Here’s an excerpt from H. G. Wells’ “The Red Room”, just in time for Halloween. The accompaniment is Prelude no. 2 in G Minor by Jan Hanford. It’s available from magnatune.com, which I recommend if you’re looking for podsafe music.
http://humphreyspodcast.nfshost.com/RedRoom.mp3
One of the project options for this class is the production of podcasts. These may be original performances recorded and produced by students or legal remixes. (Please familiarize yourself with the reach of copyright law and the use of podsafe and Creative Commons licensed music before you upload an mp3.)
Click on the PODCAST category link to see all those generated by our class.
The files below are offered for educational, non-commerical use only. Please do not redistribute.
To add a file, link it in a post and select the category podcast
To subscribe, add the following feed to your podcatcher software:
http://www.sherwoodweb.org/blogengl338/cast/general/podcast/feed
To associate with I-Tunes, select: Advanced/ Subscribe to Podcast. Then paste in the url above and click ok.
Let’s continue our discussion of what if anything makes these published “voices of the past” oral. Do they invite an oral performance? What’s the difference in reading them silently and privately, versus aloud and socially?
When we read a poem, we see it on the page. Where is the poem when we listen? Should we look? Where is the poem when we lock it in memory?
Over the weekend and Monday, please spend an hour or so listening to poetry audio (see ubu.com , Pennsound, BBCs Poetry Out Loud , AAP Listening Room) and develop a performance for Wednesday:
1.) Imitate a noted poet reading his/her own poem in a recognizable style
2.) Mash-it-up live, by performing one text in the style of another (e.g. Ginbsberg does Stein)
3.) Memorize the poem of a “voice from the past” but deliver it in a style suitable for the present.
I thought that I would be the first to post a remixed class audio project. It can be accessed at http://www.people.iup.edu/fzbk/Project.mp3 . Let me know what you guys think of it.
I noticed something interesting in class today while Dr. Sherwood read “The Wreck of the Hesperus”. He stressed a few times that the class members should not read along in the text while he performed (as difficult as the habit is for us to break–I read subtitles in movies even if I can hear the audio clearly). We dutifully put our packets away, but it seemed like nobody knew what to do with his or her eyes during the performance. A few of us let our eyes wander around the room, but for the most part we seemed to choose fixed points and stare vacantly into them while we listened (this is what I did at first, but then I got curious and looked at everyone else). Nobody seemed to watch the performance for more than several seconds at a time before looking elsewhere (though I may have missed a face or two).
I wonder how much this is a product of our focus on study (a literate practice) as the preferred activity in the classroom rather than reception/appreciation of performance. I haven’t paid a great deal of attention to this specifically, but I doubt that the same performer/audience dynamic is present during our meetings in the Commonplace.
I wonder if this is a product of the technologizing of oral performance that we touched on today. As we listen to the news on a TV or a song on a cd/mp3 player we are not required to be active or even to engage with the performer; in fact, she or he has no means to get immediate feedback from us whatsoever. Orality can lose its audience/performer dynamic for a reader/text dynamic if it is technologized and mediated (though it may not have to).
How does listening to the recordings of our performances compare with listening to the performances themselves? Do we use different strategies for each to enter into the experience?
One of the ongoing topics of discussion/argument throughout the class has been the issue of gratification — specifically, which is more important for performance poetry/literature? Is it what the writer feels or how the audience responds? Is it only a solitary feeling of pleasure that needs to be derived from a performance/text, or, as Shaun puts it, is mutual masturbation the better path to tread?
It is, of course, a sticky line to walk. Some feel that writing a piece of poetry strictly to evoke a positive response from an audience cheapens the writter to being little more than another player to the pezzonovante (read bourgeoisie/popular masses to those unfamiliar with the term) in an attempt to fit into popular or accepted culture, be it that of the majority or lesser-known slam groups and underground poet societies. Others that feel poetry and performance is intended to be a sharing of minds can be seen in certain lights to be a little too opinionated or egotistical (the Buffalo type — like me). Scholarly rhetoric and stylistics make the text dry or thin, at least that is how it appears. Examining both types, though, and reactions from audiences, I’ve come to the conclusion that we are asking the wrong question. It isn’t so much “Which is better?” as it is “Why can’t they be considered the same thing?”
