HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Sound poetry is an artistic form bridging literacy and
musical composition Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called ...
, in which the phonetic aspects of human speech are foregrounded instead of more conventional
semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
and
syntactic In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), ...
values; "verse without words". By definition, sound poetry is intended primarily for
performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...
.


History and development


The vanguards of the 20th century

While it is sometimes argued that the roots of sound poetry are to be found in
oral poetry Oral poetry is a form of poetry that is composed and transmitted without the aid of writing. The complex relationships between written and spoken literature in some societies can make this definition hard to maintain. Background Oral poetry is ...
traditions, the writing of pure sound texts that downplay the roles of meaning and structure is a 20th-century phenomenon. The Futurist and Dadaist Vanguards of the beginning of this century were the pioneers in creating the first sound poetry forms. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti discovered that onomatopoeias were useful to describe a battle in Tripoli where he was a soldier, creating a sound text that became a sort of a spoken photograph of the battle. Dadaists were more involved in sound poetry and they invented different categories: *''Bruitist poem'' it is the phonetic poem, not so different from the futurist poem. Invented by Richard Huelsenbeck. *''Simultaneous poem'' a poem read in different languages, with different rhythms, tonalities, and by different persons at the same time. Invented by Tristan Tzara. *''Movement poem'' is the poem accompanied by primitive movements.


Later developments

Sound poetry evolved into visual poetry and concrete poetry, two forms based in visual arts issues although the sound images are always very compelling in them. Later on, with the development of the magnetic tape recorder, sound poetry evolved thanks to the upcoming of the
concrete music Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...
movement at the end of the 1940s. Some sound poetics were used by later poetry movements like the
beat generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...
in the fifties or the spoken word movement in the 80's, and by other art and music movements that brought up new forms such as text sound art that may be used for sound poems which more closely resemble "fiction or even essays, as traditionally defined, than poetry".


Early examples

''Das Große Lalulá'' (1905) by Christian Morgenstern, in the collection '' Galgenlieder''. :::Kroklokwafzi? Semememi! :::Seiokrontro – prafriplo: :::Bifzi, bafzi; hulalemi: :::quasti basti bo... :::Lalu lalu lalu lalu la! :::Hontraruru miromente :::zasku zes rü rü? :::Entepente, leiolente :::klekwapufzi lü? :::Lalu lalu lalu lalu la! :::Simarar kos malzipempu :::silzuzankunkrei (;)! :::Marjomar dos: Quempu Lempu :::Siri Suri Sei :::Lalu lalu lalu lalu la! '' Zang Tumb Tumb'' (1914) is a sound poem and concrete poem by Italian futurist
F. T. Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (; 22 December 1876 – 2 December 1944) was an Italian poet, editor, art theorist, and founder of the Futurist movement. He was associated with the utopian and Symbolist artistic and literary community Abbaye d ...
. Hugo Ball performed a piece of sound poetry in a reading at Cabaret Voltaire in 1916: :"I created a new species of verse, 'verse without words,' or sound poems....I recited the following: :::gadji beri bimba :::glandridi lauli lonni cadori..." ::::(Albright, 2004) Kurt Schwitters' ''Ursonate'' (1922–32, "Primal Sonata") is a particularly well known early example: The first movement rondo's principal theme being a word, "fmsbwtözäu" pronounced ''Fümms bö wö tää zää Uu'', from a 1918 poem by Raoul Hausmann, apparently also a sound poem. Schwitters also wrote a less well-known sound poem consisting of the sound of the letter W. (Albright, 2004) Chilean Vicente Huidobro's explores phonetic mutations of words in his book "Altazor" (1931). In his story ''The Poet at Home'', William Saroyan refers to a character who practices a form of pure poetry, composing verse of her own made-up words.


