You should become uptight: The nexus of the body and technology in the poetry of John Giorno
Robert Jones · European Journal of American Culture · 2017
Abstract Performance poet John Giorno began writing after he met William Burroughs and Brion Gysin in the mid-1960s. As such, the ideas pioneered by these two authors manifest directly in much of Giorno’s work. Giorno’s poem Suicide Sutra (print 1973 and two audio versions 1974 and 1975) brings together elements of the postwar American avant-garde in a text that focuses the reader’s attention on the body in ways that would reveal the transcendent ideals of somatic consciousness. This article explores the ways this poem transforms from a written text into one that more directly connects with the audience via the use of early vocal manipulation and tape looping technologies. In addition, this article will investigate how Giorno’s embrace of early synthesizer technology produced texts that envelope the reader and exploit the fissures in the body–mind continuum to connect with the audience.