Sound Poetry

The phrasebook uses standard characters for representing English speech.

sound poems | Poetry Box

These characters are not meaningless but their use is conventionalized and in this context they are meant simply to stand for the English sounds——their meaning in Chinese is considered irrelevant. Stalling reproduces the Chinese and English from the phrasebook. Charlie Morrow visited the Kelly Writers House recently and gave a packed house quite a performance. The program is further described here. Soon — but not yet — links to both the audio and video recordings will be available at that page and also at PennSound.

His most important medium may be his own performing body and voice. I am glad to share the English version of the essay here over the next several posts. Some of these sounds are scripted; others, improvised. Conceiving of this as sound art, Steve McLaughlin did just that a few years ago. So go here , settle in, and hear nearly everything the Beatles released in one hour. There's a certain strange hepped-up beauty to it, I have to say. But the audiopoem constitutes a much more fundamental break with the whole tradition of western poetics. Chopin's early work ca.

Still connected to the word, these pieces can best be described as technological assaults upon the word. The word is slowed down, speeded up and superimposed up to fifty times, whilst additional vocalic texture is provided by a variety of respiratory and buccal effects. Later, Chopin discovered and used the 'micro-particle' as the compositional unit of his work, abandoning the word entirely. This marks the birth of 'poesie sonore', which Chopin distinguishes from 'poesie phonetique'.

Chopin's art is an art entirely dependent on the tape recorder. Chopin's 'vocal micro- particulars' are only realizable through the agency of modern tape technology. It is an irrevocable marriage. His material comprises the full gamut of orally produced phenomena beyond and beneath the atomic limit of the phoneme. Bernard Heidsieck commenced sound poetry in with his 'poempartitions' and, since on, a species he terms 'biopsies'. Both types are rooted in a direct relation to everyday life.

Heidsieck sometimes refers to both the biopsies and poem-partitions as 'action' poems not to be confused with the action poetry of either Steve McCaffery or Robert Filliou. Texts utilized are often found and superimposed and involve complex variations in tape speed, volume and editorial juxtaposition. In addition to their value as social comment, Heidsieck sees his sound texts existing within the domain of 'a ritual, ceremonial or event' that assumes an interrogative stance vis a vis our daily wordscapes.

The day to day is appropriated and animated to make meaningful 'our mechanical and technocratic age by recapturing mystery and breath'.

Heidsieck incorporates the taped-text within the context of live performance and plays off his own live voice against his own voice recorded. It is a positive solipsism that frequently results in a rich textural fabric. Since Heidsieck has called his tape compositions 'passe-partout' viz. The passe-partout marks a further development in Heidsieck's central interest: By virtually all text-sound composition had centered around the Fylkingen Group for Linguistic Arts. Sweden has become the center for technical-acoustic sound poetry; its studios in Stockholm are currently unrivalled, and the resultant pieces display a remarkable degree of sophistication.

Lille was one of the first artists to employ synthetic speech in a texts-ound composition Still Life, 'Q' in which the synthesizer's computer unit is programmed to produce reshaped oscillations, mutation frequencies and deliberate distortions in syntax and pronunciation.

Though it would be misleading to suggest a single'Swedish School' of text-sound composition, it can be said that the general interconnected concern is the exploitation of that interface between art and technology The Bodins, Hanson, Johnson, Laaban, Hodell and Lille all subject texts to electronic modification and transformation.

About Robert Lee Brewer

In Italy , post-futurist developments have been noteworthy. Arrigo Lora Totino b.

A man of extreme inventiveness, Totino has developed the Idrornegafono , a rotating horn allowing a projection of the speaker's voice in a degree circle. Totino has used the hydromegaphone in a series of 'liquid poems' in which the voice is sounded through water. Mauricio Nannucci is another Italian sound poet who has devoted much additional energy into organizing manifestations and anthologies of text-sound composition.

In the Netherlands , Herman Damen has developed two sonic genres: The former deals with vocalized morphemic elements aligned, configurated and concatenated with each other. Verbophony relies upon the electronic treatment of voice in a manner similarto that developed by the Fylkingen Group for Linguistic Arts. Damen's total aim is much more ambitious than the parallel development of two sound genres. Both Verbosony and Verbophony he sees as two elements of Verbal -Plasticism which in itself forms part of Phonography which attempts 'to investigate the possibilities that there are for a relationship between sound and picture, between speech morphemes and letter fragments, between audible and visual rhythms.

There has been much activity in Holland since the fifties. In addition to Damen are Paul de Wee b. Greta Monach's work such as her Automerga isolates single spoken sounds as abstract, syntagmatic clusters which she terms'words'. The semantic level, whilst never totally obliterated, is never prominent. Unlike Henri Chopin, Monach locates within the tension of conflicting categories to produce compositions that draw upon the familiar and the unfamiliar response.

• Recently in Jacket2!
• Los Zetas (M9SECURITY Book 1).
• Daveys Half-Way Home Cafe?
• Sound poetry.

Michael Gibbs is a British poet now living in Holland. A multi-disciplinarian, he has developed a series of chancegenerated sound-texts. This stream of aleatoric composition runs deep through the geneology of sound; it is evident in the Dadaist use of chance and reaches great refinement in the work of Gibbs and the American poet Jackson MacLow.

In Great Britain sound texts started to appear in the earlier sixties. Bob Cobbing , a tireless innovator and publisher, began his sonic explorations as an integral step within concrete poetry. Concrete Sound, as Cobbing terms it, is a 'return to an emphasis on the physical structure of language Tantric, Dada, Shaman, intermedia are all present in his solo work and group manifestations The Konkrete Canticle and, more recently, AbAna. His texts he terms 'song signals'; they are low clenotational, highly suggestive codes permitting maximum imaginative interpretation.

