Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education
“I Am The Book”—Deaf Poets’ Views on Signed Poetry
Rachel Sutton-Spence*, Ronice Müller de Quadros
Federal University of Santa Catarina
Received February 7, 2014; revisions received May 13, 2014; accepted June 23, 2014
Despite research commenting on and analyzing signed
poetry, there is little research exploring the aims and intentions of the signing poets. This paper considers the producers
of signed poetry, rather than their products. Using material
gathered from interviews with three established signing deaf
poets, we consider what they hope to achieve when they perform their poetry, including who they aim their work at, and
how their perceived audiences influence their performances.
This allows us to understand more clearly what challenges
audiences face when trying to understand the poetry and how
the poets can help audiences meet those challenges. We find
that signing poets understand how deaf audiences have been
conditioned to respond to poetry, and create connections
between themselves and deaf audiences by using the shared
specific cultural and linguistic experiences of deaf people.
Although deaf audiences are their ultimate preferred audiences, poets welcome hearing audiences, especially if their
engagement with the poetry leads to increased understanding
of Deaf culture or encourages them to learn sign language.
The close, embodied relationship between the poet, poem,
and audience makes them inseparable. Written poetry may be
abstracted and contained in a book; in contrast, the signing
poet is, in effect, the book.
Paul Scott’s (2010b) radical British Sign Language
(BSL) poem “Two books” tells a brief story of a woman
in an airport book shop who browses the shelves before
buying an epic novel of love and loss, and a travel book
about France. This may not appear to be particularly
radical, but in Paul’s poetic world, the books use sign
language to communicate directly and visually to the
deaf woman in her own language. The poem shows
how the deaf poet sees his role in relationship to his
audience, as he presents poems directly and personally
in a way that deaf audiences have been conditioned to
*Correspondence should be sent to Rachel Sutton-Spence, Universidade
Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão - Prédio
A - sala 137, Campus Universitário - Trindade, Florianópolis, SC 88040–
900, Brazil (e-mail: [email protected]).
understand. Paul explained that hearing people who
want to read a poem can take a book from the shelf and
read it. He went on to say “For deaf people, I am the
book.”
The research reported here, inspired by Paul’s
poem, is an exploratory pilot into the aims and intentions of signing deaf poets—an area that has so far
received very little attention.1 It forms part of a
broader investigation into the promotion of signed literature within deaf and hearing communities, to find
what barriers exist to this promotion and how spoken language interpretation can advance it. We report
on the views of three experienced signing deaf poets
about their aims when they compose and perform
signed poetry, considering who they understand their
audiences to be, what effect they want to have on the
audience, and how they achieve it. These questions
advance our understanding of signed poetry in general
and allowed us to explore their perspectives on spoken
interpretation of their performances.
Much existing work on signed poetry has involved
analysis of the products (see, as some among many examples on signed poetry across Europe and the Americas,
Blondel & Miller, 2000; Christie & Wilkins, 2007;
Crasborn, 2006; Machado, 2013; Russo, Giuranna, &
Pizzuto, 2001; Taub, 2001) and some on process (West &
Sutton-Spence, 2012), but very little has been done on the
producers and consumers of the sign language poetry—
the poets and audience. It is these groups that we consider
here in order to understand the practical significance of
authorial intention for the implications of relationships
between poets and their different audiences during live
and recorded performances and to guide the professional
work of interpreters of signed poetry. In previous work
(Sutton-Spence & Quadros, 2014), we have considered
© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
For Permissions, please email: [email protected]
doi:10.1093/deafed/enu020
Advance Access publication August 6, 2014
JoDeaf Poets’ Views on Signed Poetry 547
hearing nonsigners’ views about spoken language interpretation of signed poetry, as they are consumers of the
“product” of interpretation (Janzen, 2005; Nilsson, 2010).
However, the signing poets are also consumers of interpretation. Until we understand what signing poets want
and intend, we cannot know how they can achieve their
intentions, including how best to interpret their poems
into spoken language.
We find that the poets see signed poetry as primarily a linguistic and cultural act for deaf audiences and
that they use a range of approaches to ensure deaf audiences understand the language used and the meaning
of the poem. However, we also see that hearing audiences may be part of the poetic act if they understand
sign language, although all hearing people (signers and
nonsigners) are expected to understand the content
differently from deaf audiences because of their different life experiences. For those hearing people who cannot sign, the poets express clear views of the culturally
appropriate ways to allow access to the poetry. In this
way, they may also learn to see the poet as “the book.”
Review of Literature
Current research and commentary on signed poetry
has focused primarily on the text, performance, and
significance of the poetry rather than the relationship
between signing deaf poets and their audiences. In this
section we contextualize our research within the current situation of sign language poetry and research into
it. We then review research on relationships between
poets and audiences in performances of oral poetry, as
settings that have more in common with signed performances than written poems, to see how they might
inform our preliminary investigations into signed
poetry. Especially we consider what makes poems “difficult” for audiences and readers of spoken language
poetry so that we can understand how sign language
poets perceive these difficulties and work with them.