Is it possible to make a point in a pleasurable way, that the audience can understand and appreciate? Of course. Is the driving need to be entertaining cheapening the position of the text? Not necessarily. Can we derive a lesson in social and/or moral responsibility from something that entertains us? Yes! Can we be entertained by poetry that is tightly structured according to rules and based around ideas and/or experiences that mean relatively nothing to us personally? Duh; of course! So, structured or slam (arguably they can be the same thing, but for the sake of argument, give me a break, alright?), free-verse or an English Sonnet (that follows all thirty some rules for them that exist), value can be found in just about anything — even the worst piece of poetry or prose can serve as a bad example.
So how do we go about judging a performance/text? Ultimately, the creator decides what method to use, and whatever they choose is relavent and correct according to their individual tastes. They can decide to judge for themselves the value of their work (which is a method that I use, leery of outside interference on my creative processes), in which case they themselves are the audience; or, they can transfer that power to an exterior audience, like with slam competitions. Neither way is inherently wrong, except in the case of opinion, to which everyone is entitled at least one. So if we can’t agree on which of these is right, can we at least agree to disagree?
Foley suggests that “reading” poetry aloud is one way to recover an orality immanent in print texts, and the selections I’ve collected for us to discuss this week all have some implicit or explicit oral dimension.
As a starting point, we should think about the fact that most “print” poetry in the 19th-century would still have been experienced by ear — in some situation of collective listening. What would it mean to hear this recited by a family member or friend? What style would they have brought to the performance? What cues does the text hold?
Please have a listen to the audio I recovered from our last recording session.
Last night, I went to see Doug Bradley, known best as Pinhead from the Hellraiser films, perform his one man horror show. The show was composed of telling part of a Ray Bradbury story, reciting Shakespearean solilpquys, and telling scary stories like “The Monkey’s Paw.” I would like to share with the class one of his stories, and I’ll tell it as accurately as I can remember. Afterwards, I will discuss its relevance to the class:
One October morning, an IUP college girl was walking across campus. When in the Oak Grove, she saw the figure of Death. It was a typical figure, donning a black robe, a long scythe, and an hourglass in its opposite hand. She was scared, for a moment, but then remembered that it was close to Halloween, and figured that it was probably a frat boy, drunk and trying to scare people. Moments later, however, the figure was coming closer to her. She looked to her friends for support, but they had vanished. In fact, she was totally alone in the Oak Grove. Now the figure was right in front of her, and it raised its scythe high above her in a threatening gesture.
She had enough of this, and fled in the opposite direction. She didn’t stop running until she reached the office of one of her professors. When she got there, she was crying and screaming, still frightened. Her professor calmed her down, and then she told him of the figure of Death and how it raised its scythe in a threatening gesture. He assured her that it was probably just a Halloween prank, but she wouldn’t listen. She told him that she must get to New York City right away to see one of her friends. He said that its too far away to go there, and not worry about the situation any longer. But the girl wouldn’t listen, so she stormed out of the office, packed her bags, and was on the freeway speeding off to New York City.
An hour or two later, the Professor was walking across campus. He too saw the figure of Death. He decided he was going to get to the bottom of the situation and marched right up to the figure. “What are you doing walking around like this, using your scythe in a terrifying and threatening way to my students?” he asked. “I wasn’t doing it in a bad way,” the figure said, “but in a way of surprise.” “Surprise?” the professor asked. “Yes,” Death said, “I was surprised to see her here in Indiana, because I have an appointment with her tonight in New York”
So, that’s the story he told. Now, what is interesting, is that he also told us that the story originated in Iraq several thousand years ago. He also told us about how he evolved the story so that it would fit where he was more appropriately. This was interesting, because I got to experience storytelling being handed down to me in a way that we discuss in class. Now that I had that oral experience, I was able to recount it to the class. I also evolved it for the class more appropriately, by typing it here rather than performing it. This seems to me to fall in with our talks about Proverbs, and how they are passed down and then modified in some situations to give advice or to help someone learn a quick lesson.
