Sound Poetry
Hugo Ball
The dadaist poet and artist Hugo
Ball was born in Pirmasens,
Germany. In February 1916 he and his friends - Tristan
Tzara, Hans Arp, Marcel Janco and Richard Huelsenbeck, found the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. There were
organized art performances by Ball and other artists who formed the beginning
of Dada. His final performance at the Cabaret Voltaire initiated the beginning
of a new genre known as sound poems. This means poems without words, or
abstract poems. In order create them, the language is divided into its abstract
parts (syllables and individual letters) and then rearranged to form meaningless
sounds.
In the same year (1916) Ball wrote his famous sound poem "Karawane".
Figure 1
According to Scholz ‘The visual version of the sound poem "Karawane" (Figure 1) is characterized by its headline, which seems to be in motion and the use of different types of writing in the seventeen lines of the text '. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3982/is_200101/ai_n8951441/pg_1
Karawane
jolifanto bambla o falli bambla
großiga m'pfa habla horem
egiga goramen
higo bloiko russula huju
hollaka hollala
anlogo bung
blago bung blago bung
bosso fataka
ü üü ü
schampa wulla wussa olobo
hej tatta gorem
eschige zunbada
wulubu ssubudu uluwu ssubudu
tumba ba-umf
kusa gauma
ba - umf
The ‘Karawane' can be hear on UbuWeb
A modern interpretation made in Flash of the Hugo Ball's poem can be seen from the following website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o-tLrI2K6Y
Some of the other best known Hugo Ball's sound poems written in 1916 include: Wolken, Katzen and Pfauen, Totenklage, Gadji beri bimba, Seepferdchen und Flugfishche.
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