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Something completely different – sound poetry

I was just reading this post on Rebecca Gethin’s blog and from there followed a link to Hannah Silva’s blog, which led me to watch some videos of her performing. Hannah’s amazing ‘sound poetry’ made me think again about the Magma theme ‘the music of words’ – I hope the editors are planning to include something by her.

Here’s a video of Hannah Silva performing ‘Talking to Silence’ for example…


… and then the mesmeric ‘Threshold’ seems to push the boundaries of poetry to its limits. As someone in the comments suggested, it’s not dissimilar to what some composers have done with music, for example Berio’s Sequenza for Voice which I once heard/saw performed by the wonderful soprano Lesley Jane Rogers. It’s a stunning piece of music, and Mozart it ain’t.

Feels like a breath of fresh air to stumble on something like this and find myself challenged out of my poetic comfort zone.

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  1. Hi, Robin. I’m looking forward to hearing more about Ty Newydd (I went there this year) but meanwhile – I cannot tell you how irritating I found that video of Hannah Silva’ ‘sound poem’!! sorry.

    • Ha ha! Well I can understand it’s not everyone’s cup of tea! 🙂 Thanks for commenting – Ty Newydd stuff to follow. I’m interested to hear how your experience was too.

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Robin Houghton 2021