Female practitioners

It has been argued that "there is a paucity of information on women's involvement in sound poetry, whether as practitioners, theorists, or even simply as listeners". Among the earliest female practitioners are Berlin poet Else Lasker-Schüler, who experimented in what she called "Ursprache" (Ur-language), and the New York Dada poet and performer Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. The Baroness’s poem "Klink-Hratzvenga (Death-wail)" was published in ''The Little Review'' in March 1920 to great controversy. Written in response to her husband Leopold von Freytag-Loringhoven’s suicide, the sound poem was "a mourning song in nonsense sounds that transcended national boundaries". The Baroness was also known for her sexually charged sound poetry, as seen in "Teke Heart (Beating of Heart)", only recently published. Europe has produced sound poets in the persons of Greta Monach (Netherlands) and
Katalin Ladik Katalin Ladik (born Újvidék, 25 October 1942) is a Hungarian poet, performance artist and actress. She was born in Újvidék, Kingdom of Hungary (today Novi Sad, Serbia), and in the last 20 years she has lived and worked alternately in Novi ...
(Hungary), who released an EP of her work, "Phonopoetica", in 1976. In England, Paula Claire has been working with improvisational sound since the 1960s. Lily Greenham, born in Denmark and later based in Vienna and Paris, developed a so-called neo-semantic approach and utilized electronics and sound effects in her work since the early 1970s. The United States has produced accomplished sound poets as well:
Tracie Morris Tracie Morris is an American poet. She is also a performance artist, vocalist, voice consultant, creative non-fiction writer, critic, scholar, bandleader, actor and non-profit consultant. Morris is from Brooklyn, New York. Morris' experimental so ...
, from Brooklyn, New York, began presenting sound poetry in the mid-1990s. Her live and installation sound poetry has been featured in numerous venues including the Whitney Biennial in 2002. Experimental vocalist and composer
Joan La Barbara Joan Linda La Barbara (born June 8, 1947) is an American vocalist and composer known for her explorations of non-conventional or "extended" vocal techniques. Considered to be a vocal virtuoso in the field of contemporary music, she is credited wi ...
has also successfully explored the realm of sound poetry. Composer Beth Anderson has been featured on several sound poetry anthologies such as "10+2: 12 American Text Sound Pieces" (1975) and the Italian 3vitre series. Other women practicing sound poetry in the US were, for instance, the Japanese artist Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson and the Australian poet Ada Verdun Howell. The online
mixtape A mixtape (alternatively mix-tape, mix tape or mixed tape) is a compilation of music, typically from multiple sources, recorded onto a medium. With origins in the 1980s, the term normally describes a homemade compilation of music onto a cassette ...
"A Sound Poetry Mix Tape" (2021) features excerpts by over thirty female sound poets.


Other examples of sound poets

Later prominent sound poets include Henri Chopin, Bob Cobbing, Ada Verdun Howell,
bpNichol Barrie Phillip Nichol (30 September 1944 – 25 September 1988), known as bpNichol, was a Canadian poet, writer, sound poet, editor, Creative Writing teacher at York University in Toronto and grOnk/Ganglia Press publisher. His body of work enc ...
, Bill Bissett, Adeena Karasick, William S. Burroughs, Giovanni Fontana,
Bernard Heidsieck Bernard Heidsieck (November 28, 1928 – November 22, 2014) was a French sound poet, associated with various movements throughout a long career: including Beat, American Fluxus, and minimalism. Heidsieck was born in Paris. In the course of his car ...
,
Enzo Minarelli Enzo is an Italian given name derivative of the German name Heinz. It can be used also as the short form for Lorenzo, Vincenzo, Innocenzo, or Fiorenzo. It is most common in the Romance-speaking world, particularly in Italy and Latin America b ...
, François Dufrene, Mathias Goeritz, Maurizio Nannucci, Andras Petocz,
Joan La Barbara Joan Linda La Barbara (born June 8, 1947) is an American vocalist and composer known for her explorations of non-conventional or "extended" vocal techniques. Considered to be a vocal virtuoso in the field of contemporary music, she is credited wi ...
, Paul Dutton, multidisciplinary artists
Jeremy Adler Jeremy Adler is a British scholar and poet, and emeritus professor and senior research fellow at King's College London. As a poet he is known especially for his concrete poetry and artist's books. As an academic he is known for his work on German ...
, Jean-Jacques Lebel,
John Giorno John Giorno (December 4, 1936 – October 11, 2019) was an American poet and performance artist. He founded the not-for-profit production company Giorno Poetry Systems and organized a number of early multimedia poetry experiments and events, i ...
, Henrik Aeshna, a Paris-based poet, artist and performer who experiments with
noise music Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise within a musical context. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical ...
,
shamanism Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a Spirit world (Spiritualism), spirit world through Altered state of consciousness, altered states of consciousness, such as tranc ...
and visual poetry, New York City jazz poet
Steve Dalachinsky Steven Donald Dalachinsky (September 29, 1946 – September 16, 2019) was an American downtown New York City poet, active in the music, art, and free jazz scenes. He wrote poetry for most of his life and read frequently at Michael Dorf's club th ...
, Yoko Ono and Jaap Blonk, a Dutch sound poet who often works with improvising musicians. The poet Edith Sitwell coined the term ''abstract poetry'' to describe some of her own poems which possessed more aural than literary qualities, rendering them essentially meaningless: "The poems in ''Façade'' are ''abstract'' poems—that is, they are patterns of sound. They are...virtuoso exercises in technique of extreme difficulty, in the same sense as that in which certain studies by Liszt are studies in transcendental technique in music." (Sitwell, 1949) An early Dutch artist, Theo van Doesburg, was another prominent sound poet in the early 1900s. The comedian and musician
Reggie Watts Reginald Lucien Frank Roger Watts (born March 23, 1972) is an American comedian, actor, beatboxer, and musician. His improvised musical sets are created using only his voice, a keyboard, and a looping machine. Watts refers to himself as a "disinf ...
often uses sound poetry as an improvisational technique in his performances, used with the intent to disorient his audience.