One of Cobbing's lasting contributions to text-sound activity is his revolutionising of what can constitute a 'text'. Cobbing along with Paula Claire has frequently abandoned the graphic imprint and received 'song signals' from natural objects: Text can be anything. Paula Claire's contributions to opening up the domain of textuality to conventionally nontextual objects are especially important.

Her work investigates the complexities of micro- linguistic elements along analogical lines to nuclear physics, molecular biology, computer miniaturization etc. Since she has been performing her 'pattern sounds': Her Codesigns use photomicropgraphs as texts; they are a stunning synthesis of code and sound. A brief survey of European text-sound composition should include mention of several other artists.

Brion Gysin , working in the earlier sixties, adapted techniques borrowed from the visual arts to language, and conceived the permutational poem in which semantic units are treated as mobile modules. Gils Wolman, working alongside Dufrene in the s, gave sound poetry the megapneumes. With an intensely physical anchoring in the potential of the human vocal- respiratory system, Wolman pursued language back beyond the threshold of the word and letter to breath, energy and emotion. The form bears comparison with Olson's statements on 'the laws and particularities of breath' as outlined in his essay on projective verse, for the megapneume and Dufrene's crirhythmes demonstrate the full implication of a pneumatic centered communication.

Character Worksheets

Austria 's sound poet par excellence is Ernst Jandl, the principle practitioner of phonetic poetry. Jandl's pieces employ processes of word fragmentation and recomposition to alter meanings by elaborate structural puns. Sound poetry has been a later development in North America and has developed in part from a very different background. My ears were buzzing with delight as I read them all. Ewen has played around with a number of the sound challenges.

I loved the energy of these poems Ewen so I am sending you a book prize another one of my favourite picture books, Donkeys published by Gecko Press as it has words and illustrations that sing. I was over the moon to see a class had written a poem together. I wondered if they tried my challenge to shut their eyes for a few minutes and listen to sounds.

I felt like I was right there in the classroom with my eyes shut. What a wonderful job, Room 2. They are learning about the senses so doing a sound poem together was perfect, she said. They even wrote one together. I loved reading these. Gemma tried a poem with lots of onomatopoeia , Daniel made a very funny rhyme-y poem about a cat. I especially loved the rhyme in this poem, Daniel. I am going to send Daniel and Gemma a book to share as I loved their poems.

I am sending them another favourite picture book that sings — with good words and cool pictures Bravo also published by Gecko Press. What scrumptious words on each line. I can tell you used your EARs and went hunting for words that sound good together.

The Mythical Space of Sound Poetry

These poems are such a treat I am going to send you a copy of my book Flamingo Bendalingo it is full of animal poems! Dragons Razor sharp teeth Smooth wings with claw like hands at the end, Red scaley skin rolling across its dragony body. Jamie G, year 3 Crocodiles Crocodiles are green with white sharp teeth one long tail and little lumps on it with wide green eyes. Cheetah Dark cheetah running as fast as lightning With sharp jaws and teeth Whiskery and roaring and with lots of spots.

Bull A big rampaging angry bull With sharp pointy horns Charges at bright red fences Ripping up the dry brown grass. Lion Big shaggy mane filled with meat Lying down in hot blazing suns. Getting up crossing big long grass Stalking a big brown deer Creeping low, grabs a leg, bites with razor sharp teeth And kills straight away.

Elephants Big brown soft eyes. Ears thrashing against the wind. Small and big grey shapes in the distance, Slowly plonking along. The elephant lifts up her trunk Brrrrrr, the trumpeting sound fills the air, As they charge towards the water hole. They are running in the water, The little one stumbles, The mother nudges it back up again. Then they swarm around me like bees. Silently they vanish over the horizon Holly D, year 4. Giraffes Long stretchy legs, one swaying tail A flagpole neck A soaking blue tongue and stomping hooves. Brown splodges from head to toe.

Lion A big fiery Lion Snarled around the lake Mud paws leaping on fish Clawing the grass out of their homes Ripping trash! Duck The amazing duck The super little greeny brown duck Was shaking its butt from side to side As it waddled beside the pond quacking loudly at the other ducks Swimming. Cats Lots of different types and colours Tabby grey black and white, Siamese blue sky, green grass and hazelnut brown eyes. Long bushy, flicky, soft tail and sharp white shiny pointy teeth That help kill mice and rats. They can hide in bushes and climb trees and jump in overgrown hedges.

They hiss, spit, scratch and to calm down they purr. Leopards Leopards have fluffy bushy tails with white sharp teeth and with chocolate sharp claws, with black dots and circular ears and purple diamond eyes a sparkling yellow cat. Camels Little tiny ears eating grass and drinking water in the hot sunny desert People riding the camels looking for food to eat, to live, to survive.

Puppy Small ears, bluish eyes, brown skin, tiny teeth small long puppy tail running around with the puppy in my hands barking small noise. Squirrels The big bushy tail squirrel, has little beady eyes soft ginger fur and sharp shiny fangs A shiny black nose. Owl There is a dark chocolaty owl sitting in the brown branches With creepy tawny eyes. Bright, yellow stars are flickering in the black sky With a shimmering white moon. Hawk A beautiful white hawk is gliding through the blue shimmering morning sky, with his wings open wide.

Bunnies Long fluffy ears. Round fluffy tail, scratchy furry feet, silky soft body, Breezy high, bouncy jumps. Tigers Bright orange and black like a big bumble bee. Huge sharp teeth, clawing sharp feet.