The Sound of Modern Polish Poetry: Performance and Recording after World War II

Aleksandra Kremer's study explores the role of authorial sound recordings in twentieth-century Polish culture, highlighting the impact of new media on poetic performances by notable poets. Through analysis of recordings, she reveals new aesthetics of poetry reading and concepts of the poetic self.

Format: Hardback
Length: 376 pages
Publication date: 28 January 2022
Publisher: Harvard University Press

A groundbreaking new study of modern Polish verse in performance offers a significant reevaluation of the roles of poets and poetry in twentieth-century Polish culture.

"Whats in a voice?" asks the scholar, delving into the significance of recording oneself reading a poem that also exists on paper. In recent decades, scholars have sought to answer these questions, recognizing the art of poetry performance in the anglophone world. Now, Aleksandra Kremer, with a keen ear, focuses on modern Polish poetry, examining the rising importance of authorial sound recordings during the tumultuous twentieth century in Eastern Europe.

Kremer traces the adoption of performance practices intimately tied to new media by key Polish poets. In Polish hands, tape recording transformed into something distinct, shaped by its unique origins behind the Iron Curtain. The Sound of Modern Polish Poetry reconstructs the historical conditions, audio technologies, and personal motivations that informed poetic performances by luminaries such as Czesław Miłosz, Wisława Szymborska, Aleksander Wat, Zbigniew Herbert, Miron Białoszewski, Anna Swir, and Tadeusz Różewicz. Through performances both public and private, prepared and improvised, professional and amateur, these poets explored the possibilities of the physical voice, introducing new poetic practices, reading styles, and genres to the Polish literary scene. Recording became a means for these artists to announce their ambiguous place between worlds.

Kremer's work is a blend of criticism and recovery, employing speech-analysis software to uncover forgotten audio experiments. From poetic "sound postcards" to unusual home performances, to the final testaments of writer-performers, their voices reveal new aesthetics of poetry reading and novel concepts of the t. This study is a testament to the power of performance in shaping the literary landscape and the enduring influence of Polish poets on the world stage stage.

Weight: 748g
Dimension: 168 x 242 x 36 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780674261112