- Write a performance poem which uses your voice to either emphasise
or question your own cultural background, e.g. with regard to nation-
ality, gender or ethnicity. - Write a performance poem which is highly colloquial and uses ‘talking
language’. - Write a performance poem which problematises standard English, for
example, by employing a dialect. - Write a performance poem which is a hybrid of two or more languages,
or which shows the impact of one language upon another.
SONIC POETRY, SONIC WRITING
A sonic poem works at the interface between sound and language, and
emphasises the sonic properties of language. Sonic poems exist along the
continuum from poetry to music, and from speaking to singing. Never-
theless they are distinct from songs, which set pre-existent words to music.
Sonic writing (I use both the terms sonic poetry and sonic writing which
is slightly broader) usually creates an interactive relationship between
sound and music, so that each modifies the other.
Sonic poetry/writing was preceded by the movement known as sound
poetry, which began in the early experiments of the dadaists and futurists,
but became much more prominent in the sound-poetry movement of the
50s, 60s and 70s. This is sometimes known as the Text-Sound movement
and is documented in Futura Poesia Sonora (Lora-Totino 1978) and in
Text-Sound Texts (Kostelanetz 1980). A sound poem coheres through
sound rather than semantics. It might focus on permuting phrases,
mantric effects, constructed languages, the breakdown of words into sylla-
bles or phonemes, or manipulation of the voice.
Sonic poetry/writing has developed out of sound poetry but takes more
diverse forms: it can involve any combination of words, sound and voice.
The results may relate to jazz, hip hop, rap, contemporary or classical
music, or ethnic traditions. Sonic writing can also take large-scale forms
such as ‘sound technodrama’: these are pieces which are simultaneously
dramatic, poetic, narrative and discursive, sonic and technological, (see
Smith & Dean 2003).
Technology has impacted very heavily on sonic writing. When sound
poetry was at its height, analogue technologies—such as the tape recorder—
were used to splice material and multitrack the voice. Increasingly, however,
digital technologies have taken over, from keyboard samplers to computer
software. You can either use a very basic technology such as the cassette
recorder, or sophisticated software programs such as ProTools, the sound-
218 The Writing Experiment