Other notable contemporary European sound poets include Bob Cobbing (Great Britain), Edwin Morgan
(Scotland), Paul de Vree (Belgium), Ernst Jandl (Austria), Stockholm, Sweden's Fylkingen group
(Bengt Emil Johnson, Sten Hanson, and Bengt af Klintberg), and Ferdinand Kriwet (Germany). Kriwet
(1942- ), a radio play author and sound poet, made several radio programs that he called "listening
texts." For "Apollo America" (first broadcast 20 November 1969, WDR, Cologne, as Hörtext VI)
Kriwet spent a month in a hotel in New York (11 July-11 August 1969) recording everything he could
hear from radio and television reports of the Sunday, 20 July 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. He edited
these materials into this amazing 21-minute sound-text poem.
Source: Hörtexte [Radiotexts] (Edition RZ, Ed. RZ 9003-04-05, 3
vinyl LP box set, 2007)
Listen to the complete "Apollo America" at the
ubuweb website.
Ashby McGowan, Glasgow, Scotland, writes and performs multi-voice poetry, with a focus on blending the sounds made by multiple speakers. In some cases, this blending becomes the priority, creating subtle rhythms between speakers' words and amplifying the emotions that accompany the words.
The multivocal poem, "Many Voices," is a poem about human rights in The Commonwealth, a voluntary
association of fifty-three independent and equal sovereign states. It was commissioned for
performance and film by conFAB, a cross-platform arts organization, as part of 2014 Commonwealth
Games. Written by McGowan, produced by Rachel Jury, artistic director for conFAB. Acting director:
Iwona Glowinska. Film and audio director: Pete Hastie. Cast: Ashby McGowan, Berta Cussó,
Jessica Phillippi, Miriam Sarah Doren, Robert Przekwas. Used by permission. Listen to "Many Voices."
McGowan's multivoice poetry website explains his
history with the form and provides information for others wanting to get involved.
McGowan's multivoice poetry blog includes
lyrics from several of his poems
A video performance of "Many Voices" available here.
McGowan's work explores themes of humanity, equality, and human and animal rights. It is also interactive, prompting the audience to lend their voices as well. See for example Daybreak Interactive Multi-Voice Poem.
LEARN more at McGowan's website.
In North American, sound poets also fall roughly into two camps: those who embrace tape-looping, multi-tracking, and micro-editing to achieve tape recorded works with a high caliber of sophisticated sound, and those who largely avoid tape recording, except to preserve their own aural performances. Examples of the first group might include Steve Reich, Charles Amirkhanian, and John Giorno. John Cage, Jackson Mac Low, Michael McClure, and Paul Dutton and the Four Horseman are fine representatives of the second.
Steve Reich (1936- ) focuses on modular variation. One phrase (module), musical or verbal, is
repeated in a gradually changing way. Then, with overdubbing, two or more examples of the same
module, played at different speeds (or played at the same speed relying on phasing, speed variations
within the two tape recorders, to bring them in and out of synchronization) sometimes producing
pulsating rhythms or melodies. Reich's masterpiece with this technique is "It's Gonna Rain" (1965).
Reich recorded a young, black Pentecostal street preacher, Brother Walter, in downtown San
Francisco's Union Park, and then recorded loops of the recording playing on separate machines, going
in and out of phase. The result, a two-part, nearly 18-minute composition, is amazing, but can only
be created through recording. Here is a sample.
Source: Steve Reich:
Early Works (Nonesuch, 979169-1, LP, 1987, and Nonesuch, 979169-2, CD, 1987).
Charles Amirkhanian (1945- ), composer,
percussionist, poet, and since 1969, Music Director for Pacifica Radio KPFA FM in Berkeley,
California, where he is internationally-known for his comprehensive programs on avant-garde music,
poetry and art, followed Reich's lead, at least for his early work where he used speech as the major
component of his compositions. "If In Is" (1971), included in a 29 May 1972 KPFA broadcast, repeats
three words (inini, bullpup, and banjo) arranged in phrases on three separate tape loops played
simultaneously on multiple tape recorders. Even Amirkhanian's commentary is deliberately altered and
treated as a compositional element. The result are aural-verbal relationships produced by the
continually colliding three-word phrases.
Source: Hut Harsh Mutt Marsh (Early
Text-Sound Works by Charles Amirkhanian) at the Internet Archive website.
Amirkhanian edited the 1974 record album 10+2: American Text Sound Pieces. This was the
first major anthology of American sound poetry. Artists included Clark Coolidge, John Cage, John
Giorno, Anthony Gnazzo, Charles Dodge, Robert Ashley, Beth Anderson, Brion Gysin, Liam O'Gallagher,
Aram Saroyan, and Charles Amirkhanian whose work "Just" (1972) begins the anthology.
Source: 10+2:
American Text Sound Pieces (1750 Arch Records, S-1752; CD rereleased by Other
Minds, OM 1006-2, 2003).
Both looping and overlaying create Amirkhanian's masterpiece, "Seatbelt, Seatbelt" (1973) included
on the record album. In this work, words are like percussion objects and Amirkhanian's overlaying of
just one word spoken by multiple voices (Janice Giteck, John Duykers, Karl Goldstein, and Susan
Napper) leads us to examine the musical essence of spoken language.
Source: Lexical
Music (1750 Arch Records, S-1779, San Francisco, vinyl LP, 1973).
Moving away from Reich's modular-style and toward more precise editing words or phrases and then
overlaying them in the middle of their predecessors, Amirkhanian transforms a single voice into a
duet or chorus of itself, a restless minimalism where figures are repeated and sustained for short
periods of time before giving way to other variations. A good example of this use of polyphonic
voices to create kaleidoscopic effects is "Church Car, Version 2" (1980-1981).