Context of Signed Poetry
Signed poetry is an art form gaining increasing recognition within Deaf communities and among hearing people who are not part of the Deaf community but who
appreciate the experience of this visual poetry (Bauman,
1998; Eddy, 2002; Souza, 2009 inter alia). It has been
recognized and promoted by academics, artists, and poets
in the United States for several decades. Nathan-Lerner
and Feigel’s (2009) detailed and wide-ranging documentary examines the roots and developments of the
American Sign Language (ASL) poetry “explosion” of
the 1980s and early 1990s, as it was fostered by academic
institutions such as the National Technical Institute for
the Deaf at Rochester, NY and Gallaudet University in
Washington DC, and by other poetry organizations such
as “Writers and Books” in Rochester. Academically, ASL
poetry has long been a focus of study by both deaf and
hearing researchers (e.g., Bauman, Nelson, & Rose, 2006;
Klima & Bellugi, 1979; Taub, 2001; Valli, 1993; Wilcox,
2000). However, in most countries (including Brazil and
Britain, whose sign languages we focus on here), sign
language poetry has not had the same long-standing or
institutional support. Despite this, signed poetry outside
the United States has also recently enjoyed rapid growth
and recognition, fuelled by increased academic interest, funding from outside sources, and developments in
technology (see, e.g., Kaneko & Mesch, 2013; Machado,
2013; Mourão, 2011; Sutton-Spence, 2012; SuttonSpence & Quadros, 2005).
Seen from almost any perspective, signed poetry is
a political activity (Christie & Wilkins, 2007). Leaders
in the Deaf community often encourage other community members to resist the passivity that they have
learned as a way to survive the difficulties in the hearing world (Kelstone, 2012; Ladd, 2003) and poetry
can be an effective way to achieve this. Signed poetry
is a way of empowering deaf poets and deaf audiences
(Miles, 1998) through its messages, through the use of
language, through the complex construction (jointly
achieved by poets and audiences) of deaf audiences as
participants in the poetry, and through the inclusion
or exclusion of hearing audiences in the acts of signed
poetry (Sutton-Spence & Quadros, 2014).
Traditional signed art forms have been directed at
deaf people who bring their own conditioned expectations to the performances. Bahan (2006) mentions an
elderly deaf storyteller who knew what to expect of his
deaf audience and they of him, saying, “It was as if the
audience was in him and he was in the audience” (2006,
44). However, deaf poets need to work within a community whose members are not natural consumers of
signed poetry. Many deaf people we have talked to have
548 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 19:4 October 2014
been uncertain about signed poetry, having had only
limited experiences of it and bad experiences of written poetry at school (see also Nathan-Lerner & Feigel,
2009, for personal accounts by signing poets Clayton
Valli and Patrick Graybill). Additionally, not everyone
naturally enjoys the challenge of poetry. Yang Ye (1996)
quotes Arthur Waley’s observation that “ordinary people in England have very little use for abstractions and
when poetry, under the influence of higher education,
becomes abstract, it bores them” (132). One British deaf
man2 showed clearly how deaf audiences’ conditioning
influences their response to signed poetry when he said:
You first see it [signed poetry] at an arts festival
maybe or drama festival. You watch it and it goes
over your head. You ask your neighbour, “What’s
all that about? Are they having me on? Get it off.
I’m not interested”. I’d rather have sign stories. If
you gave me the same script in story or poetry format I’d take the story. It’s immediately clear. But
people who like poetry and start to learn about it
appreciate the challenge, for example, of the structure—like handshape and how it fits in, so they’re
interested in that; in its depth. There are a few
people like that. Most people like stories. But some
poems can really knock your socks off—they’re
beautiful. Then you realise you have no idea what
it means and ask to watch it again. It looks great but
you don’t understand it. Watch it again and maybe
you understand. But you get a story straight away.
However, when deaf audiences are introduced to signed
poetry with explanations of how to engage with it, there
is frequently a strong affinity between deaf audiences
and signed poems. Arenson and Kretschmer (2010,
113) introduced ASL poetry to deaf students in literature classes and found that:
Student responses [to an ASL poem] indicate that
they connected deeply with the message of the
poem. For example, four students […] wrote reactions to the poem that provided personal stories
echoing the poem’s themes of loneliness, boredom,
the feeling of being ignored, and the failure of others to communicate.
Additionally, when the deaf students were asked to
“choose a poem that they could connect to their personal experience […] all six students chose to write
responses about particular ASL poems rather than
written-English poems.” (2010, 112)
Signed poems have long been performed informally at Deaf Associations, parties, or other gatherings such as weddings and funerals (Hall, 1989; Peters,
2000; Rutherford, 1993), but there are also formal
poetry performances where poetry is the focus of the
gathering. In all these “live” situations, the poetry performance is a single, transitory event, with an identifiable, known audience. On the other hand, poetry is also
increasingly available through digital media, either on
DVD or on the Internet (Schallenberger, 2010). Such
performances can be watched repeatedly and the audience is unknown. Audiences may be deaf or hearing,
and anywhere in the world, so that they may not know
the national sign language of the poet, and clearly this
impacts on the relationship between poet and audience.
