Translator: Rhonda Jacobs Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
I have two Deaf boys.
They're so rare and so unique.
I'm blessed
and they are blessed
because they can play with their sign language
in their home environment,
which is a safe space for them.
When I watch them sign,
I realize what a treasure sign language is,
and I've thought about how to preserve it,
and I've realized it's through the arts.
My objective is simple:
I just want my boys to comprehend
their place in the lineage of the language
and the richness and the complexity of it.
As I was growing up, in eighth grade, I wrote a story,
and the teacher offered me two options -
whether to sign that story to the class or to speak it.
And I chose to speak it at that time
because through my upbringing I had been told repeatedly
that speech was superior, while sign language was sidelined.
And I had never been taught to translate from the written word
into a signed performance.
And growing up, I never had any Deaf role models
until I was 16 years old,
and for the first time I saw a Deaf poet, Peter Cook,
and his linguistic expression just blew my mind sky high,
such that when I landed, I had this realization
about what my thoughts were about sign language being so simple
and for communication only.
I realized that it had these other modalities,
that it had this depth and this fiber to it.
I became a teacher, and I taught kindergarten through third grade
and taught sign language to Deaf students.
But that three times of exposure per week for 45 minutes
was those students' only safe space to play with language,
to experiment and to build on their concepts.
Can you imagine not having any time outside of that
and returning to their home environment potentially without communication?
As compared to my boys, who are utterly privileged.
But I don't want to limit them to the two role models
of myself and my wife.
I would like their diet of role models to be varied and full,
just as you wouldn't feed broccoli consistently every day to the child;
you'd want to provide them with a varied diet of fruit and vegetables
because the more nutrition you're able to offer them,
the healthier their development.
Because what happened to me
should not happen to any other Deaf children.
That's why I left the classroom and came to the world
and founded my own Deaf Poets Society -
one component of three is ASL SLAM,
the mission of which is to provide a platform,
to create a safe space
for the Deaf community to play with their language of signs,
and to learn to play and to have fun with that.
And we pull in other talent and other artists
to express themselves on stage
so that they can share their work and inspire that audience
because we want to seed the next generation of talent.
And we want to water those seeds and grow them up
so that we can have more Deaf poets and storytellers and role models.
Another component of that Deaf Poets Society
is establishing additional chapters of ASL SLAM in cities around the country,
with the same mission as the home event.
And the third component is touring around the world.
I just went to Jamaica,
I just went to Cuba and Norway, and I'm going to Australia next.
Regardless of the various socioeconomic statuses of those places,
we are traveling and bringing that mission to those places.
You know, each country around the world has their own sign language,
whether Australia or any of those other places I mentioned.`
So we use International Sign to communicate, to respect their language.
And I have a roster of poems in a visual vernacular,
which makes a more image-based approach,
so that we can reach out
to those international Deaf communities around the world.
So I'll show you a poem now,
and the interpreter will not be speaking during this.
(Applause)
So maybe some of you could follow that and visualize it,
and maybe some of you couldn't.
But this is visual poetry;
I feel like it's a soundless visual musical composition.
And this poem was the first poem that I crafted in the visual vernacular
that had that built-in meter to it,
and rhythm,
and that allowed me to begin to collaborate
with a variety of different musicians
to test out that process, that collaborative process,
so that I felt like it would be important to correlate sound to that visual poetry.
And then I worked with the MERGE Art Collective.
A woman named Mia at that organization asked me to compose a poem, which I did,
gave them the video,
and she went through the poem and composed a score to match up with it,
and then we teamed up with four musicians
and rehearsed repeatedly until it was polished.
And of course coming here to Vienna,
I brought the score and met two Austrian musicians,
so I would like to welcome them to the stage
so that we can show you that collaboration live here.
(Applause)
(Low drone)
(Tone change)
(Second drone)
(Changing saxophone tones)
(Sharp notes)
(Quick notes)
(Abrupt stop)
(Loud, sharp and sustained notes)
(Moving tones)
(Notes end)
(Pattern repeating and increasing in intensity)
(Notes slowing down)
(Sustained note)
(Note changes)
(Second note enters)
(First tone change)
(Slow melodic tones)
(Tones stop)
(Moving melodic tones)
(Tones stop)
(Tones resume and pick up pace)
(Sustained tones)
(Out breaths)
(Discordant notes)
(Out breaths)
(Slow tones)
(Rapid tones)
(Abrupt stop)
(Slow, sustained tones)
(Abrupt stop)
(Applause)
That's a visual poetic composition
merged with a musical composition.
And the goal of that is to be able to reach out,
not just to international Deaf community
but also to the broader hearing community
so that you all can see and understand
the richness and the complexity that sign language has within it.
It's badass!
(Laughter)
So now I want you as you leave to go seek out your Deaf communities,
to collaborate with them and make the world a safe space,
just as I want my boys to continue the lineage of the language.
We want the entire world to be a safe space for the Deaf community.
Today, I stand before you and I choose to sign.
(Laughter)