Discuss.
These and many other audio recordings can be found at Ubu.com and writing.upenn.edu/pennsound
Homework: for Wednesday, choose one of these, listen to it, and then write a comment in which discuss its oral dimensions. Bonus points if you can cite a Foley “proverb” in the course of your discussion!
David Antin, War - SUNY Buffalo, March 2003.
Christian Bok - Performing a Hugo Ball Poem,
Christian Bok - Performing Kurt Schwitters
Lee Ann Browne - Ballad of Susan Smith
Lee Ann Browne - Singing Blake’s Sunflower
Vachel Lindsey - The Congo 1, 2, and 3
Jerry Rothenberg - from Poland(?) performed with the Klezmatics
Paul Blackburn - The Once Over from the BMT
Helen Adam - Cheerless Junkie SOng
Emmet Williams - The Duet
Robert Duncan - To Speak My Mind
John Cage - From Mureau
Patti Smith - Poem for Jim Morrison
Philip Glass - from Einstein on the Beach
BP Nichol - Dada Lama
Charles Dodge - Speech Songs
Liam O’Gallagher: Border Dissolve in Audiospace
Jack Kerouac - Old Angel Midnight, 1, 2, and 3
Kenneth Gaburo - Lingua II Maldetto
Abbie Hoffman - Our National Anthem, Flush for Nixon, The Drug Company, Malachy’s Bar and Grill, Washington at Valley Forge
An anonymous recording - Glossolalia
So there I was. Enjoying a few beverages, saulking in such fine conversation with what would appear a female of company in the later hours. What am I saying? Of course I would never do such a thing, I am mortal, yet however there came across a young buck whom I had spoken to the previous day about experiences he may have felt in a God-forsaken land we would only call, Iraq. So this cat is telling me about things he had done and seen in Iraq, yet I am doubting his language. I relate this only because the orality of his nature seemed questionable. He continued on with his speeches of being a part of “Special Forces” as he claimed in which any Marine knows requires much more time than he proclaimed. His first mistake, his second was his questionable details about when he became a Marine. Hell I could tell you how I chased around Parris Island on September 5th 2003 seeking out my Dad hoping he’d recognize me the produced humanoid apparition of the crowd. That date he recalled not, and he, 19 years old, whom at best had graduated Marine Boot Camp no later than a few months prior to our conversation had fabricated his story by saying they pulled him out early so that he may slay women and children. At that time I gave him ONE more benefit of the doubt by saying. Look, you are painting yourself and image of woeful deception (not quite the words I used) however he refused to accept my willful acknowledgment of his bullshit and in that not I continued to say, You are so fucking full of shit my so-called friend. So his face became bloody, very bloody, massacre of illusionary drama. For once in my life I don’t regret hurting another human being because he dishonored the very standard in which I stood for since I was 17. Do I wish his welfare, yes, I do. Only because the fact I am not in the mood to go to jail in the immediate future.
Back to relevance of the nature of this discussion. One must only realize reiterate remember repent and resent the nature of natural nuisance of nanosanitaria. Ooohrah my friends, for Jack the Marine once breaths again.
My cheers to you all, forsaken has we yet been.
Following up the performances, let’s round out our engagement with Foley by looking closely at the Sixth Word: Poor Readers Almanac (125-45) and Post-Script. Then we’ll we have a listening session before moving on to some “old school” poets.
Does anyone have a pair of PC speakers that they are willing to bring to the Commonplace for Friday’s class? I have an idea for my oralized text that will require me to play a recording while I read. I have a portable casette recorder that would work, but I think that the sound quality would be better if I could use my mp3 player.
Today we’ll discuss two of the three most widely recited of all toasts–both of which also share central characters who are fictive. I’d like to frame our discussion today by thinking about context, and Foley’s contention that we cannot “read” an oral text as though it were detachable from context. (59-60)
?What is the implied context of toasts in general, or specifically these two? What might we bear in mind as “academic” literary readers?
