Performances of poetry constitute significant cultural and literary events that challenge the representational limits and possibilities of transposing written words into live and recorded media. However, there has not been a comprehensive study of Canadian poetry that focuses specifically on performance. This dissertation undertakes a theorizing of performance that foregrounds mediation, audience, and presence (both readerly and writerly). The complex methodology combines theoretical approaches to reading (Linda Hutcheon on adaptation, Wolfgang Iser on the reader, and Roland Barthes on the materiality of writing) with poetics as theorized by Canadian poets (namely bpNichol, Steve McCaffery, Jan Zwicky, Robert Bringhurst) in order to argue that performances of poetry are responsive exchanges between performers and audiences. Importantly, the dissertation argues that performances of poetry call for a re-evaluation of reading as listening, thereby altering the interaction between audience and performance from passive to participatory. Arranged in four chapters, the dissertation examines a range of Canadian poets and performances: The Four Horsemen (Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Paul Dutton, Steve McCaffery, and bpNichol), dance adaptations of Michael Ondaatje’s poems, George Elliott Clarke’s poetic libretti, and Robert Bringhurst’s polyphonic poetry. Following the Introduction’s outlining of the term performance, Chapter One examines processes of recording and adapting avant-garde sound poetry, specifically in the sound and written poetry of Nichol and McCaffery. Chapter Two theorizes adaptation as a responsive reading practice in the context of dance adaptations of Ondaatje’s writing (Bruce McDonald’s Elimination Dance and Veronica Tennant’s Shadow Pleasures). In Chapter Three, Clarke’s jazz opera Québécité, with libretto by Clarke and music composed by D.D. Jackson, foregrounds a central argument of this dissertation: that multi-vocal poetics can, in fact, reconfigure multicultural politics. Chapter Four turns to polyphony as a textual representation of multi-vocality in the poetry of Robert Bringhurst. Through a close-listening to a musical poem by Jan Zwicky, the Conclusion points towards new critical directions in listening to Canadian poetry. Only in understanding how cultural and political performances are recorded, enacted and received both on and off the page can we listen, critically and actively, to our multi-voiced Canadian soundscapes.

Performances of poetry constitute significant cultural and literary events that challenge the representational limits and possibilities of transposing written words into live and recorded media. However, there has not been a comprehensive study of Canadian poetry that focuses specifically on performance. This dissertation undertakes a theorizing of performance that foregrounds mediation, audience, and presence (both readerly and writerly). The complex methodology combines theoretical approaches to reading (Linda Hutcheon on adaptation, Wolfgang Iser on the reader, and Roland Barthes on the materiality of writing) with poetics as theorized by Canadian poets (namely bpNichol, Steve McCaffery, Jan Zwicky, Robert Bringhurst) in order to argue that performances of poetry are responsive exchanges between performers and audiences. Importantly, the dissertation argues that performances of poetry call for a re-evaluation of reading as listening, thereby altering the interaction between audience and performance from passive to participatory. Arranged in four chapters, the dissertation examines a range of Canadian poets and performances: The Four Horsemen (Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Paul Dutton, Steve McCaffery, and bpNichol), dance adaptations of Michael Ondaatje’s poems, George Elliott Clarke’s poetic libretti, and Robert Bringhurst’s polyphonic poetry. Following the Introduction’s outlining of the term performance, Chapter One examines processes of recording and adapting avant-garde sound poetry, specifically in the sound and written poetry of Nichol and McCaffery. Chapter Two theorizes adaptation as a responsive reading practice in the context of dance adaptations of Ondaatje’s writing (Bruce McDonald’s Elimination Dance and Veronica Tennant’s Shadow Pleasures). In Chapter Three, Clarke’s jazz opera Québécité, with libretto by Clarke and music composed by D.D. Jackson, foregrounds a central argument of this dissertation: that multi-vocal poetics can, in fact, reconfigure multicultural politics. Chapter Four turns to polyphony as a textual representation of multi-vocality in the poetry of Robert Bringhurst. Through a close-listening to a musical poem by Jan Zwicky, the Conclusion points towards new critical directions in listening to Canadian poetry. Only in understanding how cultural and political performances are recorded, enacted and received both on and off the page can we listen, critically and actively, to our multi-voiced Canadian soundscapes.

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No description available.

