Sound States: Innovative Poetics and Acoustical Technologies

by Adalaide Morris (Editor)

Overview

By investigating the relationship between acoustical technologies and twentieth-century experimental poetics, this collection, with an accompanying compact disc, aims to 'turn up the volume' on printed works and rethink the way we read, hear, and talk about literary texts composed after telephones, phonographs, radios, loudspeakers, microphones, and tape recorders became facts of everyday life.

The collection's twelve essays focus on earplay in texts by James Joyce, Ezra Pound, H.D., Samuel Beckett, William Burroughs, Amiri Baraka, Bob Kaufman, Robert Duncan, and Kamau Brathwaite and in performances by John Cage, Caribbean DJ-poets, and Cecil Taylor. From the early twentieth-century soundscapes of Futurist and Dadaist 'sonosphers' to Henri Chopin's electroacoustical audio-poames, the authors argue, these states of sound make bold but wavering statements—statements held only partially in check by meaning.

The contributors are Loretta Collins, James A. Connor, Michael Davidson, N. Katherine Hayles, Nathaniel Mackey, Steve McCaffery, Alec McHoul, Toby Miller, Adalaide Morris, Fred Moten, Marjorie Perloff, Jed Rasula, and Garrett Stewart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807846704
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	01/19/1998
Edition description:	1
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Adalaide Morris is professor of English and chair of the English department at the University of Iowa.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction. Sound States / Adalaide Morris

PART I. Soundings: Radio and Tape Transmissions
RADIO free JOYCE: Wake Language and the Experience of Radio / James A. Connor
Sound Technologies and the Modernist Epic: H.D. on the Air / Adalaide Morris
The Radio Intellectual: Specific, General, or Just Wired? / Toby Miller and Alec McHoul
Voices out of Bodies, Bodies out of Voices: Audiotape and the Production of Subjectivity / N. Katherine Hayles
Technologies of Presence: Orality and the Tapevoice of Contemporary Poetics / Michael Davidson

PART II. Groundings: Performance/Ritual/Event
The Music of Verbal Space: John Cage's "What You Say . . ." / Marjorie Perloff
From Phonic to Sonic: The Emergence of the Audio-Poem / Steve McCaffery
Rude Bwoys, Riddim, Rub-a-Dub, and Rastas: Systems of Political Dissonance in Caribbean Performative Sounds / Loretta Collins
Cante Moro / Nathaniel Mackey
Sound in Florescence: Cecil Taylor Floating Garden / Fred Moten

PART III. Surroundings: Hearing Theories
Modernism's Sonic Waiver: Literary Writing and the Filmic Difference / Garrett Stewart
Poetry's Voice-Over / Jed Rasula

Bibliography
Sources and Permissions for CD Tracks
Notes on the Contributors
Index

Illustrations
Tawny owl addicted to BBC Radio, postcard, 1935
"What will he say if you don't do it?," cartoon
"Listenin'!," cartoon
"Don't Cry Mother . . . ," advertisement
Jasper Johns, Figure 5, encaustic and collage

CD Tracks
1. James A. Connor, radio collage (3:34)
2. H.D., Helen is of course that Helen (2:40)
3. H.D., How did we know each other? (2:55)
4. H.D., Much has happened (0:58)
5. John Cage, "What You Say . . ." (3:08)
6. Bengt af Klintberg, "Calls," 1968 (1:10)
7. F. T. Marinetti, from "Bombardamento di Adrianopoli," 1912 (3:02)
8. Hugo Ball, "Gadji Beri Bimba," 1915 (2:41)
9. Christian Morgenstern, "Das grosse Lalula," 1905 (0:53)
10. Paul Scheerbart, "Kikakokú! Ekoralaps!," 1897 (0:49)
11. Raoul Hausmann, "b b b b et F m s b w," 1918 (1:10)
12. Isadore Isou, "Rituel somptueux pour la Selection des Espèces," 1965 (2:13)
13. Aleksei Kruchenykh: "Dyr bul shchyl," 1912; "Kr dei macelli," 1920; "Zanzera, velano," 1922 (2:49)
14. Henri Chopin, "Le Ventre de Bertini," 1967 (1:50)
15. Pierre-André Arcand, from "livre sonore," 1987 (1:38)
16. Rastafari Elders, "400 Years" (2:00)
17. Lee "Scratch" Perry, "Well Dread" (0:34)
18. King Tubby, "A Rougher Version" (1:02)
19. Anthony McNeill, "Ode to Brother Joe" (2:02)
20. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, "Wings of a Dove" (3:33)
21. Mutabaruka, "The People's Court" (2:36)
22. Pastora Pavón, "Ay Pilato" (2:37)
23. Miles Davis, "Saeta" (3:45)
24. Miles Davis and John Coltrane, "All Blues" (5:55)
25. Mississippi Fred McDowell, "Everybody's Down on Me" (3:12)
26. Mississippi Fred McDowell, "Jesus Is on the Mainline" (1:56)
27. Rahsaan Roland Kirk, "The Business Ain't Nothin' but the Blues" (2:24)
28. [Iranian singer], "Love Song" (2:50)
29. Sonny Rollins, "East Broadway Rundown" (3:15)
30. Cecil Taylor, "Chinampas" (5:04)

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

A first-rate contribution to the ongoing reformulation of our understanding of what literature means, or is becoming, in a world saturated by audio technology. From the enlightening introduction by Adalaide Morris to the extensive discography and bibliographies in the back, Sound States will undoubtedly spur productive debate and research.—Stanford Humanities Review

This impressive collection of essays explores the specifically aural nature of modern and contemporary poetic works and practices. . . . The contributions are always intriguing . . . and benefit immensely from an accompanying compact disc.—Virginia Quarterly Review

Oyez—now hear this. A dynamic group of essays tuned in to the twangs and calibrations of poetic listening and fine-tuned to cultural studies of modernism, contemporaneity, and poetics. An original and innovative anthology by people thinking with an 'ear-mind.'—Rachel Blau DuPlessis, poet and critic

Sound States is an important, exciting, groundbreaking book. It restores the reading and, notably, the discussion of poetry to the sensed world, the world of affects, of play, of instability. In seeking to teach us how to hear, it changes the way we read and how we think about reading. It opens up a too-long-neglected aspect of the written word and reminds us of the sheer playfulness that informs and generates artistic work.—Peter Quartermain, University of British Columbia

Editorial Reviews

[The book] reminds us of the sheer playfulness that informs and generates artistic work.

Peter Quartermain, University of British Columbia

ÝThe book¨ reminds us of the sheer playfulness that informs and generates artistic work.

Peter Quartermain, University of British Columbia

A first-rate contribution to the ongoing reformulation of our understanding of what literature means, or is becoming.

"Stanford Humanities Review"

An original and innovative anthology by people thinking with an 'ear-mind.'

Rachel Blau DuPlessis, poet and critic

"[The book] reminds us of the sheer playfulness that informs and generates artistic work.

Peter Quartermain, University of British Columbia"

"A first-rate contribution to the ongoing reformulation of our understanding of what literature means, or is becoming.

"Stanford Humanities Review""

"An original and innovative anthology by people thinking with an 'ear-mind.'

Rachel Blau DuPlessis, poet and critic"

The contributions are always intriguing.

"Virginia Quarterly Review"

From the Publisher