Signifying Monkey: Let’s discuss the teller’s attitude towards the character, style of delivery, and the importance of “signifying.”
Titanic: Consider the context of race (in a poem apparently “never” recited by whites) and as the recording of a historical “hero” who did not exist. Discuss the projection of qualities in this and other versions, and the complex portrait resulting from attention to those who would “tempt” Shine.
For Wednesday, please look at Foley’s “Third Word” (79-94), paying special attention to the features which “key” performance according to Bauman. We’ll test them against a few pieces from United States of Poetry. Prepare an “oralized” text for Friday.
We’ll further discuss the first two groups of toasts today. Let’s see if we can extend the thread about purposeful poetry to think about Jackson’s argument for the expressive function of toasts. We might consider this on an individual and a social level, as well as asking whether it’s conservative (in the sense of an oral tradition which transmits and reproduces culture) or transgressive.
For Monday, let’s plan on closing with discussion of “Titanic” and “The Signifying Monkey.” I’d like you to pay special attention to the “versioning” in light of Jackson’s implicit thesis that oral transmission of these poems refines them, and to the issue of context (their collection in a jailhouse vs. our reading in a classroom). *You may want to revisit Foley’s Second Word pp. 58-78.
i’m typing this from home cause i’m a bit weak today, but the argument of purpose in poetics and purpose in slam/ performance varied from one to the next and while i tried to emphasise the point that the moment, that singular note of time from the end of the poets entire peice, to the moment of recognition from the audience can make or break intent, while dan might write from the masterbatory point of pleasing himself (though he does please others as well) , some people are just there to spread the message of the poem, and while poems can be shitty and a ventilation process, they can just as often be an informative medium for the uncommon of people to fall into, nobody digs poetry anymore, not like the old days, their still afraid that poetry is like the old days and cringe at the word poet. slam poetry and performance poetry stives to take a new approach to the same creature of literature, utilizing emediacy (i’m an english minor fuck off me spelling grammer snipers). people need to feel and understand right now, or their moving on to the next reality tv show.
or is there another way we can make poetry a viable powerhouse in modern america?
Our in-class performances and the slam from earlier in the week led to the start of a very interesting discussion. At play, suddenly, were fundamental questions about the judgement of a poem, the role of the writer and audience. Before unfolding a position, I think it’s important that we’ve come upon this connundrum — reading and listening to literature from outside the canon or mainstream now has us wondering about the basic workings of literature — what makes a good poem, who decides?– which is brilliant.
So as we work through some of the variations, I do want to try to keep this multiplicity or pluralism in mind; it’s a good thing if we can entertain several even conflicting views at once.
1. Slam - as Shaun was presenting it - emphasizes audience response as the measure of a good poem. One cannot know, as a maker/writer, if the poem is any good until it is performed. This is a seemingly democratic approach.
2. Traditional orality - we now know is too broad to summarize in two sentences. But taking the Zuni and Yaqui examples, we can probably safely say that fidelity or fluency in past texts is the key to the value of a new performance, right? There’s little sense that Peynetsa or Molina are looking for props or worrying about rejection, though one could say that’s because the “public” has already underwritten the works’ value over the years.
3. Print authorship - tends to assume an external standard (beauty, aesthetics), which may not be appreciated or judged by the public, though sometimes by the specialist or critic. In this picture, the creators may think of themselves as being either responsible to their art itself (i.e. true to the poem) or their own standards of judgement.
I see some constraints or problems with each. In #1, we risk the same problems of democracy (vision displaced by polling; premise of an informed public). In #2, there’s a coherence and stability, which in times of change may mean it’s inflexible–or may simply be rejected by individualists. In #3, there’s the risk of insularity and egoism — writing for oneself alone.
Another question raised on friday seems worth discussing — the maker’s conception of his or her own purpose. What’s the difference between a writer or performer who defines what they are doing as a form of communication versus emphasizing the making of texts? Do Foley’s ideas about composition, medium, and reception have any relevance?
I’ll leave off now and hope this, Friday’s beginning, or this week’s readings provoke some further comment!