Primal Sound (Living Room, Tuesday 11.8.11 @ 7P)

 

Kurt Schwitters

Tilla loola luula loola
Tilla luula loola luula
Tilla loola luula loola
Tilla luula loola luula

—from “Ursonate” by Kurt Schwitters

One thing that seems to distinguish poems from prose is sound. I hope for us to consider the relationship of primal sound to the making of poems. Some questions I might offer up for discussion are: How does sound affect our imagination? At what points do we resort to sound on a phonetic level, or outside of a denotative context? How do we translate sounds that move us into language? For instance how would you translate the sound of bird wings flapping? How would you translate the sound of wind in a canyon? Is resorting to sound a sign of the inability of language to effectively communicate experience?  What is the relationship of repetition to sound in poems or sound poetry? Nadine Maestas is your facilitator.

Writers of all ages and skill levels gather Tuesdays at 7P to read new work, the work of someone else or to just be in the engaging company of other writers. Your donation of $5 helps SPLAB continue our programming. Please bring 8 copies of the work you plan to read. If you do not bring copies, they are available for 10c.

Living Room happens in the new SPLAB in the Cultural Corner of the old Columbia School, between Rainier AV S and 36th AV S, on Edmunds. We’re 2 blocks from the Columbia City Link Light Rail Station. (Parking is available on the school grounds.)

For the 2011-2012 SPLAB Schedule, click here.

About Splabman

Poet & interviewer Paul E Nelson founded SPLAB (Seattle Poetics LAB) & the Cascadia Poetry Festival. Since 1993, SPLAB has produced hundreds of poetry events & 600 hours of interview programming with legendary poets & whole systems activists including Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Joanne Kyger, Robin Blaser, Diane di Prima, Daphne Marlatt, Nate Mackey, George Bowering, Barry McKinnon, José Kozer, Brenda Hillman & many others. Paul’s books include American Prophets (interviews 1994-2012) (2018) American Sentences (2015) A Time Before Slaughter (2009) and Organic in Cascadia: A Sequence of Energies (2013). Co-Editor of Make It True: Poetry From Cascadia (2015), 56 Days of August: Poetry Postcards (2017) and Samthology: A Tribute to Sam Hamill (2019) Make it True meets Medusario (2019), he’s presented poetry/poetics in London, Brussels, Nanaimo, Qinghai & Beijing, China, has had work translated into Spanish, Chinese & Portuguese & writes an American Sentence every day. Awarded a residency at The Lake, from the Morris Graves Foundation in Loleta, CA, he’s published work in Golden Handcuffs Review, Zen Monster, Hambone, and elsewhere. Winner of the 2014 Robin Blaser Award from The Capilano Review, he is engaged in a 20 year bioregional cultural investigation of Cascadia and lives in Rainier Beach, in the Cascadia bioregion’s Cedar River watershed.
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