How important is music to your poetry?
I can’t overstate it’s importance enough. My first chapbook, Dance! The Statue Has Fallen! Now His Head is Beneath Our Feet! began as an exercise in which I sought to construct a text the same way the Canadian experimental rock ensemble, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, constructed their older albums. That is, through a montage of emotional passages, social documentary and drones, the last of which were explored though timestamps within my text (of course, following the exercise, I needed a ridiculously long title too). My forthcoming chapbook, The Voice Without, began as a response to the early experimental radio of Swiss-Canadian artist Christof Migone, especially his project, Hole in the Head, which originated from a broadcast series called Danger in Paradise.
It isn’t unusual for poets to emphasise the sonic dimensions of text, well known examples being Pound referring to “cadence” and “rhythmic structures”. My primary interest, however, has been contemporary aural practices, originating from my love of free improvisation and extreme noise. What are the poetic equivalents? I’m by no means the first to raise this question, or note that comparisons can be drawn between, say, bebop and the Beats (who were themselves aware of this) or postwar composition and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry.
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