F0NO7 // Joshua Beckman – Some Mechanical Poems To Be Read Aloud (print)


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Description

Some Mechanical Poems To Be Read Aloud read differently when read aloud by different people. The album is made from composites of multiple individuals reading the same work, so that the variants created by each reader can be heard extending and overlapping. In creating Some Mechanical Poems To Be Read Aloud Joshua Beckman traveled all over the U.S., introducing the project to different people from a multiplicity of backgrounds— some of whom were writers, some of whom were readers, and some of whom were neither of those things. Awash in disparate sounds, silences and modalities, the result is the innovation that is Some Mechanical Poems To Be Read Aloud.

The poems in Joshua Beckman’s Some Mechanical Poems To Be Read Aloud change every time they’re read, incorporating each reader’s own punctuation, intonation and vocality. No two readings are alike, with individualized meaning enacted by the reader.

The composite recordings in Some Mechanical Poems To Be Read Aloud were made and edited by Sara Roberts and recorded and engineered by Pauline Gloss.  Artistic layout and design by Megan Magnum/Words That Work. All recordings for the album were made in Los Angeles in February 2017, with the group recording made at Machine Project on February 22, 2017. 

Purchase of Some Mechanical Poems To Be Read Aloud includes a 6 x 9 envelope containing two chap pamphlets outlining how multiple readers can listen and read along at once, a how-to-read-these-poems insert, and a pamphlet listing the album’s tracklist and performance credits. Also included is a download card giving the listener access to the entire album. Some Mechanical Poems To Be Read Aloud can additionally be found digitally on Spotify.

About the Author

Joshua Beckman was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He is the author of a number of books, including The Lives of the Poems & Three Talks, The Inside of an Apple, Take It, Shake, Your Time Has Come, and Animal Days (due out January 2021). He is editor-in-chief at Wave Books and has translated multiple works of poetry, including Poker by Tomaž Šalamun and 5 Meters of Poems (translated with Alejandro de Acosta) by Carlos Oquendo de Amat. 

Sara Roberts has worked in many mediums and in all of them she finds the most labor-intensive aspect and luxuriates in it. At the time of these recordings she co-directed the Readers’ Chorus, a Los Angeles based group performing the sounds of language and reading. Besides sound work she has shown installation, sculpture, and ceramic work. She recently retired from CalArts, where for 25 years she taught interdisciplinary arts.

Track List

Side A

1. Candy Read (composite)

2. Goons Rule (composite)

3. The Head Eats (composite)

4. Joshua’s Explanation

5. Fixed Under Cut Knife (composite)

6. After Morning Oxidized (James Rushford)

7. Letters on Oratory Structure (Jen Hutton)

8. Fried In Righteous Sizzling Trance (Aaron Kunin)

9. Ice Flows Emptied (composite)

10. Bitten Right Or After (Joshua Beckman)

Side B

1. Story of Lost Afternoon (composite)

2. Trolling Here Entangled (Sara Roberts)

3. Ribbed Apricots (Joshua Beckman)

4. Fad Like Orange (composite)

5. Rats Under Sky (Pauline Gloss)

6. Steve Ordered Ray (composite)

7. Getting Earner Nod (composite)

8. “Against My Better Judgment”–Group Reading at Machine Project

9. Ick Flaws (Joshua Beckman)