Historical Analysis of Fast Speaking Woman
ENGL 131 V
Writing Assignment 1.4 Draft 1
Major Paper #1
4/22/2012
Historical Analysis of Fast Speaking Woman
In early twenty century, there was a popular form of art----“Sound Poetry” bridging between literary and musical composition, in which the phonetic aspects of human speech are foregrounded instead of more conventional semantic and syntactic values (Wikipedia). At first, words were made mostly by sounds, like “wind”, “jam” and “swash”, whose pronunciations are similar to their meanings that people can easily understand and remember. Later, as languages developed, sound seems no more important than spelling. In sound poetry, however, languages are back to their origins (the way they were created), focusing on feeling of audition to convey intentions, which is even more effective than words. For instance, a zombie suddenly frightens you when you are watching a horror movie. You may scream “aaaaaa” as you first reaction to show your fears, but “I am scared”, though having the same meaning, is a weaker expression than sounds.
In the history of sound poetry, there is a famous female poet Anne Waldman. Her perspective of the world influences her poems. She combines Buddhism and Sabina’s mushroom theory (explained later) into her poem “Fast Speaking Woman” to make it a chant. Unlike the sound poem “Ursonate” with meaningless words and pronunciations to express emotions, “Fast Speaking Woman” by Anne Waldman lightens the poem by filling a variety of English words in a main structure: “ I am a/the______woman” and other similar lines. These words vary from subjects like “sun” and “wind” to adjectives like “leaping” and “trembling” without obvious connections, and but still comfortable to follow the rhymes throughout the whole 32 page piece. Although this repeating pattern seems quite understandable and interesting for an audience to catch up, researchers have failed to fully grasp the reasons why the pattern occurs, and what role it plays in the poem. Since
Writing Assignment 1.4 Draft 1
Major Paper #1
4/22/2012
Historical Analysis of Fast Speaking Woman
In early twenty century, there was a popular form of art----“Sound Poetry” bridging between literary and musical composition, in which the phonetic aspects of human speech are foregrounded instead of more conventional semantic and syntactic values (Wikipedia). At first, words were made mostly by sounds, like “wind”, “jam” and “swash”, whose pronunciations are similar to their meanings that people can easily understand and remember. Later, as languages developed, sound seems no more important than spelling. In sound poetry, however, languages are back to their origins (the way they were created), focusing on feeling of audition to convey intentions, which is even more effective than words. For instance, a zombie suddenly frightens you when you are watching a horror movie. You may scream “aaaaaa” as you first reaction to show your fears, but “I am scared”, though having the same meaning, is a weaker expression than sounds.
In the history of sound poetry, there is a famous female poet Anne Waldman. Her perspective of the world influences her poems. She combines Buddhism and Sabina’s mushroom theory (explained later) into her poem “Fast Speaking Woman” to make it a chant. Unlike the sound poem “Ursonate” with meaningless words and pronunciations to express emotions, “Fast Speaking Woman” by Anne Waldman lightens the poem by filling a variety of English words in a main structure: “ I am a/the______woman” and other similar lines. These words vary from subjects like “sun” and “wind” to adjectives like “leaping” and “trembling” without obvious connections, and but still comfortable to follow the rhymes throughout the whole 32 page piece. Although this repeating pattern seems quite understandable and interesting for an audience to catch up, researchers have failed to fully grasp the reasons why the pattern occurs, and what role it plays in the poem. Since