I am an addict of Constructivism, Dadaism, avant garde, Surrealism and sound poetry, all of which are related somehow, although not directly. I am a creature of dizzy cycles and nothing is certain of when it comes around only vaguely knowledgeable of what will come around. At least once a year I have what I will now refer to as my Dada season. When I was younger I discovered Dada. Then sound poetry. Then I fell in love with Kurt Schwitters, simply because the first words he greeted me with were "My name is Kurt Schwitters... I am a painter and I nail my pictures together." He was not strictly a dadaist. In simple terms, Dada is misery - Merz, his own works of art, pieces built up of found objects - is happiness. He had no interest in politics; he was a one-man movement. Merz is Schwitters and Schwitters is Merz.
At this moment I can't find a recording of An Anna Blume to share but I can direct you to Ursonate, a well-known early example of sound poetry: Kurt Schwitters - Ursonate (save target/link as, which goes for the rest of the links on this page). UbuWeb Sound is a huge collection of sound art recordings in which I visit regularly and for which I am thankful exists or else I could not share some of these tracks.
Bob Cobbing - Portrait of Robin Crozier
Bob Cobbing was the first explorer of sound poetry in England and a long-time experimenter in visual and performance poetry. His works in the visual, sonic and performance medias are extensive, widely varied and difficult to classify.
Tristan Tzara - L'amiral Cherche Une Maison à Louer
L'amiral Cherche Une Maison à Louer is one of the best known examples of Dada tonal poetry, in which several voices speak, sing, whistle, and so forth simultaneously in such a way that the resulting combinations account for the total effect of the work. The simultaneous poem demonstrates the value of the human voice and is a powerful illustration of the fact that an organic work of art has a will of its own.
Henri Chopin - Sol Air
Henri Chopin is something like the father of sound poetry to me, not in the traditional sense of a person "being there first" (he wasn't, becoming active in his own experiments in the 50s) but because he is an explorer of sound and mapped it extensively. Initially armed with just his voice and tape recorders, he went far beyond spoken word. His work is not of any language or Word. It's diving head first into our breath and soul and exploring the true and pure focus: our own voice, with no reliance on language.
At this moment I can't find a recording of An Anna Blume to share but I can direct you to Ursonate, a well-known early example of sound poetry: Kurt Schwitters - Ursonate (save target/link as, which goes for the rest of the links on this page). UbuWeb Sound is a huge collection of sound art recordings in which I visit regularly and for which I am thankful exists or else I could not share some of these tracks.
Bob Cobbing - Portrait of Robin Crozier
Bob Cobbing was the first explorer of sound poetry in England and a long-time experimenter in visual and performance poetry. His works in the visual, sonic and performance medias are extensive, widely varied and difficult to classify.
Tristan Tzara - L'amiral Cherche Une Maison à Louer
L'amiral Cherche Une Maison à Louer is one of the best known examples of Dada tonal poetry, in which several voices speak, sing, whistle, and so forth simultaneously in such a way that the resulting combinations account for the total effect of the work. The simultaneous poem demonstrates the value of the human voice and is a powerful illustration of the fact that an organic work of art has a will of its own.
Henri Chopin - Sol Air
Henri Chopin is something like the father of sound poetry to me, not in the traditional sense of a person "being there first" (he wasn't, becoming active in his own experiments in the 50s) but because he is an explorer of sound and mapped it extensively. Initially armed with just his voice and tape recorders, he went far beyond spoken word. His work is not of any language or Word. It's diving head first into our breath and soul and exploring the true and pure focus: our own voice, with no reliance on language.
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