Why do people reading poetry aloud stereotypically sound so sad? The term 'poet-voice' has recently gained currency to describe this vocal style, which is often cited - correctly - as a key characteristic of the spread of performance poetry in the 21st century. But this article shows that the roots of this style go back much further, and that to understand the contemporary aesthetics of poet-voice it is necessary to situate them in a genealogy that begins three centuries ago. I combine recent empirical analysis with insights from behavioural psychology on the one hand and critical theory on the other, in order to examine the affective stance that poet-voice projects and the historical structure behind it. That stance, I argue, is fundamentally one of uncontrol, and has to be understood as giving voice to a determinate set of hopes and anxieties concerning the control systems by which our contemporary moment has been shaped. The formation of poet-voice in its current technologically-mediated version is then explored via two case studies: first, the transitional instance of a BBC radio broadcast made by Yeats in 1931, and second, a YouTube video by Kae Tempest from 2011, showing how specific concerns around mediation, affect, and control have given the long-repeated cadences of poet-voice a new lease of life in the contemporary moment.

The meaning of an utterance can be conveyed by a number of prosodic cues, but their relative contribution is often unclear. We tested the interpretation of German questions as information-seeking (Exp...

Edith Wharton shows a sustained preoccupation with the material and gendered dimensions of transience in her fiction.  Following an initial discussion of the formative influence of Theodore Dreiser’s ...

This paper examines the relationship between solidarity and democracy. To this end, I distinguish between different logics of solidarity as they appear in contemporary democratic theory. More concrete...

Nonpartisanship has been a core element of U.S. local governments for over a century. Today, these institutions face a new challenge as polarization has grown more intense, intimate, and ideological. ...

The Open Book Collective is pleased to launch the third call for applications for funding from our Collective Development Fund. This document outlines the det…

Buckling of commercial models alongside maturing of community-led efforts promises major shifts, says Caroline Edwards

Poetry Film Festival in Vienna

In the last 30 years, a range of powerful arguments have pushed ethics in a utilitarian direction by invoking the principle of Outcome Anonymity, which holds that two outcomes are equally good if they...

We often feel duty-bound to grieve our loved ones after their deaths. But how can we owe grief (or anything) to those who are no longer alive? We propose that the duty to grieve the deceased is part o...

Voting occurs on Election Day. In the history of electoral democracy, this fact has been closely identified with the practice of elections. However, I argue the temporality of election time generates ...

This article spotlights H. L. Morrow as a significant adaptor of Brian O’Nolan’s writing for radio. As well as adapting Thirst as the half-hour television broadcast ‘After Hours’ for the BBC, Morrow a...

This article compares three medieval versions of the ‘Seven Sages of Rome’ narrative: the Latin Dolopathos (1184–1212) and Historia septem sapientum (1300–1342) and the Hebrew Mishle Sendebar (1100–12...

This paper explores how implicit, discriminatory messages bypass sanctions in the United Kingdom and beyond, despite their potential for significant societal harm. Drawing on linguistic and humour res...

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