Cette étude propose une histoire des pratiques qui, à Paris, entre 1946 et 1969, ont lié poésie et performance et fait de la profération leur champ d’investigation principal. À partir de l’observation des manifestations publiques d’Antonin Artaud en 1946-47, de l’irruption en ces mêmes années du mouvement lettriste à Saint-Germain-des-Prés, de l’arrivée de la Beat Generation à la fin des années 1950, et des différents événements organisés par Jean-Jacques Lebel, Jean-Clarence Lambert et Henri Chopin durant les années 1960, cette thèse analyse les pratiques qui ont agité le champ artistique durant deux décennies et préparé l’imaginaire et le terrain revendicatif de Mai 68.En reprenant le flambeau des avant-gardes du début du XXe siècle, ces expériences, traversées par le faisceau de problématiques et de propositions ouvert par Artaud après guerre, aspirent à une poésie définie comme action et cherchent à relier art, vie et politique à travers une seule et même forme d’engagement. Ouvrant plusieurs chantiers qui prennent appui sur autant de refus : celui du livre, celui du spectacle, celui du langage comme propagande politique et publicitaire, elles placent l’ « engagement physique » du poète, à la fois auteur et performeur, au centre de leurs préoccupations et mettent en place un vaste champ d’expérimentations, notamment à travers l’utilisation du magnétophone qui marque la naissance de la « poésie sonore », avec les cut-ups de Brion Gysin et William S. Burroughs, les audiopoèmes de Henri Chopin, les mégapneumes de Gil J Wolman, les crirythmes de François Dufrêne, les poèmes-partitions de Bernard Heidsieck.En retraçant les trajectoires mais aussi leur croisement et en analysant les prises de position et les différentes stratégies, ce travail observe et questionne l’émergence et l’évolution de la figure du « poète-performeur », son savoir-faire scénique et ses aspirations ; il s’attache à des pratiques – encore méconnues (voire évincées) du domaine des Études théâtrales – qui continuent à irriguer de leur inventivité la scène performative et théâtrale d’aujourd’hui. / This study examines the history of practices in Paris between 1946 and 1969 that brought poetry and performance together and made proféraction their main field of investigation. Beginning with observations on the public performances of Antonin Artaud in 1946-47, and the sudden appearance in those same years of the Lettrist movement, continuing with the arrival of the Beat Generation at the end of the 1950’s, followed by the various events organised by Jean-Jacques Lebel, Jean-Clarence Lambert and Henri Chopin in the 1960’s, this work analyses practices that stirred the world of the arts over two decades and influenced the collective imagination, sowing the seeds of the social activism of May 68.By taking up the torch of early 20th Century avant-gardistes, these endeavours, illumined by the array of questions and proposals that Artaud ignited after the war, sought to create poetry as action and to link art, life and politics in a single form of engagement.Work went forward in several fields, often based on rejection of the conventional: in regard to books, to performing arts, to language as a tool for propaganda and advertising. The “physical engagement” of the poet, both author and performer, became the centre of their preoccupations and created a wide open space for experimentation, in particular: through the use of the tape recorder, bringing about “sound poetry”, with Brion Gysin’s and William S. Burroughs’ cut-ups; Henri Chopin’s audiopoèmes; the mégapneumes of Gil J Wolman; the crirythmes of François Dufrêne; and Bernard Heidsieck’s poèmes-partitions.By marking out the different trajectories and the points where they intersect, by analysing the statements and positions and different strategies, this work observes and questions the emergence and evolution of the figure of the “poet-performer”, his theatrical skills and aspirations; it sheds new light on practices – as yet little recognized by (even banished from) the field of Theatre Studies – that continue to provide a source of innovative inspiration to the world of performance and theatre today.

This paper is a comparative analysis between two digitally mediated live poetry performances: Frikativ by Jörg Piringer and This Loud by Amy X Neuburg. More specifically, I examine how these poets use digital technology in their live performances to challenge traditional notions of the human voice. My main argument is that their modes of exerting controlling over their voices ultimately serve similar purposes; those of establishing the voice as a relationship between speaker and listener, a phenomenon rather than a discreet object or bodily organ possible to observe on its own. This phenomenological point of view draws on Karen Barad’s concept of posthumanist performativity as well as on philosophical works on the voice, such as Mladen Dolar's A Voice and Nothing More. Moreover, I give an historical account of sound poetry, tape poetry and tape loops as they relate to Frikativ and This Loud. In this, I also discuss live-looping; a technique used by both Piringer and Neuburg and connect it to Gilles Deleuze's ideas of difference and repetition. Finally, Piringer's and Neuburg's works is compared based on how they attempt to control the voices-as-relations in their performances. My conclusion is that Frikativ constantly destabilizes the establishment and recognition of voice-as-relation. This Loud, due to the extensive and focused use of live-looping, does not destabilize as much as it multiplies the possible configurations of voices-as-relations.

