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Six Weaknesses - 6. Seaside Elephant

from Speech Songs by Haworth Hodgkinson

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about

The second piece made in 2007 based on my own poetry was "Seaside Elephant". Whereas in "This Story" I had applied transformations to short fragments of the source, this time the transformations are applied uniformly to the whole poem. In 2010 I made five more pieces based on my own poems, in each case again applying the principle that all transformations were to be applied to the whole of the source recording. I arranged the pieces in order such that the voice becomes more distorted as the sequence progresses. In the first piece the text is fairly clearly audible, by the middle of the sequence the voice is still identifiable though the words may not be, and by the end the sound is hardly even recognisable as a human voice. This sequence results in the original 2007 piece appearing at the end.

lyrics

Seaside Elephant

On these shores
elephants are rare.
It must be the pebbles
they dislike.

But pictures of elephants
can be found in craft shops
everywhere.

I take a dozen small elephant pictures
and paste them to rocks along the tideline,
hoping their cousins will recognise
common spirit
and come to join them.

My camera is primed,
my microphone tuned
to the trumpeting frequencies.

I wait.

Perhaps I should have brought
buns as an extra lure.

Only at dusk,
as the sky fades,
am I rewarded for my patience.

Out of the dark sea
looms a large shape:
an enormous
picture
of an elephant.

© Haworth Hodgkinson
from A Weakness for Mermaids (Koo Press, 2007)

credits

from Speech Songs, released October 25, 2015
Music composed, performed and recorded by Haworth Hodgkinson, 2007/2010.

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about

Haworth Hodgkinson image

Haworth Hodgkinson Scotland, UK

Composer, improviser and sound artist based in Aberdeenshire and inspired by the landscapes of the North of Scotland. Solo performances often combine poetry with live music. Has worked on many collaborations with writers, dancers, actors, musicians and visual artists. ... more

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