Project 6 — Multivocal Poetics

To begin, let me say I have nothing against monophony. As humans it's the fundamental limit placed upon our otherwise very versatile vocal instrument, and even as a musician I started out on a monophonic instrument (the alto saxophone) and find myself predominately drawn to them (electric bass, analogue synthesizers) to this day. Likewise, while the predominate lyrical impulse in poetry is towards a singular perspective, and the linearity of reading locks us into monolexical mode, that doesn't mean that we can't benefit from injecting a little polyphony into our poetic practice. In fact, a number of you already did this to tremendous effect in your responses to prompt #2.

So for this project, I'd like you to make an audiotext that's in some way multivocal. There are a number of different ways in which you might pursue this and I'll outline them below.

At the most basic level you might opt to perform a poem and then multitrack a second (and third, etc.) recording of the same text. Double-tracking is a very common technique producers use to beef up vocals in particular. Despite one's best efforts towards perfectly matching pacing, emphasis, etc. it's inevitable that variations will occur and these produce a signal that's both denser and modulated (this basic chorus effect is why orchestras have string sections and not just one violin, one viola, etc.). Here's a brief example of John Lennon's double-tracked vocals from an early Beatles track for example:

You might choose to write and then perform a text that involves multiple voices and/or perspectives in such a way that each voice is separate and non-overlapping — if you do this you might even want to cast other voices. The works that some of you produced for prompt #2 would fit this mode well.

Finally, you might choose to write and perform a text that plays around with simultaneity (some examples below): that is, a text that can't necessarily be read in full on its own by one person, but which, in audio form and via multitrack recording, can be experienced as intended.

A few contextual examples for you to browse at your leisure:

• John Ashbery's 1979 long poem "Litany" begins with these instructions: "The two columns of 'Litany' are meant to be read as simultaneous but independent monologues." That's impossible to do on the page, a 1980 studio recording featuring Ashbery reading the left column in the left channel and poet Ann Lauterbach the right in the right channel, allows us to experience it as intended. —  "Litany," Part One [PDF, MP3]
• Charles Bernstein's 1976 tapework "Piffle (Breathing)" [MP3] features simultaneous spontaneous dialogues between the poet, Greg Ball and Susan Bee Bernstein. Jumping forward to 2003 we can listen to a  two-voice rendition of his poem "War Stories" featuring his daughter, Emma [poem and MP3 here]
• John Giorno's early poetry was based on appropriation of found texts. By the late 1960s he'd moved on to manipulate these source materials in a staggered two-column format approximating stereo channels, as seen in poems like "Johnny Guitar" [PDF]. In the live setting poems like this were performed with the help of pre-made recordings and tape delay systems, as you can hear in this recording of "I Don't Need It, I Don't Want It, and You Cheated Me Out Of It."
• Hannah Weiner's clairvoyantly-derived writings — in part originating in her schizophrenia, through which she experienced aural and visual hallucinations of words and phrases that she transcribed into poetry — required a unique style of layout, making use of all-caps text and italics, along with super- and sub-scripts. You can listen to a live multi-voice performance from 1978 and read along with the text [MP3, text begins here with the complete work here] 
• Listen, a 1972 radio play written by Robert Creeley, and performed by Robert and Bobbie Creeley, was released on cassette by Black Sparrow Press in 1972 — Listen (23:09): MP3
• Susan Howe and David Grubbs' 2005 CD release Thiefth features complex performances of two of Howe's historical investigations — "Thorow" [PDF] and "Melville's Marginalia" [excerpt: PDF] — with musical accompaniment and voice manipulation (via the MAX/MSP software) by Grubbs. You can listen to the tracks and read the record's liner notes on PennSound's Howe/Grubbs author page, where you'll also find later collaborations.
• The Velvet Underground's infamous "The Murder Mystery" (taken from their self-titled 1969 album), exploits the stereo medium with Lou Reed and guitarist Sterling Morrison reading separate competing lyrics in the left and right channels during the verses, with drummer Maureen Tucker and bass/keyboard player Doug Yule trading off overlapping vocals on the choruses.  Reed would later publish a version of the lyrics in The Paris Review in 1972, but this version comes from his collected lyrics, Between Thought and Expression: [PDF]

Your responses to this prompt should be in audio format (either MP3 or SoundCloud link) of a reasonable length and should be e-mailed out no later than Saturday, October 17th. We'll begin workshopping these pieces when we return from the fall reading days on the week of the 19th.