Joan La Barbara's 73 Poems by Kenneth Goldsmith - Poems 1 - 35

Composed and Performed by Joan La Barbara
Poems and artwork by Kenneth Goldsmith
Produced by Michael Hoenig and Joan La Barbara

Joan La Barbara is one of the truly experimental vocalists performing today: over the past two decades, she has developed an extended vocabulary of vocal sounds that range from traditional song to a wild assortment of glottal clicks and stops, inhaled notes, overtone chant, etc. As a composer, her works often involve multiple layers of her own voice, creating a kind of sonic canvas on which she throws splashes of vocal colors. La Barbara's potent combination of vocal and studio expertise makes it possible for her to represent in music some of the most distinctive features of Goldsmith's texts. "The first thing I had to do," La Barbara says, "was to differentiate between the dark and the light texts. The idea of depth of field -- the grey text in the background and the black text up front -- required using the full stereo field, almost like an architectural space." Musical gestures that are only half-heard, perhaps buried under other layers of sound, may float up to the surface, only to parade off the stereo field entirely. In this respect, the music closely parallels the form of the poems -- which La Barbara surprisingly likens to Alice In Wonderland. "The sectional development goes from almost frivolous to very abstract, then to something far heavier, and then comes back again. For me, the turning point is the text 'EAT ME.' Suddenly it's like Alice finding herself on the other side of the looking glass. The text is tough, almost evil, as opposed to the sweet, innocent beginning that it then returns to."

— John Schaefer

It took me an entire year to create 73 Poems (March 1991 -- April 1992). The series was inspired by e. e. cummings' book by the same name that happened to be sitting on my desk the day I began my work. The original poems were drawn on 22"x30" rag paper using graphite. A set of words would be drawn, then erased -- laid on top of them would come a new set of words in dark graphite, thus creating the visual effect of text and its shadow. For the following poem, the previously dark text would appear as the erasure and a new set of words would be laid over that. This was repeated throughout the series. 73 Poems reflected the many changes one's life goes through in a year -- changes of seasons, changes of moods, changes of address ... After poem #39, approximately halfway through, Joan La Barbara agreed to create her version of the work. Her response and input influenced the direction the rest of the work would take. After working deeply for a year, I looked up and realized that I had gone over the 73 poem pre-determined limit and had ended up with 79 instead. The last poem's dark text produces the first poem's shadow text, hence, and "endless" closed cycle -- and a nod to Finnegans Wake.

— Kenneth Goldsmith

Category:

Music

Tags:

• joan la barbara
• kenneth goldsmith
• 73 poems