[pt] Esta pesquisa é um percurso. Uma busca pelo entendimento do ritmo, em seus paradoxos e desvios, como uma potência. Algo que pode contagiar, anestesiar, alienar, mas também, e principalmente, ativar a nossa reconexão com nós mesmos, com o mundo, com as outras pessoas. Na realidade contemporânea de fluxos frenéticos e artificiais, segue-se a ideia de que é preciso retomar o corpo como vibração, em seu poder de afetar e ser afetado. E a intuição de que o ritmo, em sua lógica e organicidade, é um modo potente de produzir estesia. Como recorte do tempo, capaz de simular simultaneidades e criar atmosferas, o ritmo é aqui observado nas múltiplas possibilidades advindas da tecnologia de registro e edição de áudio. Nas fronteiras fluidas da poesia sonora, onde a voz desponta como presença, expressão do que há em nós de mais visceral, destaca-se a mediação da máquina na desmontagem da linguagem e na rearticulação de palavras em texturas sonoras de múltiplas camadas. Investiga-se como os novos ritmos compostos a partir daí interferem na ordem estabelecida, confrontando a semântica, criando disrupções, sugerindo novas formas de fluir, produzindo intensidade. / [en] The present research is a journey. A search for understanding rhythm, in its paradoxes and deviations, as a power. Something that can be contagious, seductive and can alienate, but also, and mainly, can activate our reconnection with ourselves, with the world and with people. In the frenetic and artificial fluxes of contemporary reality, we follow the assumption that we should retake our body as vibration, in its capacity of affecting and being affected. And the intuition that rhythm, in its logic and organicity, is a powerful mode of producing esthesis. As a time cut, able to simulate simultaneities and create atmospheres, rhythm is noted here in the multiplicity of possibilities created by audio recording and edition technology. On the fluid margins of sound poetry - where voice, our most visceral expression, emerges as presence -, the mediation of the machine stands out in the deconstruction of the language and rearticulation of words in textures of multiple sound layers. We investigate how the new rhythms created from there interfere in the established order, confronting semantics, creating disruptions, suggesting new ways of flowing, producing intensity.

Plusieurs monographies récentes se sont intéressées à la traduction des littératures africaines europhones (Gyasi 2006, Bandia 2008, Batchelor 2009), faisant valoir le concept d’autotraduction (au sens métaphorique) et insistant sur le fait que ces écritures sont porteuses d’une oralité ou de marques linguistiques issues des langues parlées par les écrivains. Toutefois, la question de l’hybridité comme point de jonction entre littératures orales et écrites a encore rarement été examinée sous un angle poétique et c’est précisément dans cet esprit que cette recherche a été entreprise. Dans un premier temps, à partir des ouvrages originaux de six auteurs, trois d’expression littéraire anglaise (Farah, Hove et Armah) et trois d’expression littéraire française (Waberi, Adiaffi et Djebar), je montre en quoi ces écritures méritent d’être qualifiées de poétiques avant de mettre cette esthétique en relation avec le patrimoine littéraire de chacun des auteurs du corpus; ponctuellement, d’autres affiliations littéraires sont mises en évidence. Cette poétique est examinée dans sa dimension mélopoéique (Pound 1954), c’est-à-dire sous l’angle des structures audibles, appelées aussi figures de style jouant sur la forme phonétique des mots (Klein-Lataud 2001). Dans un second temps, j’examine comment cette poétique sonore a été recréée, tant de manière qualitative que quantitative, dans les traductions de Bardolph, de Richard et de J. et R. Mane (pour les auteurs d’expression anglaise) et de Garane, de Katiyo et de Blair (pour les auteurs d’expression française). Les enjeux associés à la réactivation des structures poétiques sonores sont mis en évidence dans le dernier chapitre qui propose un tour d’horizon des modalités de « consommation » de l’objet littéraire et qui s’achève sur les questions soulevées par la progression du livre audio. La méthodologie élaborée dans ce cadre s’inspire essentiellement de Berman (1995) et de Henry (2003). La conceptualisation de la poétique sonore, telle que mise en œuvre dans le contexte particulier de ces littératures, fait appel aux paradigmes de valence traductive (Folkart 2007) et de traduction métonymique (Tymoczko 1999). Par ailleurs, cette recherche s’appuie sur la récente thèse de doctorat de Fraser (2007) consacrée à la théorisation du sonore en traduction. / Recent publications explore Europhone African literatures as translation and in translation (Gyasi 2006, Bandia 2008, Batchelor 2009) insisting that these texts are better understood as a form of self-translation through oral subtexts, showing evidence of linguistic interplay by drawing on the writers’ native language(s). Yet hybridity as an encounter between oral and written literatures has seldom been explored in its poetic dimension. This lack of attention shapes the blueprint of this dissertation. Drawing on six original texts from African writers publishing in English (Farah, Hove and Armah) or in French (Waberi, Adiaffi and Djebar), I show in which extent these writings deserve to be labelled as poetic and how they are informed by the authors’ native