>> Molly, when you hear a recording of Tracy Morris doing that piece she calls Afrika with a K. What do you, well, what do you feel one question and what do you, where, where's poetry gotten, and what's happening here? And why does it do its, what, what effect does it have on you? Any of those. >> Well, I feel like she's breaking it down to the, the smallest unit, which is the sound of the individual syllables, which kind of reflects you know, this, this place of origin. Just saying it all started, it all started when we came here, when we were brought here. And that's a really good way to express that sort of hm, original state. And I think it's, I mean, it's beautiful. The noises that she makes, you know, it's. >> Taking poetry to music. >> Sure. >> For one thing. Anybody else want to talk about the effect it has on you? Emily? >> Well, the beginning phrase, it all started, and yes it starts but over the course of the performance it keeps starting over. And not really starting, kind of stuttering at multiple points ... >> It's a cousin to verbals. >> Yeah. Mm-hm. >> Exophonic attempt to do and never quite get going. It all started becomes an irony in a way. >> Right. >> Keep going. And I'm sorry I cut you off. >> It was pretty much [inaudible]. >> Dave, your thoughts on how, what, how you respond to this? >> I found it jarring and unnerving when I first listened to it. I, I, after a few listens, I could appreciate just the, the beauty of the different sounds and the complexity, but at first, it really did unnerve me a little bit. >> It's based on a clip that she and her collaborator, Val Jeanty, found. They believe it's the voice of Geoffrey Holder. And I, I know the voice of Geoffrey Holder well enough to be able to separately somewhat confirm that that's Geoffrey Holder. Who was Geoffrey Holder? Anybody know a little bit about it? Max, any idea? Kristen? >> I think he's before our time, but she mentions in the sound clip. >> She says. >> That he was in the original Dr. Doolittle. >> Yeah that was just a, he's a Trinidadian actor, performer who has a baritone authoritative, stentorian, listen to me voice, what used to be a VOG, a VOG, a voice of God. >> Like Morgan Freeman? [laugh] ... >> Well, more like a James Earl Jones. >> Yeah. [laugh] ... >> Morgan Freeman, yeah, in commercials, but James Earl Jones or Paul Robeson in his time, would be wheeled out in front of a mainstream audience to say something in an authoritative, stentorian voice that you absolutely had to listen to but the kinds of lines that holder had to say were like this, almost, we believe Tracy and Val Jeanty, others have thought about it. Almost, it's almost as if its source was maybe a variety show like the Ed Sullivan Show or in the 50s, one imagines. He steps out and tells a kind of authoritative complicated linguistic relationship to English version in an Afro-Shakespearean voice, right, the perfectly-sounded Shakespearean English that has a resonance of that African origin in it, and certainly by tone. So, he says, it all started when we were brought here as slaves from Africa, and this becomes [unknown]. But what happened, so becomes a kind of oral meme. Does anybody want to riff on that? That's the first time you're hearing that phrase, but what's a meme? Anybody know what a meme is? Oh, my goodness, you guys don't know what it means? >> Just thinking about the internet ... >> Yeah. >> [laugh] It's a unit for carrying cultural ideas. So, it becomes something that people grab hold of. And so, she takes it a an oral meme with a tremendous complicated relationship with, with English, with the language. I spoke with Tracy Morris at great length last night about this. And one of the things we talked about was Tracy's, as she describes a, a complicated relationship to Shakespeare and what she calls black authority in Shakespeare. So that she likes Holder's Afro-Shakespearean performance of this clip because it refuses to relinquish any claim of vocal, or voice authority to anyone, right? It, it, it absolutely lives, kind of like Claude McKay in If We Must Die. Lives on its complicated relation to English, but masters it. So then, she and Val Jeanty had it, and they did a musical performance which we have up. It's available in Pen Sound now. But then, when it came time for her to redo a performance, as a kind of solo, she couldn't find the clip. And apparently, her collaborator had lost it as a file on her laptop. And then, re-found it. And, when she re-found it, it had been corrupted. The file had been corrupted. And, in a way, Tracy, as she introduces it at a conference on conceptual poetry at Arizona, as she was performing this piece as the last of her pieces, you hear it get, get a great applause. She tells the story of the degrading of that file. And rather, last night, when I talked to her, rather than describing it as degraded or corrupted, which is what we would say of a computer file, she described the sound as dispersed. And the dispersal of the sound led her to thinking about the diaspora of Africans who were brought to the US as slaves. So, that's the background. So now, let's go again to how it sounds out and what possible relationship it has to the poetry we've been studying. Ali, can you say anything about how that works? >> Yeah. Well, what you were just saying about, you know the African Diaspora her tone, her voice is, is itself dispersed and how it keeps on kind of resetting. Just, and You, reference