When I emailed the producer of said national poetry show to deplore the practice of accompanying poetry with music and other extraneous sounds, he replied that the show's brief was not simply to broadcast poetry, but also to create a richly textured sonic environment.
I have never been to a concert where the organisers felt the need to enhance the music by getting someone to mumble or recite Ginsberg in the background. But there seems to be a feeling that the naked word cannot stand on its own skinny legs.
Perhaps our culture has a problem with silence, including the silences between words.
But if so, why are not interviews with politicians on breakfast radio conducted over a background of murmuring streams, clanging gongs, tweeting birds and whooshing wind? Why is this special treatment reserved for poor old poetry?
Brian
--- On Wed, 14/10/09, andrew burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: andrew burke <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: moron tries to brighten up romantic poetry
To: [log in to unmask]
Received: Wednesday, 14 October, 2009, 1:59 AM
Awk, Lawrence, don't you hate it! Our national broadcaster did a half hour
show on my poetry a couple of years back, and the producer mixed in the
sound of a coffee espresso machine steaming and hissing, mixed in with
various cuts of Miles Davis (electronic stage) plus cafe ambient
conversation buzz. Grrrrr ... if you concentrated really hard, you could
hear the occasional line. His ego got in the way of my ego ...
Andrew
2009/10/13 Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
> They come not as single spies...
>
> email to BBC
>
> I have been trying to listen to wordsworth and coleridge - Lewti and The
> Thorn R4 3.30 p.m.
>
> Could we know the name of the moron who decided that Lyrical Ballads need
> sound effects?
>
> Is it brain damage they've suffered or ignorance?
>
> If the latter, could they be subjected to cruel and unusual punishments
> and then sacked?
>
> Is it the producer Emma Harding?
>
> Thank you
> --
> Lawrence Upton
> AHRC Creative Research Fellow
> Dept of Music
> Goldsmiths, University of London
>
--
Andrew
'Beyond City Limits', pub. ICLL @ ECU, available at topnotch indie bookshops
- list at http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
__________________________________________________________________________________
Get more done like never before with Yahoo!7 Mail.
Learn more: http://au.overview.mail.yahoo.com/
|