Machado (a poet and academic scholar, who was also
one of our informants for this research) observed:
A deaf poet knows what elements are needed for
a performance in different spaces, such as, for
example, the distinction between a public performance where there is a strong and direct link with
the audience and a performance on video. Thus it
should be noted that deaf actors are aware of the
techniques and adaptations needed according to
the specific spaces where the performance occurs’
(Machado, 2013, 43, Translation ours)3
Recording signed poetry on video has many advantages,
allowing it to become better recognized and more commoditized (Krentz, 2006), so signing poets can receive
advice, support, and status from a much wider range of
people, including hearing people who might not access
the poetry otherwise. At a financial level, interest in
signed poetry from larger numbers of people means
increased ticket sales for signed poetry performances,
more people paying to take workshops in signed poetry
and larger sales of recorded poetry. The comparative
sizes and wealth of deaf and hearing communities,
however, mean that significant money comes from
hearing people, and this type of audience may change
the dynamics of the poetic event. Krentz (2006) notes
a fear that if more hearing people learn about sign language poetry, they will come to dominate it, phrasing
the problem as “a curious predicament where they
JoDeaf Poets’ Views on Signed Poetry 549
are simultaneously gaining political power and losing
some command over their cultural artefacts” (Krentz,
2006, 68). Bahan (2006) has also noted that mixed audiences can change the nature of a signed performance
if performers find themselves altering their signing so
that hearing audience members or the interpreters can
understand them. Additionally, he notes that performers may feel they either need to omit any negative reference to hearing people that they might make freely
to an all-deaf audience, or continue with the negative
references and have to deal with any hostile reactions.
The context of signed poetry, then, shows that the
relationship between poets, poems, and audiences is
complex and changing and needs further investigation.
In the absence of much research relating to the relationship of poet, poem, and audience in sign language,
we will review here work on spoken language poetry.
Poets, Poems, and Audiences
It is widely understood that a poem arises from the
joint participation of poet and audience (Clay, 2010;
Novak, 2012; Shetley, 1993), so our study of the intentions and needs of deaf poets and their audiences can
be understood within a more general context of performance poetry and interactions between poets, their
poems, and their audiences.
Formalist commentators have considered authorial intention of little importance or even irrelevant to
the appreciation of poetry, especially as it is frequently
impossible to ascertain the poet’s motivations in written works. However, we consider intention to be as
important as close-reading or any other approaches to
the appreciation of signed poetry. Unwritten poetry
creates a stronger relationship between poet and poem
(and audience) than written poetry does, so that the
aims and intentions of the poet-performer are considerably more relevant to understanding the effects of the
work (Novak, 2012). This is especially true for poets
who are seen to represent many minority social groups
(Boudreau, 2009), and in sign language poetry, the
sense of identity of the deaf poet is crucial to appreciating performances (Clark, 2006; Krentz, 2006).
There is no doubt that the relationship between
poet and audience is stronger when poetry is performed
live. Recent decades have seen a return to poetry
performances, so that performed spoken poetry such
as that at Slam events and other forms of spoken word
artistry are now established poetic forms (Boudreau,
2009), increasingly recognized by critics and researchers. Novak (2012, 358) observes, “oral performance [is]
a basic manifestation of the art of poetry rather than a
mere presentation of an essentially written text.” She
continues (2010, 362) saying that “›text,‹[…], cannot
be divided off from the physicality of the performer or
the presence of an audience.” This applies equally as
well to signed poetry performances (Rose, 2006).
In Slam poetry, the focus is often on the emotional
content and impact of the poem. Slam poets frequently
come from less socially powerful minority groups, and
have political points to make and strong emotions to
express (Boudreau, 2009). In the intensely emotive
performance environment, audiences usually attribute the words and beliefs expressed in the poem to the
poet-performer. Although there are many differences
between signed poetry performances and slam poetry
(signed slam performances notwithstanding) signing
poets are also seen to “represent” a minority community group, and their deaf audiences often expect their
poetry to represent their beliefs and experiences.
Difficulty in Poetic Texts and Performances
Different audiences will respond differently to poetic
work, especially to the challenges it poses. Shetley (1993)
develops the argument that “difficult” poetic texts may
not be inherently difficult, but rather are the result of the
relationship between text and reader, as readers are trained
or conditioned to read and interpret poems in a particular way. Thus, difficult poems are the ones that challenge
readers to engage differently from ways they have come
to expect. Given the potentially different conditioning of
deaf and hearing audiences, poets’ aspirations for their
audiences will relate to their perceptions of these difficulties. Hearing audiences will have been exposed to some
written or spoken poetry in school, so they can apply their
previous conditioning about poetry to signed poetry; many
deaf audiences are unlikely to bring much previous formal
understanding of poetry at all. For example, most deaf
children do not learn to read using sign language at school
and they very rarely learn about different signed productions as part of the process of developing literacy skills in
550 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 19:4 October 2014
sign language (Arenson & Kretschmer, 2010). In the past
in the United States, some deaf teachers have brought
signed translations of written poetry into the classroom
(Clark 2009; Lang, 2007), but this has been extremely rare
in Brazil and the United Kingdom. Audience experience
of poetry must be complemented, however, with other
knowledge that they bring to a poetic event.
