Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
‘Sound poetry’ (or Lautpoesie) is a genre of literature that privileges the euphonies of language over other properties of meaning. In this presentation (which explores a century of sounds in Canadian poetry), Dr Gregory Betts explores the historical foundations of Lautpoesie in Canada, tracing the Modernist influence of both Dadaism and Surrealism upon Canadian literati, who perform ‘sound-poems,’ while showcasing, in turn, the impact of Indigenous traditions in Canada upon such Modernist heritages in Europe. The talk maps out two primary strategies for producing ‘sound poems’ (be they compositional or improvisatory), and the talk articulates the role of the phoneme (the unit of linguistic utterances) in each of these two approaches.
Dr Gregory Betts is going to deliver a presentation on this subject for 45 min., after which he is going to perform a selection of poetry for 40 min., with an introduction of poetry, performed for 20 min. by his publisher Anthony Etherin (the incomparable practitioner of formalistic constraints in poetry). Copies of Bard Code (the newest volume of poetry by Dr Gregory Betts are expected to be available from Penteract Press for signing during this event).
Dr Gregory Betts is the author (or editor) of 23 books, including Bard Code (Penteract Press, 2024)—a book that uses grids of colour-coding to visualize every rhyming syllable in all 154 sonnets by William Shakespeare. Betts has won awards for his two scholarly monographs: Avant-Garde Canadian Literature and Finding Nothing: The VanGardes 1959-1975. The SETI Institute has, moreover, selected his work to be deposited upon the surface of the Moon. He has performed his poetry at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics (as part of the Cultural Olympiad), and he has served as the Craig Dobbin Chair of Canadian Studies at University College Dublin.
Anthony Etherin is the author of two major works of poetry: Stray Arts and Slate Petals — both of which feature the use of Herculean, formalist constraints, considered virtuoso in their execution. Etherin is also the proprietor of Penteract Press, which publishes globally renowned practitioners of contemporary, experimental literature. His work features prominently in the documentary, entitled The Palindromists, directed by Vince Clemente, and his poetry has garnered the attention of celebrities like Idris Alba, J. K. Rowling, and Anthony Horowitz. The publisher Deep Vellum is collecting the poetry of Etherin into an omnibus, forthcoming in 2024.
