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Poetry and the Deaf.

Aitch

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Is there a poetry for the deaf?

I can understand that someone who loses their hearing at an age when they have heard and read poetry would still be able to read 'ordinary' poetry and 'hear' it in their head.

But, in the case of someone born profoundly deaf? I'd guess that they can 'see' a rhyme (though not necessarily the ones the hearing do), but what about the rhythm? Do they just see it as prose laid out in a funny way?

Or is there some form of signed poetry? And how would rhyme work in such a form?

I've tried Googling this, and even written to the BBC program for the disabled (although, as it is a radio program, they probably don't cover much for the deaf) but got nowhere, so maybe someone here can help with this. Possibly because they are deaf, or because they work with the deaf. Or can someone point me at a source of info?

Thanks.
 
There is a form of poetry that by its very nature would of course be unique to Deaf Culture. It’s finger spelling a word in English, and at the same time that the word is being finger spelled (and taking small liberties in how the word is finger spelled) telling a story about the word being spelled in ASL.

Someone demonstrated this for me. He finger spelled the word ‘golf’ and at the same time told a brief story about how he hit a ball off a tee, and it was a fine shot.

I’m not that familiar with Deaf Culture so how common this is and who the intended audience usually is, I can’t say.

It was really cool seeing it done and sort of gratifying to realize that I knew enough sign to understand a story, albeit a very simple and brief one.

ETA: I love the internet. I found a video clip on line for this very word poem. The actor performs it along with two other word poems: 'baby' and 'swan'.

Here’s the link: It’s the 2nd video on the page.
http://blog.deafread.com/theark/

To better follow the video clip here’s a web page that shows the letters in finger spelling up close:

http://asl.ms/()/fingerspelledalphabet.htm

Anyway, back to the clip -- apparently the actor calls it “word stories”, not "word poems", but IRL I had been told it’s a form of poetry.

{Shrug} Looks pretty poetical to me! :)

Off topic, but take a look at the 3rd video too. He’s not speaking or signing in this one, but its very easy to tell what his story is about. Good demonstration of how expressive excellent ASL signers can be.

Also take a look at the first clip. I don’t know enough ASL to know what this poem is about, but still, I think most people would guess correctly as to when his intro ends and his poem recitation starts.
 
Thanks to everyone in this thread for it and for the links! Really interesting!
 
Gurdur said:
Thanks to everyone in this thread for it and for the links! Really interesting!
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Oi! I'm supposed to say that :D; which I do, and may possibly repeat when I have digested the contents of the links.
 
Aitch said:
Oi! I'm supposed to say that :D; which I do, ...
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No, I do, or at least, I do too. I have a small interest in Deaf culture (actually those linked are only around one fifth of my books on it, I'm still slowly indexing them all), even though I have been out of the field and loop for a while, and this thread had info very new to me, and it's quite fascinating on its own account. I'm not deaf at all myself, but I've worked a little on the linguistics and also on the audiology side (cochlear implant etc.).
 
Aitch said:
Or is there some form of signed poetry? And how would rhyme work in such a form?
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* Yes
* Much poetry, and even entire poetic traditions like Anglo-Saxon, are not based on rhyme.
 
Aitch said:
And a heck of a lot is; so what's your point?
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The point is: Rhyme is not essential to poetry. Something you might know already, but you did raise the question.

A YouTube search for (ASL poem) returns over 100 results, including this one which is kind of accessible.


It translates something like this (Apologies, it's been 15 years since I had anything to do with sign language, and that was brief):

(I imagine?)
Flowers blooming
White, expanding
Beautiful white blooming flowers
(and I am?) happy
 
I saw a video once of a beautiful ASL poem, which, I believe, was about flowers. Not the one linked above, though... this one actually looked almost like an interpretive dance. My powers of Google have not found it for me, though. :(

I did, however, find this page, which gives detailed information about sign language phonology and how it can be used to create rhythm and rhyme in signed poems.
 
I've emailed this thread to my girlfriend, who is Deaf and active in Deaf culture. She has shown me ASL poetry before, but I don't know much about it.

I'm sorry to ask an off-topic question, but are there any Deaf skeptics in this forum?

~ggep~
 
Hmm, Deaf with a capital 'D' as opposed to just deaf? I doubt it goodguy.

There's been a few threads in the past about sign language and I think it would have come up if that were the case.

As for myself I was born hard of hearing and now, in layman terms, I am about as hard of hearing as one can get without being officially labeled deaf by an audiologist.

I just decided to start trying to learn ASL again and am enjoying it. I have tried before in the past when I didn't really have the time to give to it, and as you can imagine, that didn't work out well.

ETA: Just want to add my thanks for all the fabulous links here. I"m still exploring them.
 
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goodguyseatpie said:
... I'm sorry to ask an off-topic question, but are there any Deaf skeptics in this forum?
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I'm a skeptic; I am not deaf at all, and while I have been involved on the outer outer outer outskirts of the Deaf culture (linguistics, culture, etc.), I can't claim to be in it, and I haven't been involved for years.

I do know of one guy, an atheist and skeptic, who used to run a board himself, who was totally deaf; but I gathered he wasn't into the Deaf culture so much, and in any case, he seems to have vanished a fair bit from the net overall.
 
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