Conditioning to poetry allows us to engage with
“difficult” poetry of various types. Steiner (1978, cited
in Meckler, 2007) proposes that “contingent” difficulty
can arise when understanding (and enjoyment) is contingent upon knowing cultural references and facts external
to the poem. Poetic, cultural, and social allusions might
create contingent difficulty (or “obscurity” following
Shetley 1993) in any poem. “Modal difficulty” arises
when audiences fail to appreciate the poem because of
their personal attitudes to the form or subject matter of
a poem. “Tactical” difficulties are created when poets
choose forms of language that are unusual or metaphors
that need resolving. Poets need to know how their audiences are prepared to deal with these tactical difficulties.
Signing poets and their audiences work with these
difficulties in the specific context of a deaf environment,
where deaf and hearing audiences often bring different
cultural knowledge (or lack of it) to different poems to
resolve contingent difficulties. We will see how the deaf
poets manage the tension in their audiences between
frustration at not understanding tactical difficulties and
satisfaction at resolving the riddle set by the poem. Many
deaf people experience modal difficulty in relation to any
poetry because they have struggled for years with feelings of alienation towards spoken language poetry and
deaf poets must overcome this resistance. However,
modal difficulty also occurs in signed poetry where poets
may present uncomfortable “truths” to challenge their
audiences (possibly challenging deaf and hearing audiences differently) and the poet must keep them engaged.
Research Method
Our Informants
In a field where there has hitherto been so little exploration, our study here draws upon information we
were given during interviews with three experienced,
widely respected signing deaf poets. All three have formally studied linguistic and literary analysis of signed
literature and poetry at Master’s level (see Machado,
2013; Mourão, 2011) and are fluent signers who identify strongly with their Deaf communities. We are well
aware that discussion with three poets is not enough
to identify a full range of patterns and themes concerning the producers and consumers of their poems,
and we would no more claim these particular views
are representative of the population of deaf poets
than anyone could claim that the observations of three
established and widely respected hearing poets represent all hearing poets. However, they are the views of
highly articulate, experienced, and influential poets in
their communities, who have reflected analytically on
their work.
We interviewed the poets Claúdio (“Cacau”)
Mourão and Fernanda Machado, two Brazilian deaf
poets (who compose and perform in Brazilian Sign
Language, Libras) and Paul Scott, a British deaf poet
(who composes and performs in BSL). Paul was born
to deaf parents and has deaf siblings, and Cacau and
Fernanda were born to hearing parents, which will also
influence their relationship with signed and spoken
language and poetry. Readers should bear in mind these
characteristics as they read the poets’ insights that we
present.
The selection of these poets was clearly one of “convenience sampling.” Over the years, we have developed
friendly professional relationships with all three poets
and this will have influenced what they were willing to
share with us. We present our interpretation of what
they told us in the light of this. Interviews took place
in Brazil during September and October 2013, taking
advantage of Paul’s visit from the United Kingdom to
teach and perform there.
Our Questions
We interviewed the poets individually, using BSL with
Paul and Libras with Cacau and Fernanda. We asked
them what they hope to achieve by performing their
poetry, who they aim their work at, and what their priorities are for interpretation. We used an open-ended,
flexible interview protocol, with the semi-structured
nature of the interviews allowing the poets to pursue aspects of the topic as suited their experiences
and allowing us to adjust our questions to probe their
JoDeaf Poets’ Views on Signed Poetry 551
responses and deepen our understanding (Ritchie &
Lewis, 2003).
We had already discussed signed poetry and its
interpretation with them informally, outside the interview situation, so the interviews were more formal
extensions of our previous discussions, allowing them
to develop and expand on their ideas—with the added
advantage that they were directly to camera so we could
record what they said. They gave us permission to use
these recordings in this study and to identify them
using their real names.
Following the interviews, we translated their
answers into English (as this was the language for
publication of our findings), using ELAN software
to maintain the connection between the signing and
translation. Analysis was done through repeated viewing of the interviews, repeated reading of the translations, coding, and categorizing thematically within and
across the interviews (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
Our Approach
Our research is conducted within a qualitative paradigm that gives a “voice” to people. In this research, the
data collected take the form of words that can be analyzed and interpreted via a number of different means
(Braun & Clarke, 2013). We paid particular attention
to the way that the poets explained their work to us,
focusing on the form of the signs they used, as well as
the meaning as we translated them into English for the
purposes of reporting. As this is a small-scale inquiry
in an underexplored area, we do not simply report on a
set of “facts” but also aim to reveal the experience and
thoughts of the poets (Coleman & Briggs, 2002). We
conducted a member check (Lincoln & Guba, 1985)
with the poets, revisiting with them their comments,
and our interpretation of the comments so we hope
that our findings are trustworthy. Paul was shown an
advanced draft of our work in English (his written language) although he declined an offer to discuss it further in BSL. Fernanda and Cacau had the opportunity
to read it in Portuguese translation and we discussed it
in Libras with Fernanda.
Although we are always interested in instances
where all our informants agreed on a point, we also want
to see variety of opinion and experience that show the
diversity and complexity of the poets’ views. We are not
seeking to provide generalizable, transferable findings
and are aware of signing poets who may hold other views
on the matters discussed here, but (or “so”) we present
observations that we hope other poets and audiences will
find recognizable. Certainly, as a form of triangulation,
when we presented our findings to the poets they recognized the remarks of the other poets we interviewed. We
have also found support for our observations in the limited research literature on audience responses to signed
poetry (Arenson & Kretschmer, 2010; Lang, 2007).
