In 1970, experimental composer Alvin Lucier recorded a short speech, played it back and re-recorded it several times. The intention of the work was to bring out the resonate frequencies of the room using the speech as a point of debarkation.

As the work goes on, the explanatory text becomes indecipherable as the sound of the room’s resonance creates a lurid cacophony increasing in complexity with each iteration of the process.

I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have.

While Lucier justified this experiment (likely with tongue-in-cheek) as a way to “smooth out” his stutter, the distortions of his speech and each repetition create unexpected and moving complexities. An empty room and a disembodied voice turn into an erratic symphony.

Since poetry presents another space and another disembodied voice, I suggest that Lucier’s technique can quite easily be adapted for our purposes.

For this model, I will use a relevant, if partial, text. My former professor Terrance Haye’s poem “Sonnet” relies on the repetition of a single line 14 times to both conform and subvert the form of a sonnet. More importantly, it’s an interesting poem that also depends on strict repetition.

I have included the poem below for purely academic/remix purposes, which I assume is fine as it is freely available online already. (Though, I’ve corrected the stanza breaks so it appears as it does in Hip Logic’s pages.)

Sonnet
by Terrance Hayes

We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.

Now, in order to introduce some deformation, we have several options. We can play word games with a substitution of letters or, as seen below, redactions. Please note that in this case I have chosen to use a monospaced font so that the uniformity of the text is uninterrupted.

We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into _miles.
We sliced the watermelon in__ _miles.
We sliced the water___on __to _miles.
We _lice_ the water___on __to _miles.
We _lice_ ___ water___on ____ _miles.
We _li_e_ ___ water___on ____ _miles.
__ _li_e_ ___ water___on ____ _miles.
__ _li_e_ ___ wa__r___on ____ _miles.
__ _li_e_ ___ wa__r___on ____ _mil_s.
__ ______ ___ wa__r___on ____ _mil_s.
__ ______ ___ wa__r_____ ____ _mil_s.
__ ______ ___ ____r_____ ____ _____s.
__ ______ ___ __________ ____ ______.

While that experiment is similar to the game where you change one letter to make a new word, and therefore, scientifically, fun, I’m not exactly pleased with the cleverness of the results. Unlike Lucier’s song, there is no impartial disruptive force (not destructive, as I’ll explain later) guiding the changes. If we instead resort to a more mechanical phonetic replacement, corruption enters the work.

We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We slyced the watermelon into smlyes.
Oui slyced the outermelon into smlyes.
etc…

There are several different opportunities for corruption in this case that rely on word connections, though they ultimately fail to duplicate the form of “I Am Sitting in a Room”. That song depends on enhancement of diversions rather than surrender to destruction. While coherency is reduced over time, the resonation builds from a small point to a greater point.

We can take impartial associations of each word in “Sonnet” and create layers of meaning on top of the poem. Since the internet gives us the equivalent of monkeys at typewriters, we can use a search engine to elaborate each word with every successive repetition. In this case I have searched for single words from the poem and placed a word appearing near them in twitter search results after the initial word. Hard to explain, but easy to see. Let’s get exponential.

Exponential Sonnet

We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We can sliced tomatoes the bits watermelons
cucumbers into arse smiles good. We rock can
sleep sliced bread tomatoes growing the song
bits medley watermelons guess cucumbers growing
into magic arse needs smiles need good fights.
We did rock ring can shaggy sleep 4am
sliced new bread starve tomatoes
con-ass growing queer the tower song
my bits exchanged medley on watermelons
rain guess airspray cucumbers garten growing &
into time-wasting magic speaker arse out
needs cameras smiles go need millions good morning fights too.
We hope did Declaration? rock boat ring
or can lay shaggy traffic sleep for 4am && sliced
A+ new chapter bread plastic starve and/or
tomatoes eat con-ass like growing $$$
queer army the Russian tower glaring
song follows my customer bits
I’ve exchanged amigo medley
she on peaches watermelons now
rain finally guess …ok airspray thick
cucumbers hate garten gespannt growing
same & (space) into other time-wasting gone
magic 7-year-old speaker brandnew arse
army out my needs done cameras off smiles
Jane!!! go and need and millions want
good living morning trains fights overcome too many.

…that’s five repetitions. Were I to continue this project for all fourteen lines, we’d have an estimated 25 pages of material without line breaks. What makes this form great is that it allows viral language, the original poem and the writer to enter the work.

Each word gives you dozens of results each with dozens of new words to choose from. Should you choose to completely surrender to the form you can, though I’ve chosen to be particular by adding additional line breaks and choosing words I felt suited the poem.

Strictly speaking, intervention in this cacophony is unnecessary, but as control of size, diction and shape have been seized by other parts of the form, I feel the need to reassert some editorial control.

Nevertheless, there are certain elements and consequences beyond my control. For example, the German language enters the poem and I have no conception of how it works and can only rely on cognates. Had I continued with this experiment, I surely would’ve had to compose whole stanzas in pidgin German. Similarly, repeated phrases converge on the work due to similar word groups, causing unlikely themes (arse army/queer army) to appear.

Yet, I believe this process gets us the results we were looking for. Similar to Lucier’s work, we get uncontrolled cacophonies out of a single phrase that allow us to no longer hear just what was said.