Sound Poetry Circuit Analysis

The Sound Poetry Circuit: Festivals, Networks, and Transatlantic Relations

There is a photograph , taken during the 11th edition of the Sound Poetry International Festival, held in Toronto in 1978, that depicts three authors: they are, from the left to the right, Bob Cobbing, Sten Hanson (holding what seems to be a cat), and Henri Chopin, or, should we say, England, Sweden, and France, in what seems to be a metaphorical representation of the theme proposed by the current paper. Either way, they represent different traditions and forms of expression within the vast scope of heterogeneous practices of Sound Poetry.
The current paper wishes to contribute to the mapping and recovery of a set of phenomena that by their role in the development of Sound Poetry cannot be ignored: I am referring to the International Festivals of Sound Poetry.
In an interview given to Enzo Minarelli, published in the book As razões da Voz: Entrevistas com Protagonistas da Poesia Sonora no Século XX, Bernard Heidsieck refers to the Sound Poetry Festivals in the following way
These manifestations, more and more numerous, had
What conclusions can be drawn from a detailed analysis of this set of events that for some years constituted the privileged stage of existence for Sound Poetry? How did they allow the approach of authors coming from different schools? What conclusions can we draw in relation to Sound Poetry but also in relation to broader questions such as the very development of experimental movements throughout the twentieth century and the development of the literary field throughout this