Panara (1979) acknowledged the inextricable connection
between poet and poem in a signed performance when
he wrote about teaching poetry to deaf people saying,
“Let the Student be the Poem!” This shows a similar
view to Paul in respect to a signing poet being the book.
Additionally, as we are familiar with much of the poetic
work of the three poets, we were often able to see evidence of what they claimed in their poems.
Results
The poets’ observations and comments gave us a clear
understanding of the variety of possible ways that deaf
poets, signed poems and audiences inter-relate. We
outline here some of different things deaf poets try
to achieve when they perform, how they see the types
of audience they perform for, and how their aims and
audiences can impact on their performances.
What Do the Poets Want to Achieve When They
Perform?
We began by asking each poet what they hope to achieve
when they perform their poetry, so that we could
understand their aims particularly in relation to how
they relate to their audiences. Unsurprisingly, we got
different answers from the three poets, but emotion,
aesthetics, and meaning were three key areas that arose.
Cacau explained that at some level, creating signed
poetry was simply a personal challenge, but beyond
that, his poetry has many objectives. He wants to convey
strong emotions and create them in his audience; where
his poems carry hidden meaning such as “political meaning about oppression” he finds it rewarding when his
audiences are able to uncover these hidden meanings; he
also likes to unsettle them and feels his work is successful
552 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 19:4 October 2014
“if it makes them think about things so it makes them a
little uncomfortable”; and he privileges aspects of sign
language within the poem “so there is something in the
way of signing” to challenge the audience.
Fernanda emphasized the aesthetics of her poetry
as a way to create strong emotions within her audiences.
Although focus on the aesthetics and emotion created
by language were her priorities, she commented that
behind the aesthetics and emotions lay the metaphors
and meaning of the poems.
Paul’s stated aims were more political and he
explained that his priority was often for audiences to see
and respect his point of view in relation to deaf identity
or deaf experiences, even if they have different views.
Respecting that other poets may prioritize the form
of language, and acknowledging that he does consider
choice of language important, he said “I want to ask for
more depth” and is more inclined to create confrontational poetry even if it could create feelings of conflict.
Understanding that all these aims are part of what
we call “signed poetry,” we turn to how the poets can
achieve them with their audiences and how they deal
with difficulties (contingent, modal, and tactical) that
arise in their audiences.
Who Is the Audience?
Although signed poetry has traditionally been performed to deaf audiences, it has embraced new traditions and it was clear that the poets’ target audiences
varied depending on a range of factors. When we asked
“who is your audience?” their answers fell into the categories of “nobody,” “everybody,” “deaf audiences,”
and “hearing audiences.”
Nobody. There are times when the poets might not
consider the audience to be their priority because their
focus is more on the poem. When performing to camera
to put a recording on the Internet, for example, Cacau
admitted that, sometimes, “I don’t really think about
the audience when I perform.” When the poetry takes
priority even in a live performance, Paul, too, expressed
a view that the audience can be irrelevant, “It’s like
a blank wall in front of me and I can’t see what I am
signing to. As far as I am concerned there could be
nobody out there.”
Everybody. For the most part, however, poets do
consider audiences in relation to their work. Despite
the fears mentioned by Krentz (2006) and Bahan
(2006) that poets might feel the need to change their
filmed performances because they have no control
over who will watch them, our interviewees did not
give us this impression. Cacau said simply that his
poetry performances available on the Internet are
“open to everyone - It doesn’t matter if they are deaf
or hearing.” Paul also made it clear that poems can be
for everybody because a poet has no control over the
consumer of their work, and he made no concessions to
that in relation to the audiences or possible difficulties
in the poems. He said:
In a bookshop, all those books were written for anyone to read and I feel the same about performing a
signed poem. […] if you take a book from the shelf
– who is that poem for? If I don’t understand one
maybe I’ll get another book that I do understand.
If you watch a poem and don’t understand it, that’s
too bad. That sounds tough but there it is. Sorry.
Generally, the audiological/cultural status of an audience was considered less important than the need for
people to know the contingent information necessary to
access the poetry. When asked about the perfect audience member, Paul said
If that person knows everything about Deaf culture,
deaf linguistics, meaning, understands my perspective, the conflicts of culture and they understand
all of that – that’s the perfect person. [Deaf or
Hearing] It doesn’t matter
Fernanda, too, listing the characteristics of the ideal
audience member, did not refer to whether they need
be deaf or not, but simply suggested that they would
“already know literature and also that they know Deaf
culture - so the context of that, and they also should
know about poetry beforehand.”
Deaf audiences. Although the poets perform to
members of the general public, there is no doubt that
deaf audiences are the focus of the poets’ work, where
the linguistic and cultural bond is strongest. Paul said,
“I really want deaf audiences” and Cacau said, “Very
deeply within me and close to my heart I want to aim it
JoDeaf Poets’ Views on Signed Poetry 553
at deaf people.” In a single sign, he expressed the depth
and strength of his wishes for this, and how the deaf
audience was so close to his core being. He repeated,
“My poetry is for them, very deeply within me.” He
noted that hearing people have shelves of written
poetry but deaf people have not, so his poetry helps to
redress the balance.
