 Thank you, thank you I've been watching and watching and watching the clock until it was one o'clock and finally here. I am standing Now this morning I watched the lecture presented by Peter Cook and oh, I can't describe how I felt from that I'm not sure my performance can quite equal his I Like to deal with his for a story historical perspective like Peter Cook did my story All of my background leading up to this moment presents myself as I am now just as his did I'd like to start with an overhead Can everybody see this all right right everybody read it? Now I'd like to sign this poem for you Nobody heard him the dead man, but still he lay moaning I was much farther out than you thought and not waving But drowning poor chap. He always loved larking and now he's dead Must have been too cold for him and his heart gave way They said oh No, no, no, it was too cold always Still the dead one Lay moaning I Was much too far out all of my life and not waving But drowning fine fine now you notice this I just signed this poem Wonder if there was anything that you particularly remarked about the way I sign this. What did you just notice? Okay, notice that I sign this and I use a little body shift. Okay, that's one thing Seem that there were two different moods conveyed. All right Anything else said it was close to English Okay, that's that's what I noticed too. That's one thing that I noticed about the way I did this It's almost word-for-word English. It follows it very closely And this has always been an internal conflict with me as I've grown over the years Now I am a deaf gentleman and I've always had this conflict inside. Should I sign closer to English? I always used ASL as I grew up and these two warring factions Have continued to this day and that's what I'd like to speak about today This turmoil inside of me Plus, what's the meaning of poetry? I'm not sure I ever really understood it But my understanding has grown and changed and evolved over the years until it's arrived where I am today Now Peter Cook's presentation this morning. I related to that. I felt yes, that's right. That's it Afterwards I went and I thought and ruminated about everything that I'd seen and I had all these ideas that were the same I felt that we really matched Now that overhead that I just showed Oh that was shown before about the meeting of Panera and Alan Ginsberg I planned to use that in my presentation I thought what am I gonna do now and then Peter Cook put that in his and I thought I plan to use that in my presentation Now what am I gonna do? Well, it doesn't matter. They stole my thunder It seems that inside inside of me. I still Have a yearning. I still Have things that I want to say this afternoon. I Still want to talk about this internal conflict I still want to talk about my my understanding of the meaning of poetry and how I've been influenced by all the different people around me and These new this new faction of sign language research all the findings that have come up Also my institute upbringing at the school for the deaf how that formed my character How my family influenced me over the years and Gallaudet College, of course Also, I was involved with National Theater the deaf and that was another layer. I Seemed to have been awash with new ideas and influence and that continues Now I want you to really understand that if you care to interrupt me at any time during my lecture I will really urge you to do that. I won't complain And I won't object because I think that that's a strong characteristic of deaf culture if I see you with quizzical expressions I'd want a discussion to ensue Maybe if I want you to hold it, I'll say that and I'll answer the question later. All right y'all agree Because I think I can scan all you and I can see you quite well from here, okay? Okay, great. I Liked my lecture to begin Maybe many of you know a little bit about me, but I doubt it. I think maybe that's in the smaller category of few people I was born in Kansas It was a family of seven children five of whom were deaf and Two were hearing the two being the third and the fifth respectively a Hearing sandwich between the second and the fourth and the fifth. I was the fourth child born the last two were deaf Now my parents were hearing What were they to do? They didn't really know They're not sure why it happened they think that perhaps it was in the genes that way way back There was some deafness in the family, but there's no proof My oldest sister remember that when she was a little girl She'd seen a relative who was who seemed to not be able to talk She asked relatives about it and they said no no that person can hear but can't talk. It's a mute So that's one clue that we have to the mystery Perhaps it's just that we weren't allowed to talk about such things in the family and they didn't want any prior knowledge of deafness to exist Maybe my parents had incompatible genes. Maybe there were two recessive ones that resulted in the birth of five deaf children We really don't have any substantial proof But it's real interesting If you feel that I was born that I was disappointed to be born into a family with this sort of Constellation you would be very wrong. It was great to have siblings that were deaf. We just signed away Now my parents and my two hearing sisters had their own little clique because they could talk It was if there were two languages and two different cultures in the house But they seemed to be running parallel courses I'm not sure I could call myself And the reason being That I never really assimilated along the similar track as my parents and my hearing sisters We seem to subsist in the same household, but