A 2013 Audio Experiment Turned Into a Poetry Project
As part of my creative thesis for my MFA, I made visual artworks out of several dozen poems (poems which lent themselves to visual display). Additionally, I set up an audio station (laptop plus headphones) for an experimental project in which I recorded my then fourteen-month-old daughter, then wrote an approximate transcript of her babbling, then recorded myself reading the entire transcript, then splicing together small sections of each, but putting my recording first, as if my child were coping my own gibberish. I
It was a bizarre experiment, as you might expect. But it certainly was different. It pushed the limits of the definition of poetry. And that was my main goal for that project. (In addition to having a fun recording of my daughter at that age, which, like baby pictures, is more exciting and amusing for the parent than for anyone else.
Here’s the full audio:
And here are photos of the two-page booklet on the audio station (laptop plus headphones) where visitors to the art gallery, where my work was on display, could listen to the endlessly repeating recording (click audio, above, to listen).
I’m posting this here in response to reddit post I came across in which a dad did something similar with his child (to more humorous effect). Recommend.
Louisa at approximate time of recording