All this can be seen as signed poetry offering
opportunities to overcome the modal difficulties of
deaf people’s attitudes signed poetry after years of
alienation from written poetry. Cacau specifically wants
to encourage deaf people, including deaf children, to
create their own poetry, saying, “maybe they think it’s
a hearing person’s thing but I’d say ‘no, there are deaf
people involved’.”
The “tactical” difficulties of understanding the
unusual poetic language created because many deaf
people are unfamiliar with poetry in any language, mean
that producing poetry that is accessible to deaf people is
extremely important for the poets. Paul remarked:
I take [a poetry book] down from the shelf and start
to read it and I don’t understand it. Maybe it’s
beautiful with lovely words all musically arranged
on the page. I read ‘blah blah blah’ and hearing people will see the metaphors and the figurative language and so on but I look at it and it doesn’t make
sense to me. Hearing people understand it and deaf
people don’t.
Thus, he took some satisfaction in the reversal of the
situation with signed poetry when he said, “Now I sign
my poetry and deaf people get it and hearing people
watch and don’t understand … .”
For hearing audiences. Paul noted that his signed
poetry comes with a “deaf view,” and although he
does not deliberately exclude hearing people he makes
no special effort to help them overcome contingent
or tactical difficulties so they can learn from sharing
the experience of many deaf people who often do not
have full access to information. This may create extra
difficulties in understanding for those hearing people
not conditioned to ways of engaging with deaf poetry,
but with persistence they can learn.
Cacau remarked “Poetry isn’t just for deaf people.
Hearing interpreters can create their own, too” and he
observed that performances as part of workshops can
also help hearing people understand about signed literature: “I didn’t teach them how to do signed poetry
… - I just explained to them what deaf literature is.”
Thus, we see him working to provide the context the
new audiences need to appreciate the poetry.
Fernanda was inclined to prioritize her poems over
the make up of the audience, so the presence or otherwise of hearing people did not necessarily influence
her poetry, although she allowed that tactical difficulties of language understanding could be helped by an
interpreter:
… the most important thing is my performance of
the poetry; then, secondly, asking people what they
want and if they already enjoy the signing, then
they know if they will enjoy the poetry and we can
discuss that; and thirdly if we have the [hearing]
audience we can call an interpreter.
Understanding the Language and Cultural
Messages in a Poem
The form and content of signed poetry vary greatly,
and readers are warmly invited to watch the recorded
performances of these three poets to see the variety of
their work. Despite the variety, there was clear agreement among the poets that audiences need to understand both the language and culture that go to make up
signed poetry. Failure to do so will create contingent
and tactical difficulties.
Cacau said, passionately, that his signed poetry
shows his audiences: “this is my domain, this is my
language, this is my Deaf community, this is my Deaf
culture, this is my whole deaf being.” Audiences who
do not understand this will not understand the poem
to its fullest.
Language and culture in poems for deaf audiences. The
language used in signed poetry is an integral part of
the art form and one that the poets take special care of
in relation to their deaf audiences. Many deaf people
have never been able to master the written language
of surrounding society, no matter how hard they try,
but a signing poet knows the audience will understand
sign language and can build on that to expand their
horizons and enjoy the poetry while they do. Thus, for
554 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 19:4 October 2014
deaf audiences where the experience of engaging with
signed poetry is new, it forms part of a new kind of
sign literacy process.
Fernanda summed up the importance of sign language for deaf audiences, specifically because the aesthetics behind the way she composes and performs
her work are her priority. She said: “It’s mostly about
perception of the aesthetics because some poetic words
create emotional effects.” She uses sign language to
create this emotion:
…there are many visual images they can see. We connect with what is expressed in the signs because the
audience and I are the same… First I take the feelings and convert them [into poetry] and then I give
them to the people in the audience.’ … ‘[The emotion] comes from language itself so that is where the
emotion comes from - from intently watching the
language as [the audience] take it into themselves. It
creates the emotion, because it is my language.
The poets’ experiences of Deaf culture and the Deaf
community, and their heritage of working in a nonliterate tradition, mean they are able and willing to change
their performances in a way that might be considered
alien to a literate audience that expects a poem to have
a fixed text, no matter who the audience might be.
Fernanda remarked that she always knows from the
gaze of the audience if she has lost their understanding
and will work to regain it. Cacau said that he will ask
about the nature of the deaf audience before a performance so he can tailor it to them. Where deaf people
from smaller communities are less confident and need
encouragement to engage with the poetry, he said, “I
will sign very clearly … So that’s aimed at them.”
Despite deaf audiences lacking formal knowledge
of how to access and appreciate signed poetry, there is a
deeply felt conviction among the poets that deaf audiences will understand the language used in the poem
and the ideas behind the poetry. Cacau explained that
they are more likely to understand his poetry simply
because he and they are deaf and they have the cultural
knowledge contingent to permit the understanding of
the poem. However, their abilities to access the poetry
behind the language can vary:
There are some who will understand; there are
some who will think about it and be a bit puzzled;
and there are some who won’t understand a thing.
So they are all very different but, in general, deaf
people will understand what I am signing.