literary background; occasionally I discuss other literary affiliations. In this specific context, I explore poetry in its melopoeic actualization (Pound 1954) as it relates to aural poetic devices (i.e. relying on their audible features). I then analyze, qualitatively and quantitatively, how this audible poetry has been reactivated by the translators: Bardolph, Richard, J. and R. Mane (translating Farah, Hove and Armah, respectively); Garane, Katiyo, Blair (translating Waberi, Adiaffi and Djebar, respectively). The last chapter suggests how reactivating sonorous poetic devices in translation relates to different literary modalities, especially audiobooks, as they represent a rapidly growing trend. The methodology draws on Antoine Berman’s translation project (1995) and Jacqueline Henry’s Traduire les jeux de mots (2003). Approaching the translation of aural/audible poetry in the specific context of these texts was facilitated by calling upon paradigms such as translational valency (Folkart 2007) and metonymy (Tymoczko 1999). Last but not least, this dissertation benefited from Fraser’s recent doctoral thesis (2007) dedicated to theorizing sound translation.

Plusieurs monographies récentes se sont intéressées à la traduction des littératures africaines europhones (Gyasi 2006, Bandia 2008, Batchelor 2009), faisant valoir le concept d’autotraduction (au sens métaphorique) et insistant sur le fait que ces écritures sont porteuses d’une oralité ou de marques linguistiques issues des langues parlées par les écrivains. Toutefois, la question de l’hybridité comme point de jonction entre littératures orales et écrites a encore rarement été examinée sous un angle poétique et c’est précisément dans cet esprit que cette recherche a été entreprise. Dans un premier temps, à partir des ouvrages originaux de six auteurs, trois d’expression littéraire anglaise (Farah, Hove et Armah) et trois d’expression littéraire française (Waberi, Adiaffi et Djebar), je montre en quoi ces écritures méritent d’être qualifiées de poétiques avant de mettre cette esthétique en relation avec le patrimoine littéraire de chacun des auteurs du corpus; ponctuellement, d’autres affiliations littéraires sont mises en évidence. Cette poétique est examinée dans sa dimension mélopoéique (Pound 1954), c’est-à-dire sous l’angle des structures audibles, appelées aussi figures de style jouant sur la forme phonétique des mots (Klein-Lataud 2001). Dans un second temps, j’examine comment cette poétique sonore a été recréée, tant de manière qualitative que quantitative, dans les traductions de Bardolph, de Richard et de J. et R. Mane (pour les auteurs d’expression anglaise) et de Garane, de Katiyo et de Blair (pour les auteurs d’expression française). Les enjeux associés à la réactivation des structures poétiques sonores sont mis en évidence dans le dernier chapitre qui propose un tour d’horizon des modalités de « consommation » de l’objet littéraire et qui s’achève sur les questions soulevées par la progression du livre audio. La méthodologie élaborée dans ce cadre s’inspire essentiellement de Berman (1995) et de Henry (2003). La conceptualisation de la poétique sonore, telle que mise en œuvre dans le contexte particulier de ces littératures, fait appel aux paradigmes de valence traductive (Folkart 2007) et de traduction métonymique (Tymoczko 1999). Par ailleurs, cette recherche s’appuie sur la récente thèse de doctorat de Fraser (2007) consacrée à la théorisation du sonore en traduction. / Recent publications explore Europhone African literatures as translation and in translation (Gyasi 2006, Bandia 2008, Batchelor 2009) insisting that these texts are better understood as a form of self-translation through oral subtexts, showing evidence of linguistic interplay by drawing on the writers’ native language(s). Yet hybridity as an encounter between oral and written literatures has seldom been explored in its poetic dimension. This lack of attention shapes the blueprint of this dissertation. Drawing on six original texts from African writers publishing in English (Farah, Hove and Armah) or in French (Waberi, Adiaffi and Djebar), I show in which extent these writings deserve to be labelled as poetic and how they are informed by the authors’ native literary background; occasionally I discuss other literary affiliations. In this specific context, I explore poetry in its melopoeic actualization (Pound 1954) as it relates to aural poetic devices (i.e. relying on their audible features). I then analyze, qualitatively and quantitatively, how this audible poetry has been reactivated by the translators: Bardolph, Richard, J. and R. Mane (translating Farah, Hove and Armah, respectively); Garane, Katiyo, Blair (translating Waberi, Adiaffi and Djebar, respectively). The last chapter suggests how reactivating sonorous poetic devices in translation relates to different literary modalities, especially audiobooks, as they represent a rapidly growing trend. The methodology draws on Antoine Berman’s translation project (1995) and Jacqueline Henry’s Traduire les jeux de mots (2003). Approaching the translation of aural/audible poetry in the specific context of these texts was facilitated by calling upon paradigms such as translational valency (Folkart 2007) and metonymy (Tymoczko 1999). Last but not least, this dissertation benefited from Fraser’s recent doctoral thesis (2007) dedicated to theorizing sound translation.

