schedule – Poetry and Sound

Week 11 (Apr 14): Presentations

The main reading for the class is the poems of our six presenters, to be circulated by the weekend. We will also read excerpts from Anne Carson’s Glass Irony and God, the first part of the poem “Book of Isaiah” and her essay “The Gender of Sound.” Not required, but useful, a look at the Book of Isaiah itself, here in the King James Version.

Week 10 (Apr 7): Sound Poetry II

We will be reading issue 98-99 of the journal OEI, “Aural Poetics,” edited by Michael Nardone. Its contents are a mix of sound poems, criticism, and other, unplaceable materials. By the end of the day Friday, you should choose one entry to sponsor for the class’s attention, and email me, so I can circulate a list to everyone. We will not be confined to that list for our discussion, but we will take it as our starting point, so as you prepare for class, give special emphasis to your classmates’ selections. The entry you choose will also be the basis of the week’s exercise.

Week 9 (March 31): Sound Poetry I

Poems: a selection of sound poems made by Craig Dworkin which we will encounter together for the first time in class; now posted here after our discussion: Hugo Ball, “Karawane” (as performed by Marie Osmond); Hugo Ball: “Seepferdchen und Flügfische“; Tracie Morris, “Slave Sho to Video“; Christopher Knowles, “Emily Likes the TV“; Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, “Rap Popconcreto“; Norman Pritchard, “Gyre’s Galax“; Tristan Tzara, “Brüllt.”

Criticism: Craig Dworkin, A Handbook of Protocols for Literary Listening; Pauline Oliveros, Auralizing in the Sonosphere; Yoko, Tawada, The Art of Being Nonsynchronous.

Week 8 (March 24): History

Poems: a selection of fourteen undated and unattributed Sonnets (see the exercise page for instructions on what to do with them).

Criticism: E. Cook, “Diction“; Lucy Munro, Archaic Style in English Literature, 1590-1674 (excerpt); Alexander Nagel and Christopher Wood, Anachronic Renaissance (excerpt); Michel Serres and Bruno Latour, Conversations (excerpt).

Week 7 (March 17): Voice

For every poem here, there is a recording below. We’ll be thinking about the five voices we hear on the page and on tape; experiment with reading first, listening first, doing both together, etc.

Poems: Elizabeth Bishop, “In the Waiting Room“; Tongo Eisen-Martin, “The Possibility of Being One Person“; Cathy Park Hong, from Dance Dance Revolution; Frank O’Hara, “Having a Coke with You“; and Wallace Stevens, “Large Red Man Reading.”

Readings by the poets:

Bishop:

Eisen-Martin:

Hong:

O’Hara:

Stevens:

Criticism: Roland Barthes, “The Grain of the Voice“; Mladen Dolar, “The Linguistics of the Voice“; E. Richards, “Voice.”

Week 6 (March 3): Lyric and lyrics

Poems (or rather, songs?): Three settings of the weird old song “Oh the Wind and the Rain,” by Crooked Still, Jerry Garcia & David Grisman, and Nico Muhly, along with Alfred Deller singing Shakespeare’s “Hey Ho, the Wind and the Rain.” Also listen to the songs submitted by your classmates and pay special attention to the moments they identify as of particular interest for a conversation between words and music.

Criticism: E. B. Jorgens, Song; Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, The Undercommons (excerpt); Jahan Ramazani, “Poetry and Song” (excerpt).

Week 5 (Feb 24): Poetry and/as Music

Poems: John Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale“; Shigeru Matsui, “Pure Poems“; John Milton, “At a Solemn Music“; Tracy K. Smith, “Wade in the Water.”

Audio: Diana Deutsch’s Speech-to-Song Illusion (read her description and listen to her demos in order); Jason Moran, “Ringing My Phone” (complete version on YouTube and Spotify, if you can’t get enough); Steve Reich, Different Trains on YouTube and Spotify; Kate Soper, “Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say.” You can read about Different Trains here. Listening to a few minutes at the start will give you a sense of what he is up to. Listen with care; it is very beautiful and very sad, especially at the end.

Criticism: Daniel K. L. Chua and Alexander Rehding, from Alien Listening; John Hollander, from “The Music of Poetry“; George List, “The Boundaries of Speech and Song“; Arthur Schopenhauer, from The World as Will and Representation (excerpt). List in particular is technical and hard going, but it is worth persevering, as it makes a map on which to place forms of talking and singing. Schopenhauer gives a classic and abidingly influential account of what music is.

Week 4 (Feb 17): Rhyme

Poems: Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Man“; John Keats, “Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci“; Emily Dickinson, “The Soul Selects Her Own Society“; Edward Lear, “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat“; Terrence Hayes, “Inside Me Is a Black-Eyed Animal“; and Paul Muldoon, “The Mud Room.”

Criticism: Susan Stewart, “Rhyme and Freedom“; Simon Jarvis, “Why Rhyme Pleases“; Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, “Rhyme.”

Week 3 (Feb 10): Words (Phonetics and Semantics)

Poems: Christian Bök, Eunoia (excerpt); Harryette Mullen, Sleeping with the Dictionary (excerpt); Jordan Scott, Blert (excerpt); Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Princess” (excerpt). We will give special emphasis to Wallace Stevens, “The Idea of Order at Key West.”

Criticism: William McGregor, Phonetics; Plato, Cratylus (excerpt); Margaret Magnus, A History of Sound Symbolism (excerpt); International Phonetics Association, Handbook (excerpt) and IPA Chart.

Week 2 (Feb 3): Meter and Rhythm

Tetrameter poems by William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Keats, and Emily Dickinson; pentameter poems by William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Milton, Alexander Pope, and John Keats.

John Hollander, Rhyme’s Reason, pp. 1-30.
Derek Attridge, The Rhythms of English Poetry, pp. 76-82, 123-129.
Henry Lefebvre, Rhythmanalysis, pp. 5-10, 15-18, 27-30.

Week 1 (Jan 27): Introduction

Audio:

Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”