If deaf audiences don’t understand the poems, the poets
expect them to take a culturally deaf approach of asking each other for help. This tactic of asking others for
help began in school for many deaf people when teachers were unable to communicate with them and instead
they relied on class members who did understand to
explain (Ladd, 2003). Paul was firm in his observation:
I’m sure they’ll think [in an interested, thoughtful
way] “What does that mean?’ and they will ask each
other what it means and discuss it until they understand “Ah, that’s what he’s talking about”. I’m sure.
The poets, aware their audiences may have limited
literacy in signed poetry, may also ask the audiences
directly if they understand and explain if they do not.
Fernanda sees this as an essential part of the connection
between the poet and audience:
… not all of them understand everything, like the
rules, the strategies and the aesthetics. I want a person to come to me and I can ask, “What did you
understand of that?” Some people will come and
we can chat about it; others won’t, but just applaud
it. I want them to understand. So if I think they
don’t understand I will ask them questions. At the
end I will ask them. When they reply they might
only understand it a bit. Some of them can do it
and some of them can’t. So I like to check at the end
if they understand. If I think they don’t understand
I ask them about it, because it’s not just for me, and
when they reply to show they understand I feel we
have connected and we now think in the same way.
Cacau, on the other hand, often leaves it up to audience
members to ask for an explanation if they want one.
He said, “if they come to me and ask I will explain it
to them but if they don’t ask, I’ll say nothing and leave
it to them.”
Poems for hearing audiences. Signed poetry occurs,
almost by definition, within “deaf space.” As
Schallenberger (2010, 20) has observed (in relation to
signed jokes), “the fact that they are signed therefore
JoDeaf Poets’ Views on Signed Poetry 555
means they are in a visual space that belongs to deaf
people” (translation ours).4 Thus the question is
whether, or how, to accommodate hearing audiences
within a deaf space. The poets we talked to showed that
performing their poetry to deaf or hearing audiences
will have different impacts because of their different
abilities.
Allowing hearing people access to signed poetry
increases the legitimacy of deaf claims to being members of a culture worthy of their respect. Paul commented, referring to his complex poem “Macbeth of
the Lost Ark” (Scott, 2010a): “a hearing audience will
be thinking ‘Gosh! Deaf people understand Macbeth?
Wow!” Partly because of this, Paul acknowledged the
necessity of interpreters: “I know that if we have interpreters and I sign and they provide a voice-over, people
will ask me more. I know hearing publicity is big.”
Although making it clear that deaf audiences
are their priority, the poets all accepted that hearing
people might attend some of their work. They made
a clear distinction between hearing signers and hearing nonsigners. For more language-related issues,
concerning understanding the poems hearing signers
were classed with deaf people because they were all
signers. However, in respect of the political message of
signed poems, they were often classed with nonsigners
because they were all hearing.
Cacau made a clear distinction: “If the audience is
hearing and knows sign language I can sign a poem and
they will understand it better compared to hearing people who don’t know any sign language.” However, when
provided with access to the poetry, the nonsigners may
be challenged by what they hear. Paul said, in his poetry
Maybe I would be criticizing interpreters or criticizing hearing people or any number of different things,
then a hearing person might think, “ooh, that’s my
mistake. I made that mistake”. I am saying, “No, you
didn’t make that mistake but other people have made
that mistake and we have suffered because of it. I’m
saying that you need to remember what it was like in
the past. Through history we’ve had suffer this and
this”. And this makes them feel uncomfortable.
There is a paradox here that hearing people may only
be aware of this perspective in a signed poem because
the poem has interpretation to give them access to it.
The situation that Paul describes, of blurred boundaries between audience and poetic addressee is characteristic of performed poetry where, as (Novak 2012,
374) explains, “the second-person function P2 (the
listener) is split in two in live poetry, which may create
an interesting relationship between the physically present audience (P2a) and a poem’s fictive addressee(s)
(P2b).” It may make the hearing people in the audience
feel uncomfortable, but that is part of overcoming the
modal difficulties of the poetic performance.
As with Slam poetry, the signing poets are often
expected to reflect the experiences and outlook of the
group they represent. Again, the performance nature
of the signed poetry can blur the boundaries between
the poet, the performer, and the “fictive speaker”
(or “poetic ‘I’”). As Novak (2012, 367) has observed,
“there is no conventionalized distinction between poetperformer and (fictive) speaker […] in live poetry.”
Audiences may find it hard to distinguish between
the views of the poet and the fictive speaker. Paul also
showed how he aimed to produce collective views of
the Deaf community rather than simply his own view,
insisting although people might say “‘That’s your view’
… it’s not my view, it’s a deaf view.”
Interpreting
We saw above that the poets expect their deaf audiences to work at engaging with signed poetry. Having
made their own efforts to engage with written poetry
in a language that is not their own, the poets might
expect hearing people who wish to be involved with the
Deaf community to make a greater commitment to the
process than those who are merely “the public.” Paul
showed how signed poetry can be a motivating factor to
persuade hearing people to learn to sign:
I go into a book shop and take a book down, there’s
no handy interpreter nearby to help me so I have to
force myself to read it even if I don’t understand it.
So if I am signing for a hearing audience they have
to learn it. So having an interpreter for them…It’s
like, I have learned written English for them so why
don’t they learn to sign for me? Come On! Learn
it! Then you won’t need an interpreter. Learn it…
There are so many books in English all over the
place, everything in English for hearing people. I’m
556 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 19:4 October 2014
signing. Maybe I put it on video or DVD so that
means you have to watch it and learn.