De même que le ready-made, il y a maintenant presque un siècle, avait transformé la question « qu’est-ce que l’art » en son contraire (« comment faire pour que quelque chose ne soit pas de l’art ?», ne soit pas transformé en objet d’art puisqu’une simple parole d’artiste, fiat ars, suffisait ainsi à transfigurer tout élément du réel), de même, il devient difficile aujourd’hui de repérer ce qui ne pourrait être, jamais ou par essence, un objet poétique. Devant l’œuvre poétique et plastique de Bernard Heidsieck, il convient de mettre en place une série de critères permettant de distinguer la poéticité d’un « art total ». Nelson Goodman apporte des éléments de réponse en soulignant l’importance d’un paramètre rarement pris en compte : le contexte. La question essentialiste « qu’est-ce que l’art »/ « qu’est-ce qu’un poème » pouvant être remplacée par une autre plus pragmatique «  quand y a-t-il art/poème ? » De ce point de vue pragmatiste, la notion de « contexte » permet ainsi de faire jouer à la fois l’espace (le lieu où s’exécute l’œuvre d’art) et le temps (les circonstances dans lesquelles l’œuvre s’exécute). Ainsi, un même objet ou une même action pourrait, à la fois, être ou ne pas être de l’art, c’est finalement une question de contexte et d’intention initiale. Dans le cas de nos recherches, la question du contexte est primordiale puisque l’inscription d’objets poétiques non exclusivement textuels en poésie et non en arts plastiques, repose en partie, sur leur appartenance aux champs de diffusion (éditoriaux et institutionnels) de la poésie. Cependant, des productions poétiques telles que celles de Heidsieck dont certaines facettes n’appartiennent pas au poétique n’en deviennent pas pour autant « poèmes » du fait de leur présence dans un festival de poésie. Notre projet de recherche a pour horizon une redéfinition du champ « poésie » et de ses outils d’analyse, une tentative de mise en place d’une poétique permettant de prendre en charge de façon féconde les « objets poétiques complexes » _c’est-à-dire hétérogènes du fait de leur appartenance à différents types de régimes esthétiques_ de Bernard Heidsieck. / As well as the ready-made, almost a century ago, turned the question “what is art?” into its opposite (“how can say something isn’t art?”, something wouldn’t be transformed into an art piece since the only artist’s word, fiat ars, was enough to turn any part of the real into art), as well, it has become difficult today, to point what couldn’t be, ever or essentially, a poetic object. In front of Bernard Heidsieck poetic and plastic work, we have to gather a series of criteria that would allow us to distinguish poeticism and “total art”. Nelson Goodman gives us a few answers highlighting the importance of a rarely acknowledged parameter: the context. The essentialist question “what is art?”/”what is a poem?” is turned into a rather pragmatic one “when is there art?/poem?”. From that pragmatist point of view, the idea of “context” allows us to deal with both space (the place where the art work happens) and time (the circumstances when it happens). That means a same object or a same action could or couldn’t be art, which leads us to the question of the context and the intention. For my researches, the context is primordial since Bernard Heidsieck’s poems, which are not exclusively textual, partly inscribe themselves in poetry because of their belonging to the poetry field of diffusion (from the publishing companies to the institutions). In the mean time, these objects don’t become “poems” just because of that poetic context. For those reasons, my project is to try and redefine the term and the field “poetry” and it’s analysis tools, it’s an attempt to build a poetic that would allow us to talk about what I will call the “complex poetic objects” _ complex because they belong to different types of aesthetic regimens _ of Bernard Heidsieck.