Experimental Poetry

The roots of experimental poetry in music lie in the early 20th-century avant-garde movements of Dadaism and Futurism.

In 1916, at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Hugo Ball performed 'Karawane', a poem consisting of nonsensical syllables, aiming to liberate language from journalism and commerce. Simultaneously, Italian Futurists like F.T. Marinetti explored 'words in freedom' (parole in libertà), emphasizing the onomatopoeic sounds of modern warfare and machinery.

Following World War II, the Lettrist movement in France, led by Isidore Isou, further deconstructed poetry into letters and symbols. The invention of the magnetic tape recorder revolutionized the genre, allowing artists like Henri Chopin to manipulate the voice—speeding it up, slowing it down, and layering it—creating 'sound poetry' that could not be performed live by a single human voice. This era saw a strong crossover with Musique Concrète.

The 1960s brought the Fluxus movement and the Beat Generation's experiments with the 'cut-up' technique, popularized by William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin. In Sweden, the Fylkingen society coined the term 'text-sound composition' to describe works that occupied the borderland between poetry and music. John Giorno's 'Giorno Poetry Systems' further bridged the gap, using technology like the telephone and LP records to disseminate experimental verse.

Today, experimental poetry continues to evolve through digital signal processing, glitch aesthetics, and performance art, influencing genres like industrial, noise, and experimental hip hop.

Composing experimental poetry requires a shift from meaning to sound.

Start by breaking words down into their constituent phonemes. Focus on the percussive nature of consonants (plosives like 'p', 'k', 't') and the tonal quality of vowels. You can write a score using the International Phonetic Alphabet or invent your own graphic notation to guide pitch and volume.

Explore the full range of the vocal tract. Incorporate breathing sounds, tongue clicks, throat singing, screaming, whispering, and stuttering. The goal is to use the voice as a texture rather than a vehicle for narrative.

Record your voice and use a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) or tape recorder to manipulate the audio. Try the 'cut-up' method: record a sentence, chop it into pieces, and rearrange them randomly. Use delay, reverb, and pitch-shifting to create a soundscape where the original voice becomes unrecognizable.

Create rhythm through the repetition of specific syllables or loops. You can treat a spoken phrase like a drum loop, repeating it until the semantic meaning dissolves and only the rhythmic musicality remains.