“strange, queer, extraordinary, peculiar”

That’s the internet definition of the Turkish title of Erold Almelek’s sound poem “Garip, Sasirtici” published as a page poem in The Stanza Project (Otter Press, 2013).  Erold wrote the poem first in English under the title “Amazing” and translated it into his native Turkish afterwards.

At our launch Erold performed the English version of the piece and brought down the house. The “scheduled” laughter and repetition of affirming phrases builds until the tension is joyfully unbearable.

Here he is reciting the Turkish version at home:

Erold writes, “l would like to know how they both sound without any meaning words, but just sounds.”

Unfortunately, we didn’t film him performing at the launch. But he did film himself reciting the English version.

It’s interesting to consider Erold’s work on its own, with its own staging and production, but also to look at it in the context of other sound poetry. Here is a link to a blog post of  “Tom Chivers’ top ten sound poets“. Look for some extraordinary examples of sound poetry from around the world, many of them sliding and falling between categorical spaces of performance art, visual art, theatre and monologue.