Close Listening

Contents

Introduction
CHARLES BERNSTEIN

I. SOUND’S MEASURES

1 Letter on Sound
SUSAN STEWART

2 The Aural Ellipsis and the Nature of Listening in Contemporary Poetry
NICK PIOMBINO

3 Praxis: A Political Economy of Noise and Information
BRUCE ANDREWS

4 After Free Verse: The New Nonlinear Poetries
MARJORIE PERLOFF

5 Ether Either
SUSAN HOWE

II. PERFORMING WORDS

6 Visual Performance of the Poetic Text
JOHANNA DRUCKER

7 Voice in Extremis
STEVE McCAFFERY

8 Toward a Poetics of Polyphony and Translatability
DENNIS TEDLOCK

9 Speech Effects: The Talk as a Genre
BOB PERELMAN

10 Sound Reading
PETER QUARTERMAIN

III. CLOSE HEARINGS/HISTORICAL SETTINGS

11 Understanding the Sound of Not Understanding
JED RASULA

12 The Contemporary Poetry Reading
PETER MIDDLETON

13 Neon Griot: The Functional Role of Poetry Readings in the Black Arts Movement,
LORENZO THOMAS

14 Was That “Different,” “Dissident” or “Dissonant”? Poetry (n) the Public Spear: Slams, Open Readings, and Dissident Traditions
MARIA DAMON

15 Local Vocals: Hawai‘i’s Pidgin Literature, Performance, and Postcoloniality
SUSAN M. SCHULTZ

Afterword: Who Speaks: Ventriloquism and the Self in the Poetry Reading
RON SILLIMAN

Audio Resources