Voice, rhythm, performance and materiality: what Tom Waits translates when he recites Bukowski

Abstract

Our goal is to reflect on the vocal performance, usually called recitation or declamation, based on the materialities of communication and as an intersemiotic translation of a written text. First, we use the concepts of Paul Zumthor and Walter Ong on the relation between orality and literacy, then going towards a generalization around materialities, as regarded by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht. While Gumbrecht focuses on the notions of “rhythm”, our point is to add the notions of “timbre”, as a necessary feature of performance, and one which is totally dependent on the materialities that determine it, and that the rational description that intends to be separated from material instances gets to only subjugate it, working far from the experience the materialities provide. As an example, we use the performance of “The laughing heart”, a poem by Charles Bukowski recited by Tom Waits. Waits’ performance transforms Bukowski’s poems, and at the same time translate (recodify) it for vocal materiality. Although this is a study that does not renounce the poetic scholarly tradition, our goal is to celebrate he invasion and the feeling of “going back home” that the voice does for poetry, encompassing and surpassing the barriers and the calm of writing.