Caroline Bergvall. And so, the we, that she's referencing can be many different, it can be many different factions of people so it can be different waves of migration. It can be you know, just you know, the, it can be just the African-American community. It can be Americans, in general. It can be humans. It all started because she goes with different kind of instances that's, it all started when we were, Africa, it start, it all started with Africa. So, there are just many meanings that get pretty used. >> Good. Anybody want to take this further? >> It's such a, it's such a performance of, of the digital age, I think because the way that she, she performs it imitates digital file corruption, that's skipping. It's not something that you would hear on a skipping record, it's definitely something off of it, like an MP3. It's so fast. And I think it's, it's interesting because there's, there's something about the fact that even with all this information technology, these accessible sound files and things, we still can't, they still fall apart. They're still not, there's, there's still no clarity or coherence necessarily, it's not given, especially when it comes to something so difficult as, as, like, the, the history of, of, of the slave trade or how African-Americans came to be here, that there's no, even, even with all these sound files, even with all this, this information, we still can't make sense of it. >> It takes a performance by a voice live. That's what she did there. To take the thing that we do, the sampling and the skipping that we do with digital editing. And to take, to find out that the digital editing corrupted and dispersed it. And then, to return it to this, this unedited voice, this performance. >> Yeah. >> That performs the dispersal of the Afro-Shakespearean language in a sentence that's as coherent and narrative as it all started when we were brought here as slaves from Africa as if that could possibly be simple. >> And what breaks down then is the it, and the we. >> So let's talk about, it. It all started, when I asked Tracy about this, she said, I said, what's it> Is it the history of, of the Africans and then African-American people in the American continent? And she said, no, it is America. It is the whole idea of America and American history. It all started when we did this. It all started then we, when we, the eventual authors of the Declaration of Independence had slavery allowed, permitted the institution of slavery, the whole idea of America. And not just, not just the American experience of those brought here as slaves, but America. It all started when we, when we, when we, we the people, when we, alright? So, that's, that's it. And the key phrase is when we, when we, when we once upon a time, you know? They, they, they went to California and, and were fletched and soon had to sort of argue that they weren't the same as everybody else. We, we the people. When, when it gets to the point in the, in the history of a people that they need to be free, they will be free. And now, we get to, so we got to it, now we get to we. Ali was suggesting that the we is, is, is the we, while you were implicitly saying it's the same we as McKay's If We Must Die. What was, did anybody remember the argument we had about we in If We Must Die? And the address to the kinsmen in that poem? I know this is going back a ways, but. >> We wanted to know who the kinsmen were, who the we was. Is the we the people who were oppressed, or is the we every reader of poetry? Is the we, is the we the poets? >> Yeah. >> Is the we the reader and the poets? >> Every, every reader of the English language since Shakespeare, every sonneteer. >> Everybody who knows what Eng, how English can be by anyone, negotiated as an oral tradition. A hear, heard tradition and a sung tradition. And how that, that English can be negotiated by people who don't feel, or were taught that they didn't have an automatic relation to it. And then, in the McKay's case, his dignity. His ability to say, if you kill us, you kill yourselves, alright? That we is every reader, is every user in the English language. Okay. So, where does that leave us with this? >> I think she's commenting on how language creates a community. So, how we're talking about how the phrase. It all started as a language of storytelling. And, that supposedly, in this, I was particularly moved by the point, or I astounded by her vocal abilities to, say, as love, as she's moving into as slaves. And, it was that point in history when, the word slave was assigned to a whole people that had created these oppositional camps between master and slave. And so, in the way that, that relationship was originally a linguistic relationship is what is then undermined by the tremoring of her voice throughout the piece. >> Mm-hm. >> And just going off that it's so interesting how we, which is, which, you know, is implicitly is a communal unified it indicates a unified group. Yet so broken up in itself there's so many, the, the we is fractured with you know, in her, in her voice and so, and by the end, you know, it's been fractured, who knows how many times. Which, you know, really goes along with that, that separation between, you know, different wes, making we into us and them. >> And then it ends on when we, and stops or we're still, we're, it's like a challenge to keep going. >> But history is still to be lived. But it's a linguistic history. It's a history of a languaged self. Only