All the poets accepted there are times when an interpreter is necessary, and they also had clear views on
what the interpretation could provide. They agreed
that interpreting the whole poem during the performance would distract the audience’s attention from
the visual performance and break the important bond
between poet and audience. Fernanda said that if “they
want to voice-over – to speak the whole thing - they
are free to do so but I will just warn them that they
are going to lose a lot if they do.” Thus, an explanation
beforehand was greatly preferable. The explanation
could be about the meaning of the signs in the poem,
or of the significance of the signs in the poem, making the poem less tactically obscure, at least. Cultural
explanations were less of a priority. Cacau said: “They
have the explanation before… a translation of the poem
would not be the same - it’s impossible. They can have a
translation of the explanation and they will understand
it, that’s all.”
He pointed out that similar translation issues arise
with interpretation from spoken language into sign language: “It’s like when you read a Portuguese poem if a
hearing person translates that into sign language they
aren’t the same.” Although he acknowledged having
had positive experiences of sign language interpretation of a spoken poetry performance, he could see the
limitations especially as he found himself focusing
entirely on the interpreter, not on the poet.
Fernanda observed that all specialist forms of interpreting require interpreters to have specialist skills, and
poetry is no different. For Fernanda, the ideal interpreter might be a poet in his or her own right but also,
for preference, interpreters should be qualified interpreters with good signing skills, who have studied literature, stories, and poetry to give them the fluency
that comes from in-depth knowledge of metaphors and
aesthetics. In this way, the interpreter is able to reflect
the poet’s control the amount of difficulty experienced
by different audiences.
Paul suggested poets should work with interpreters
to train them in signed poetry. Cacau referred to the
fact that he already does this and Fernanda remarked
that she has a small pool of interpreters with whom she
works regularly so they were familiar with her work
and what she wants from their interpretations. It is to
be hoped that this article exploring and highlighting
many of the issues surrounding signed poetry and the
poets’ perspectives, can give a new dimension to interpreter training.
Conclusions
Although the poets we talked to here have different
family backgrounds, national cultures, poetic styles and
are simply different people and poets, there are several
points that emerge clearly from what they have told us
about their aims and intentions.
Sign language poetry is a deaf cultural event where
poet, poem, and audience interact, creating a range of
potential difficulties that poets and audiences need to
work together to resolve. It occurs in a signing deaf
space, where the primary audience is hoped to be a
deaf one, effecting—and building upon—a specific
cultural and linguistic connection between deaf people.
Understanding how the poets see this connection and
how they work with it can give us extensive insight into
what it means to be literate in sign language poetry. Deaf
poets welcome hearing audiences into this space, where
they can learn and enjoy the aesthetics and cultural
messages, and learn sign language. The poets expect
their audiences, deaf and hearing, to be entertained but
also to work with them to overcome contingent, tactical, and modal difficulties in order to understand the
deeper aspects of the poetry. Sign language interpreters,
have a specific task, as understood by the poets, to allow
the general public access to the poetry performances,
through explanation of the language and poetic structure, if not through full translation of the texts.
We find that much of what these deaf poets told us
reflects what was described by Boudreau in relation to
minority-group community Slam poetry. The close community ties and the live embodied aspect of the signed performances show how the poet-audience expectations are
managed in similar ways. Further studies, perhaps of direct
comparison, could be conducted to explore this more.
Ultimately, we can see that the signing poet is
indeed “the book” of signed poetry, containing a wealth
of cultural and linguistic work, that deaf and hearing
people, signers and nonsigners alike, can learn from
and delight in. The poets we interviewed provided
JoDeaf Poets’ Views on Signed Poetry 557
us with something like an annotated text, helping us
to understand extra layers of their work. We are still
a long way from Paul’s poetic vision of shelves full of
signing books, but the poets can give a glimpse of what
such a world would be like for us all.
Notes
1. A discussion took place among five ASL poets at the
National Deaf Poetry Conference at NTID in 1987, exploring
the role of sign language interpreters in their poetry and considering the questions “Who is your audience? For whom do you
create your poetry?” (Rose 1992) Unfortunately we do not have
access to a reported video recording of this.
2. Interviewed in 2006 as part of a separate project on sign
language folklore.
3. “Um poeta surdo sabe diferenciar que elementos são requeridos para uma performance em diferentes espaços, como por
exemplo a diferenciação de uma apresentação em público, onde
há uma ligação maior e direta com a plateia e de uma apresentação
em vídeo. Percebe-se, portanto, que há uma consciência do ator
surdo quanto às técnicas e adaptações necessárias para os espaços
específicos de atuação” (Machado, 2013, 43).
4. “o fato de serem sinalizados, portanto são produzidos em
um espaço visual que pertence aos surdos.”
Funding
Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível
Superior, Programa Professor Visitante do Exterior fellowship (BEX 17881/12–9) at the Federal University
of Santa Catarina, Brazil.
Conflicts of Interest
No conflicts of interest were reported.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the editors and anonymous reviewers
for their very helpful comments on previous drafts of
our work. We are especially grateful to the three poets
named in this article who gave us their time and insights.
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