Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T07:26:46.927Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Phonic Matters: French Sound Poetry, Julia Kristeva, and Bernard Heidsieck

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Carrie Noland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay recounts my attempt to teach poetry through theory and theory through poetry by juxtaposing Bernard Heidsieck's sound poem Canal Street with Julia Kristeva's La révolution du langage poétique. The psychoanalytic model Kristeva applies to her exegesis of Mallarmé's “Prose” proves insufficient to account for Heidsieck's materialist poetics. However, by reading Kristeva beside Heidsieck, we can gain a glimpse of the resources held in reserve by both texts. Kristeva's attention to poetry's phonematic material facilitates a sound-sensitive approach to Heidsieck's poem. Heidsieck's poem, in turn, suggests that such material reveals not the libidinal drives of a subject but the nonlibidinal, impersonal, acoustico-physiological instrument undergirding the expressive potential of the human voice. The juxtaposition of theoretical and poetic texts demonstrates that poetry possesses an analytic force that can be applied to the theory meant to explicate it.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 120 , Issue 1: Special Topic: On Poetry , January 2005 , pp. 108 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Adorno, Theodor. “Semblance and Expression.” Aesthetic Theory. Trans. Hullot-Kentor, Robert. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997. 100–17.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M. M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Trans. Emerson, Caryl and Holquist, Michael. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981.Google Scholar
Barilli, Renato. Program notes to Futura. Poesia Sonora. Antologia storico critica della poesia sonora. Ed. Arrigo Lora-Totino. 7 LPs. Cramps Records, 1978.Google Scholar
Barras, Vincent. “Entretien avec Henri Chopin.” Barras and Zurbrugg 127–36.Google Scholar
Barras, Vincent, and Zurbrugg, Nicholas, eds. Poesies so-nores. Paris: Contrechamps, 1997.Google Scholar
Bataille, Georges. “Le bas materialisme et la gnose.” Premiers ecrits, 1922-1940. Paris: Gallimard, 1970. 220–26. Vol. 1 of Guvres completes.Google Scholar
Bataille, Georges. “Materialisme.” Premiers ecrits, 1922-1940. Paris: Gallimard, 1970. 79–180. Vol. 1 of Guvres complètes.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Charles. Introduction. Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word. Ed. Bernstein, . New York: Oxford UP, 1998. 3–26. 12 Oct. 2004 <http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein/essays/close-listening.html>.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bobillot, Jean-Pierre. Bernard Heidsieck: Poesie action. Paris: Place, 1996.Google Scholar
Bobillot, Jean-Pierre. E-mail to the author. 4 Dec. 2004.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. “The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva.” Hypatia 3 (1989): 104–18.Google Scholar
Bobillot, Jean-Pierre. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Meaning. New York: Routledge, 1990.Google Scholar
Donguy, Jacques, and Heidsieck, Bernard. “Entretiens entre Jacques Donguy et Bernard Heidsieck, le 6 no-vembre, 1980.” Legeste a la parole. Ed. Donguy, . Paris: Agullo, 1981. 51–59.Google Scholar
Fonágy, Ivan. La vive voix: Essais depsycho-phonetique. Paris: Payot, 1983.Google Scholar
Gysin, Brion. “Interview with Brion Gysin.” Le colloque de Tanger. Ed. Lemaire, Gerard-Georges. Paris: Bourgeois, 1976.Google Scholar
Heidsieck, Bernard. Canal Street. 2nd ed. 3 LPs. SEVIM/Heidsieck, 1986.Google Scholar
Heidsieck, Bernard. Canal Street. Collection Niok. 2 CDs. Al Dante, 2001.Google Scholar
Heidsieck, Bernard. Le carrefour de la Chaussée d'Antin. Audiocassette. New Wilderness Audiographies, 1981. 8233A.Google Scholar
Heidsieck, Bernard. “The Many Faces of Brion Gysin.” Kuri, Brion Gysin 140–43.Google Scholar
Heidsieck, Bernard. 3 biopsies + 1 passe-partout. LP. Multi-Techniques, 1970.Google Scholar
Higgins, Dick. “Un golem dans le texte.” Barras and Zurbrugg 23–26.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. “Contraintes rythmiques et langage poetique.” Polylogue. Paris: Seuil, 1977. 437–66.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. Pouvoirs de lhorreur. Essai sur l'abjection. Paris: Seuil, 1980.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. La révolution du langagepoétique. Paris: Seuil, 1974.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. Revolution in Poetic Language. Trans. Waller, Margaret. New York: Columbia UP, 1984.Google Scholar
Kuri, José Féréz, ed. Brion Gysin: Tuning In to the Multimedia Age. New York: Thames, 2003.Google Scholar
Lewis, Philip. “Revolutionary Semiotics.” Diacritics 4.3 (1974): 28–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mallarmé, Stéphane. “Ses purs ongles très hauts dédiant leur onyx.” Guvres complètes. Ed. Marchal, Bertrand. Paris: Gallimard, 1998. 98.Google Scholar
McCaffery, Steve. “Voice in Extremis.” Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word. Ed. Bernstein, Charles. New York: Oxford UP, 1998. 162–77.Google Scholar
Métail, Michèle. Compléments de noms, 1973-1983. Issyles-Moulineaux: Loques, 1983.Google Scholar
Miccini, Eugenio. “Une sémiologie de la transgression.” Barras and Zurbrugg 51–64.Google Scholar
Moten, Fred. “Voices/Forces: Migration, Surplus and the Black Avant-Garde.” Writing Aloud: The Sonics of Language. Ed. LaBelle, Brandon and Migone, Christof. With CD. Los Angeles: Errant Bodies, 2001. 47–59.Google Scholar
Ross, Kristin. “The Swarm.” The Emergence of Social Space: Rimbaud and the Paris Commune. Fwd. Terry Eagleton. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1988. 100–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zumthor, Paul. “Une poésie de l'espace.” Barras and Zurbrugg 5–18.Google Scholar
Zurbrugg, Nicholas. “Letting the Mice In: Brion Gysin's Multimedia Poetics.” Kuri, Brion Gysin 147–62.Google Scholar