Mental
Radio: Nine Text-Sound Compositions (CRI-SD 523, LP, 1985; reissued by in 2009 by
New World Records NWCRL 523, CD, 2009).
American poet and performance artist John Giorno (1936- ) is noted for his use of pop art; avant garde; found art; innovative technologies; Buddhist, Asian, and Western practices and poetics; and anti-war and AIDS activism in his poetry.
In 1966, Giorno began collaborating with Robert Moog, creator of the Moog synthesizer, to create a series of psychedelic poetry installation/happenings he called "Electronic Sensory Poetry Environments." Girono organized the first (1967) Dial-A-Poem event at the Architectural League of New York, making short poems by various contemporary poets available over the telephone. The idea was immediately successful and spread across the country. Giorno formed Giorno Poetry Systems to collect and publish the recorded Dial-A-Poems.
Touring rock clubs in the 1970s with William S. Burroughs, Giorno developed an amplified
confrontational poetry presentation style that strongly influenced the development of Poetry Slam.
The poem "I Don't Need It, I Don't Want It, and You Cheated Me Out of It," recorded on "The Red
Night Tour," May-June 1981, is a good example.
Source: You're
The Guy I Want To Share My Money With (Giorno Poetry Systems, GPS 020-021, 2
vinyl LP set, 1981; reissued as GPS 042, 2-CD set, 1993). With William S. Burroughs, Laurie
Anderson. The fourth side featured a triple-grooved track where, depending on placement of the
needle in the lead-in groove determines which artists' tracks plays.
American experimental composer and sound installation artist Alvin Lucier (1931- ) continues his work at Wesleyan University. One of his most important and best known works is "I Am Sitting in a Room," the first recording of which was made at the Electronic Music Studio at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1969. The work involves two tape recorders with a microphone and speaker connected to each. Lucier records himself on one tape recorder narrating the following text . . .
"I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have."
and then plays the recording back into the room through the connected speaker. This playback is
recorded on a second tape recorder. The new recording is played back and recorded on the first tape
recorder. This process is repeated again and again, creating many generations. These generations are
spliced together in chronological order to make a composition. Length is determined by the length of
original statement and the number of generations recorded. Throughout this process, certain
frequencies are emphasized by the room until they eventually replace the spoken words with the pure
resonant harmonies and tones of the room itself. The words become intelligible, as described in
Lucier's original spoken narrative. Lucier's statement regarding this work "as a way to smooth out
any irregularities my speech might have," refers to his own stuttering. Listen, in this original
recording (1969), how Lucier's words disappear into sound harmonics.
Several sound poets have eschewed the use of tape recording and other technologies, preferring
instead to focus on the natural range of the human voice. One example is Paul Dutton (1943- ),
Canadian novelist, poet, sound artist was a member of the poetry performance group The Four Horsemen
(see below) from 1970-1988 and is currently a member of CCMC (Dutton, John Oswald, and Michael Snow;
1989-present). Dutton's solo oral acoustic performances strive to extend the poetic expressive
ability of the human voice without electronic or mechanical effect or processing. For example,
listen to "Reverberations."
Source: Mouth Pieces: Solo
Soundsinging (OHM Editions, OHM/AVTR 021, 2000).
Or the playful, "Beyond Doo-Wop."
Source: Mouth Pieces: Solo
Soundsinging (OHM Editions, OHM/AVTR 021, 2000).
Today, Dutton's oral soundworks are at the forefront of sound poetry and free improvisational
soundsinging, as might be evidenced by "Snare, Kick, Rack, and Floor."
Source: Mouth Pieces: Solo
Soundsinging (OHM Editions, OHM/AVTR 021, 2000).
Dutton was a member of The Four Horsemen,
a Canadian sound-poetry group comprised of himself, bpNichol, Steve McCaffery, and Rafael
Barreto-Rivera. Formed in 1970, and active until 1988, when bpNichol died, The Four Horsemen (or
simply, "The Horsemen" if less than four members were involved in a performance) sought to engage
the room acoustics, the audience, and their voices in each performance. No sound manipulation
technologies, only their voices. In this sense, The Four Horsemen represented a return to the roots
of sound poetry, foregrounding the Futurist and Dada approaches to bridging literary and musical
composition with the sounds / acoustics of human speech rather than meaning. "Allegro 108" is an
excellent example of the results.
Source: Canadada
(Griffin House, IPS 1004, vinyl LP, 1974).
The vocal skill and technique of Canadian poet bpNichol (Barrie P. Nichol, 1944-1988) certainly
adds dimension to The Four Horsemen. But bpNichol is also noted in his own right as an experimental
poet. Listen to his "A Love Poem for Gertrude Stein."
Source: bpNichol (High Barnet Company, Toronto, Canada, audio cassette, 1971).
Another member of The Four Horsemen, Steve McCaffery (1947- ), Canadian poet and professor at SUNY Buffalo, has contributed to our understanding of sound poetry. See his "Sound Poetry—A Survey".
In his own work, McCaffery seeks to break language from the logic of syntax and structure to create
a purely emotional response. Like Kriwet , McCaffery was inspired by the
Apollo 11 moon landing on Sunday, 20 July 1969. His "One Step to the Next" (produced December 1977,
Calgary, Canada) speaks to that inspiration and, although relying on manipulation of tape
recordings, nicely demonstrates his focus on sound(s) of human vocalization.
Source: Wot
We Wukkers Wont / One Step to the Next (Underwhich Audiographics, 2, audio
cassette, Toronto, Canada, ***; edition limited to 100 hand numbered and signed).
textsound
A bi-annual online audio journal featuring experimental sound works from international artists and
poets.
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An international organization that supports and promotes new work by women working in the sonic arts
and digital media.