Theories

In their essay "Harpsichords Metallic Howl—", Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo review the theories of sound by Charles Bernstein, Gerald Bruns, Min-Quian Ma,
Rachel Blau DuPlessis Rachel Blau DuPlessis (born December 14, 1941) is an American poet and essayist, known as a feminist critic and scholar with a special interest in modernist and contemporary poetry. Her work has been widely anthologized. Early life DuPlessis w ...
, Jeffrey McCaffery and others to argue that sonic poetry foregrounds its own corporality. Thus "the Baroness's sound poems let her body speak through her expansive use of sound, the Baroness conveys the fluidity of gender as a constantly changing, polysemous signifier." In this way, somatic art becomes the poet's own "space-sound." Of course, for many dadaists, such as Hugo Ball, sound poetry also presented a language of trauma, a cacophony used to protest the sound of the cannons of World War I. It was as T. J. Demos writes, "a telling stutter, a nervous echolalia."Quoted in Gammel and Zelazo, "Harpsichords Metallic Howl." 259.


See also

*
Abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...
and asemic writing—equivalents in the visual arts * Angel Exhaust * Bob Cobbing *'' Crosstalk: American Speech Music'' *
Electroacoustic music Electroacoustic music is a genre of popular and Western art music in which composers use technology to manipulate the timbres of acoustic sounds, sometimes by using audio signal processing, such as reverb or harmonizing, on acoustical instrumen ...
*
Jas H. Duke Jas Heriot Duke (1939–1992) was a cult figure in the Australian performance poetry scene. He worked much of his life in Melbourne Board of Works and began writing poetry in 1966. He was influenced by Dada, Expressionism and experimental movement ...
* Magma (band) * Line (music) * Line (poetry) * Phonaesthetics * Scat singing * Sound art *
Tracie Morris Tracie Morris is an American poet. She is also a performance artist, vocalist, voice consultant, creative non-fiction writer, critic, scholar, bandleader, actor and non-profit consultant. Morris is from Brooklyn, New York. Morris' experimental so ...


References


Sources

*Albright, Daniel (2004). ''Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources''. University of Chicago Press. . *Sitwell, Edith (1949). ''The Canticle of the Rose Poems: 1917–1949'', p.xii. New York: Vanguard Press.


External links


UbuWeb


by Steve McCaffery
Text Sound Art: A Survey
Richard Kostelanetz *
10 + 2 = 12 American Text-Sound Pieces
The first major recorded anthology of American sound poetry, edited by
Charles Amirkhanian Charles Benjamin Amirkhanian (born January 19, 1945; Fresno, California) is an American composer. He is a percussionist, sound poet, and radio producer of Armenian origin. He is mostly known for his electroacoustic and text-sound music. Perform ...
for 1750 Arch Records, released on LP in 1975, re-released for CD/download by Other Minds in 2003.
Sound poetry—concrete, abstract, and postmodern.Sound poetry in french with audio files, Mitocarpe
By PAUL KRESH; New York Times, April 3, 1983,
Sound Poetry on 57productions''"Bring Da Noise: A Brief Survey of Sound Art Sound and The Literary Connection"''
by Kenneth Goldsmith NewMusicBox, March 1, 2004
Poesy Planet, Eight GeeseMessagio Galore
{{Authority control Genres of poetry Dada Poetry movements Phonaesthetics Contemporary classical music