What is the utterance?
July 10, 2010 7:24 PM   Subscribe

Flub and Utter: Jordan Scott discusses the role that stuttering plays in his poetry. (Flash) Read more of Scott's work.
posted by roll truck roll (8 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Interesting. Deleuze & Guattari write in A Thousand Plateaus of the role of the balbuzie (stutter) in the poetry of Gherasim Luca. But Luca, afaik, was not a stutterer.

Alvin Lucier, however, was, and "I am sitting in a room" has a few little stutters. Last few times I've heard him, though, he didn't stutter a bit.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 8:48 PM on July 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


HI my Name is The Whelk and I Stutter.

It's really hard to explain to other people why you stutter or just because you do, you've got this extra barrier to making yourself understood, when you really, really just want to say something super simple, but you can't, cause you stutter.

it's terrible, and it's so natural , it's just something you do. I had to have a good, oh couple of years of voice lessons before I had any kind of grip on it (and to this day people think I sound "Scottish", which isn't my natural accept, it's just how I adapted) and it may be the output of any kind of anxiety issues or jawline issues (Oh Hi! speech Teachers in grade school, no I still hate you, my jaw is FINE I'M NOT DOING IT ON PURPOSE.) you just......stutter, and it sucks, cause no one thinks you just can't do it if you tried. Yeah I had YEARS of training so I don't and I still stutter when I'm upset or confused or angry. So yeah.
posted by The Whelk at 9:31 PM on July 10, 2010 [2 favorites]


(and to the Dicks who chose that moment when I shut up cause I knew I was too upset to control it and I was so gonna start to stutter cause I'm SO UPSET and took that second to launch into full blown angry attacks knowing I couldn't talk back, FUCK YOU.)
posted by The Whelk at 9:35 PM on July 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


Joseph Gurl: "Alvin Lucier, however, was, and "I am sitting in a room" has a few little stutters. Last few times I've heard him, though, he didn't stutter a bit."

Some time ago, I saw this documentary in which Lucier talked about how stuttering impacts his work. I thought of including it in this post, but I couldn't find it online.

But "I am sitting in a room" is kind of an identity piece, right? "Any irregularities my voice might have"?
posted by roll truck roll at 1:23 AM on July 11, 2010


Also this flash presentation is pretty awesomely done.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:25 AM on July 11, 2010


Jordan came to read in the poetry series I used to help organize, and he was terrific.

Chris Daniels, another poet who stutters, had read in the series not long before, and was also terrific. His work is not "about" stuttering as directly as that book (blert) by Jordan is.

The obvious inference -- that all poets who stutter must be terrific -- seems like it shouldn't follow, despite all evidence pointing to that conclusion.
posted by Casuistry at 11:12 AM on July 11, 2010


"The obvious inference -- that all poets who stutter must be terrific -- seems like it shouldn't follow, despite all evidence pointing to that conclusion."

Anything that hauls the language itself so far into the foreground can't help but be good for one's writing.
posted by sleevener at 12:31 PM on July 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


At least one member of De La Soul did some stuttering for rhythmic purposes on the De La Soul is Dead record.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 10:52 PM on July 11, 2010


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