'Language of Presence' and Perceptual Meaning

소리시-'존재의 언어'와 지각적 의미

In its restricted sense, 'sound poetry' refers to the poetic performance that rejects words and verbal meaning and instead foregrounds the aural materiality of poetry. Behind this seeking for materiality lies a quest for a 'language of presence,' which operates through a denial of signification toward an ideal of the Adamic tongue, a purely emotional and universal language. In the same light, it is argued that sound poetry is a unique and unrepeatable event devoid of meaning due to its directness to the body allowing no intervention of intellectual and semiotic process. But language may involve perceptual meaning as well as verbal or conceptual meaning ascribed to words. This implies that even though devoid of conceptual meaning by means of using grammatically non-articulated sounds, sound poetry cannot but have meaning whose articulation is differently, i.e., iconically made about the aural features of the sounds. Perceptual meaning is unavoidable because everything we are conscious of is a reduced form, a repeatable pattern that works as a sign. 'Language of presence' is then actually impossible, and therefore sound poetry should be seen rather as a fest of diverse perceptual meanings.