[RCL]

Never mind. Found it: "Big Fish Eating Little Fish":

http://www.all-art.org/early_renaiss...uegel02-2.html

Ralph

[Martin Elster]

Originally Posted by Henry Quince

Here’s my ekphrastic take on John Cage’s 1951 composition 4'33".

Henry,

Your ekphrastic should be in three stanzas corresponding with Cage's three movements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E&NR=1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3

4′33″ (pronounced Four minutes, thirty-three seconds or, as the composer himself referred to it, Four, thirty-three[1]) is a three-movement composition[2][3] by American avant-garde composer John Cage (1912–1992). It was composed in 1952 for any instrument (or combination of instruments), and the score instructs the performer not to play the instrument during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements (the first being thirty seconds, the second being two minutes and twenty-three seconds, and the third being one minute and forty seconds). Although commonly perceived as "four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence",[4][5] the piece actually consists of the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed.[6] Over the years, 4′33″ became Cage's most famous and most controversial composition.[2]

Conceived around 1947–1948, while the composer was working on Sonatas and Interludes,[2] 4′33″ became for Cage the epitome of his idea that any sounds constitute, or may constitute, music.[7] It was also a reflection of the influence of Zen Buddhism, which Cage studied since the late forties. In a 1982 interview, and on numerous other occasions, Cage stated that 4′33″ was, in his opinion, his most important work.[8]

[Philip Quinlan]

How about Steve Reich's "8 Lines"?

This is line 1
This is line 1
This is line 1
This is line 1
This too is line 1
This too is line 1
This too is line 1
This too is line

[Henry Quince]

Martin, it IS in three stanzas. But it's hard, on the page, to distinguish the stanzas from the interstanzaic spacing. I expect Cage got up from the piano for a while, or something.

This is almost certainly MY most important work. You, the reader, become more intensely aware of all the ambient poetry or potential poetry outside the confines of the page or screen. It was published in "The Chimaera" Issue 4, without a recorded reading.

[Orwn Acra]

It's a cute idea, Henry, but it doesn't work for me because 4'33" is different every time you hear it. But on paper? It's the same patch of snow over and over again. I think it would work better if you covered an entire page with ink save a little blank spot somewhere. The space would go unchanged, but at least you'd focus on the beauty of the white that carves our letters.

It reminds me of this poem, by Eugen Gomringer:

silencio silencio silencio
silencio silencio silencio
silencio silencio silencio
silencio silencio silencio
silencio silencio silencio

[Henry Quince]

Well, Orwn, the point of 4'33" as I understand it was to have a "performance silence" in order to throw into relief all those ambient sounds that otherwise might not penetrate our awareness (a bit of a bold assumption, that). Cage didn't surround the silence with something manufactured by him; his idea was that people would hear whatever was around at the time. Similarly, you could take your laptop to the park or library and permit the splendid blankness of my poem to throw lots of varied visual stimuli into intriguing relief. I don't see why it's any sillier in principle than Cage's idea.

When are people going to start taking me seriously?

[Philip Quinlan]

Originally Posted by Henry Quince

When are people going to start taking me seriously?

Henry

Most anthologists seem to. Almost every Anthology I pick up has your poem in pride of place - before the title page.

You can't argue with that.

Norton has it with a misprint though. Movement 1, line 3 has a tab instead of spaces.

Philip

[Orwn Acra]

You're right, the ink idea isn't very accurate because it shouldn't be manufactured. But a white pixel is a white pixel is a white pixel and it's always the same no matter where one is reading it. The same with an un-inked stretch of paper. But silence is always different. Maybe you should have cut a hole in the page.

I'm not saying your idea is silly, it's just doesn't exactly parallel 4'33". You could try Rauschenberg's White Paintings.

[Martin Elster]

Originally Posted by Orwn Acra

I'm not saying your idea is silly, it's just doesn't exactly parallel 4'33". You could try Rauschenberg's White Paintings.

Actually, Cage was influenced by Rauschenberg's White Paintings:

Another cited influence[11] for this piece came from the field of the visual arts. Cage's friend and sometimes colleague Robert Rauschenberg had produced, in 1951, a series of white paintings, seemingly "blank" canvases (though painted with white house paint) that in fact change according to varying light conditions in the rooms in which they were hung, the shadows of people in the room and so on. This inspired Cage to use a similar idea, as he later stated, "Actually what pushed me into it was not guts but the example of Robert Rauschenberg. His white paintings… when I saw those, I said, 'Oh yes, I must. Otherwise I'm lagging, otherwise music is lagging'." Cage's musical equivalent to the Rauschenberg paintings uses the "silence" of the piece as an aural "blank canvas" to reflect the dynamic flux of ambient sounds surrounding each performance; the music of the piece is natural sounds of the players, the audience, the building, and the outside environment.

-- Wikipedia

I like your hole-in-the-page idea!

[Martin Elster]

http://solomonsmusic.net/4min33se.ht...urning%20Point