not in Lyn Hejinian's sense of the girlhood that becomes a post-war American girlhood. And it may be typical, but was it really hers? But a linguistic self that is national and literary. So, it's, it's actually linguistic in the sense of anglophone. >> I'll take Stein's complete portrait of Picasso and he, and he, he, he, he, and he and makes it. >> Very much like that. >> Makes it national instead of just one person, one incredibly complex person takes this to the level of very complex history. Let's go back to her phrase which she described for me when I talked with her. U, she said, that we and her pieces, anyone of us and all of us for whom poetry is a sonic negotiation, a musical, that is to say, a formal, which is to say, a poetic negotiation with a language that, every once in a while, needs to be refreshed. A language that, that risks, at all point, points of dying, becoming meaningless, becoming rhetorically empty that tempts us to forgetting, that meaning-making is not natural. That the dictionary doesn't simply set out a set of self alpha, alphabetized self-evident definitions that it's a living thing. And that what keeps it poetic and what keeps it alive is the requirement that it keep getting made new. So, this reminds us again, when you take, when you have a piece like this that's, that's a sound form breakdown of a coherent, narrative it all started when we were brought here as slaves from Africa. Coherent sentence, narrative, mainstream, be spoken by this, in this Afro, Afro Shakespearean tone by a figure like Geoffrey Holder, who's obviously brought out to be author, authoritative. When that kind of breakdown occurs as it does in this piece and so many of the poems we've studied in this course, it reminds us again that the how of what's being said is the thing you need to focus on, that our attention needs to shift to the how. That the what is going to wind up being empty, also finally, that, that what is relatively easy, that mastering the what is relatively easy. It's the how that is always hard. It's hard to perform. It's hard to understand as a linguistic inheritance. It's hard to understand as a member of the linguistic community. And it is finally, what poetry is. Poetry is the how. What is all that other stuff? So, I, I'm going to ask for a couple of final comments on this, final, final comments, but I believe that ending this not just section on conceptualism with Tracy Morris is dispersed sampling. But to end the course on it, seems particularly appropriate. Because of its, it's reminding us that we must respect Jeffery Holder's articulation, and Claude McKay's, right, of Shakes, of the dignity that we derive from Shakespeare. But at the same time, do it our own way and say you can't say it that way anymore. Great way to end. I'm going to invite you to say it, a final word. So, who wants to go first? Max? >> Stuck. [laugh] yeah, so we've seen and as you just said, we, we, we're looking at how the, at how the, how comes to take precedence in some way over the what. And I wonder if, I wonder if over this century we'll, we'll come back to around to the what. >> [laugh]. >> Oh, you're so retro. >> [laugh] >> That's a vague 80 retro thing to say. But. >> [laugh] >> You miss the what? Hm? You miss the what? >> I don't necessarily miss the what. >> You can get the what in all the other courses. >> Well that's, that's not what I'm saying. >> There's so much what out there. >> I wonder if, if pushing it to the how will eventually bring it back to the what. >> Oh, I think it did with Tracy Moriss' speech. >> Sure. >> But I don't think it's a dependable thing. I think it's a double consciousness. >> Okay. >> Always a double consciousness. Thank you, Max. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you. Molly? >> I guess, I worry sometimes about experimentation for the sake of experimentation. >> Is that a worry in this case? >> In this particular case of this poem or this course? >> This poem. >> No. No, not at all. And I think that this has really given me a new appreciation for why we need to break down. And especially, in the comments you mentioned from your talk with Tracy Morris, why we need to continually refresh the language and question the ways that we've started to describe things and socialized and internalized our language. >> So, don't, don't settle on, you know, the way meaning gets normitized, normitivized, normitivized, whatever. Made normal. >> Yeah. Don't settle for it, keep pushing. Thank you, Molly. Kristen? >> I think what was so interesting for me about this performance is how I could see the lineage of modern, modern poets, Modernist poetry in it as well. Like I, as Anna said, I really felt Stein in this, and I feel like if I were to transcribe Tracy's performance, I would be able to compare it very well to Stein and how the sentence just gets tweaked. And I also had a sense of Dickinson in it with the it, which is, reminded me of this. >> From. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Our first, one of our first discussions. >> Yeah, yeah. >> And so. >> I also hear Cage. If we take a sentence and we break it down into phrases, and then we take the phrase and we break it down into words, and then we take the words, and we break it down into syllables and letters. We will be able to do our living. And we will stop using language to oppress people is basically what he said, and I think this is a great working out of that. Never thought of it is as Cagean but I think that's right. Thank you, Kristen for everything. Anna? I guess, this just maybe, almost more than anything else that we've read, or heard, I guess just reminds me that language is such a living, breathing organism. I mean, it's, it's, it's artificial but, but modern and, and even, and post-modern poets just, show that, there's so much that there's so much that can be done with it. And that we shouldn't stop doing things with it. And that making it new, is also remaking it new, and making it newer. There's just, it just doesn't stop. >> Thank you, Anna. And thank you for sitting to my left the entire time. >> [laugh] >> And dealing with my elbows. And to my right, Ali. >>, Final word. >> I think in this piece, we just listened to it's just so easy to marvel at her act of doing it, and her voice, and how hard it must be to break things up like that. I think it was Ashbery who said about Stein, that this is a paraphrase but, that, what, what's most worth doing is what seems almost impossible to do. And there's just so much out pleasure. I think we've kind of discovered from, you know, engaging what that type of thing and I think that's, this is also just a perfect example of that. >> Great. Thank you, Ali. Dave? You're a little greater than when we started, I think. >> Yeah, yes. >> [laugh] >> Quite a bit since we started, since I [inaudible]. >> [laugh] >> The thing about this poem I like a lot is it really lets you know the content is the form. The way it's said is, is the message. You don't just pay attention to the quote itself, but how it is delivered. So, it just leaves me with, with the thought that if you only try to pay attention to content in the traditional way, you were brought up, you're missing a lot of the message maybe, maybe most of the message. >> In this case, most of it. Yes. Thank you, Dave. Amaris? >> I think, I like that Tracy Morris' piece reminds us that there's a history embedded in each word and that language is a living organism the way that Anna was saying. But, particularly, the way that someone comment, I forget who commented in the poem talk about Jena Osman seeing poetry as a site of renewed consciousness, not just as a genre. And I think our way of interpreting each of these poems as a community. It's usually emblematic of the importance of poetry in creating any of these. >> [crosstalk] you've done it? >> Well, exactly the way we've done it. >> How would you argue that the way we've done it is better than my lecture? >>, Except for the obvious reasons, that. >> Exactly. >> That [crosstalk]. >> The trend in poetry, we've seen as moving from this authoritative voice, authoritative lyrical voice, which, it would be an analogous to the professor lecturing in, in the fun of all the students. To a mode of learning, and composing that in, is multifocal, and includes many perspectives. >> How appropriate that you, in your final word, have not just said something meta-poetic, but meta-pedagogical? >> [laugh] >> Yes, it's true. What we have done is try to model a collective, collaborative reading of poems that increasingly as the time goes on, cry out to be understood communally. And I don't mean that in the wishy-wishy sense. But actually require, I believe actually, in the theory that the crowd is wise and then, I think for some of these poems, particularly the ones we've been dealing with the last few weeks. The crowd, great numbers of people have more to say about this than any one expert. This is absolutely true. It's true that if you ask experts in Physics and spatial dimension, how many jelly beans are in a jar? It will not be as accurate as guessing. Then, if you get a crowd of people, for instance, at a state fair, all guessing how many jellybeans. The average of what the crowd guesses will be more accurate than the few experts. I believe that is exactly true of the kind of poems we've been talking about. So, our goal here, meta-pedagogically speaking, has been, to model the kind of, collective reading that actually gets better the more time we spend on it. Thank you, Amaris. And finally, how appropriate are, your middle name is final word. Emily, you get the final word. >> [laugh] >> No one's going to see anything of the rest of us, just you here. >> [laugh] Okay. >> [laugh] >> I love what Amaris just said about renewed consciousness. This poetry is a sort of foothold or just avenue into that. And this piece is one of my, this and Caroline Bergvall are definitely my favorite in this section and some of my favorite poems in the course because ... >> Wow. I never figured you as so hip and cool. >> Ooh. >> Got you there, Al. [laugh] I guess because the experimentation here, it really does augment the content in a way that, I don't think is, dogmatic or polemical or proselytizing, or confrontational in the sort of unnecessary way, the way the John Peale Bishop poem, that she's not out to make a point or events agenda, she's just asking a question which is a deeply important one, of how we represent our narratives, imaginary narratives, our life experience, our shared experience and we had a conversation once maybe we were quoting Charles Bernstein but, he said something along the lines that the point of literature isn't to give answers, but to ask questions. So, how fitting that Tracy Morris has somehow devised the formal equivalent of asking a question. >> That will be the final word. How perfect. >> [laugh] >> Thank you all. Thank you so much.
