When reel to reels become affordable during the 1950s, poetry reaches a new level. The human voice gets enhanced with effects, contrasted with other recordings, and put in place in arrangements.

37-minute program with works by Ernst Jandl, Henri Chopin, Paul de Vree, Sten Hanson and others.

Featured cover art: Disconnected (The Dial-A-Poem Poets)

Listen also to

We Are the Machine – The Concept of Polypoetry

Only the development of new technologies will mark the progress of sound poetry, states Enzo Minarelli in his manifesto on polipoesia from 1987. On the basis of 11 sound poems, Minarelli talks about the concept of Polipoesia, and where it all started.

Playlist ‘Enhanced Poetry’

Demetrio Stratos – Flautofonie ed altro

a rite like composition (1978, Cramps Records)

Paul de Vree – Vertigo Gli

the encounter of love (erotic), during man’s passage from birth to death (1963, Alga Marghen)

Sten Hanson – Skarp dig, for fan!

shamanistic poem (1991, Alga Marghen)

Neil Mills – Gong Poem

evocation of a prayer-chant (1971, Arts Council of Great Britain)

Four Horsemen – Matthew’s Line

poetry as collective experience (1972, Holidays Records)

Bernard Heidsieck – Canal Street 19

from a series with 35 poems about communication (1976, Al Dante)

Jean-Claude Gagnon – À gaga gougou

stand up comic sound poetry with additives (1987, 3vitrepair)

Enzo Minarelli – Sinergicoral B.

sound experiment based on images (1981, 3vitre)

Henri Chopin – La Chanson du Parlement Européen

human being and a machine telling a story together (1968, Alga Marghen)

bpNichol – Dada Lama

a dada poet becomes the Buddhist Lama to free the worshipper from the limits of time (1966, New Fire Tapes)

Charles Amirkhanian – Radii

homage to radio by KPFA/Berkeley’s Music Director (1972, Giorno Poetry Systems)

Ernst Jandl – Talk

radiophonic sound poem, realized for the BBC (1966, Verlag Klaus Wagenbach)

Ladislav Novák – Ceterum Autem

based on Cato the Elder’s words in the Roman Senate about the destruction of Carthago (1969, Fylkingen Records)

Augusto De Campos – Tensão

seven word pairs start dancing (1956, Artemeios)

Bob Cobbing – ABC in Sound (t)

the letter t as it appears in Bob Cobbing’s book ABC in Sound (1965, Aisthesis Verlag)

Gerhard Rühm – Verkürzte Zeitspanne

nuanced changes of a voice during masturbation (1973, Tochnit Aleph)