not have much spillover We'd be signing away with my deaf siblings and then my parents and my sisters would sign that would sign english My mother's hearing, but she'd been a school teacher before she was married and had all her children She learned sign language from us kids But of course she was always thinking english and of course her language matched her language had to have her signs match it I could follow her fine as for my father Well as with all fathers Perhaps he didn't feel he could sign with his children He knew about six signs. That was the extent of his signing compliment and the six signs were Father oops, I made a mistake mother wants you And the reason why those were the first three signs in his vocabulary. Well, it's easy Father would decide that he needed to talk with me to patrick. Hmm So he would say something To mother in the other room and yell to her and then he'd say mother wants you And then I'd run to wherever mother was and then she would explain to me what father had just said Oh, I see and that's how I got the communication with my father With those three words mother wants you The fourth sign I bet you could probably guess any guesses No No, it's not a good one because you could just shake his head and do that and I'd understand fine I love you. No Bad. Mm-hmm Work work work Work was the one and the fifth one was eat dinner time eat eat eat The sixth sign was dog mean it's time to feed the dog Maybe there were more but I really can't remember those are the six that really impressed upon my memory And that was my family So my mother signed pretty well and that really influenced me a lot as I'll later explain All my sisters of course explained me Influenced me a lot too When I was about four or five years old I went to the Kansas school for the deaf I went to see my sisters in a school play there And I sat way up in the front row With the rest of the class in the institute I think it was a sophomore class and they were putting on a play And they were putting on huckleberry fin My sister's class was almost all girls. There weren't enough boys in it Some of the girls were forced to take on roles of men in the performance So they had all this black face on black makeup I still have this very strong picture in my mind of my sister up on stage acting with Tom and huck on the stage at the same time and they were hiding under a bed Allying in weight and I watched and I was so impressed I was so excited And I went home and I was talking to my other two sisters and my mother And I was telling them about this deaf performance I was trying to explain it I thought I should kind of try to direct them and we could put on a play too And we could ask all our friends to come and pay admission like maybe 10 cents or something and they could come and watch a sack too And I already had this theater bug in me from way back then from that performance at the institute When I was five years old, I finally was able to go to the Kansas state school for the deaf myself Because I was too young to go back when I'd seen my sister's perform There were many positive influences there But as I've analyzed it over the years and looked back upon these experiences I've identified several factors that were positive I was talking to Elle about that and as I thought about all these things I have a deeper understanding now about why I'm the way I am and I see that those institute days When I went in I learned a lot I learned the most I think from the dorm rather than the classroom Which would you suspect? The dorm is right if you agreed with me, yes And the reasons being that I learned so much there was because of course there We could use our native language of ASL and we chatted away a storm with each other and had a great social life I learned so much there Learned about sex there Told stories there. Oh, it was such an enjoyable time. It's a lot of fun Our social skills improve from that environment. Our leadership skills develop there from the dorm life Our athletic abilities. That's where they started It was such an exciting place to be. Oh, the mischievous things we'd get into at night. That was there too And also we had a literary society and that sprang from the dorms It seems to have gone be gone from institutes nowadays, but back then it was such an integral part of life in the dorms for me Now I happen to love to read and write Remember my mother influenced me because she'd been a teacher and she taught me how to read and write I learned that from her So I was very excited To go and see all these plays with all the audience of the institute sitting and watching the stage All the different classes would take turns monthly presenting Maybe poetry or maybe storytelling Sometimes there'd be news weekly news events portrayed But the best of all was when the deaf teachers themselves would come up on the stage and they would do storytelling Or sometimes they would sign poetry And I said I remembered sitting there and watching those teachers perform And seeing all those different stories told but there's one that stands out in my mind so strongly It wasn't even a full story, but the picture that was portrayed just sent a shock wave through my body It was a woman teacher And she had graduated from Gallaudet College before And also had grown up in Kansas State School for the deaf Stood on the stage now that woman I suspect long before had probably had a long lineage of deafness passed down to her through her family She'd gone to Gallaudet College, and I think she had a great sense of pride She signed a famous American song of course the star spangled banner And she'd signed it in front of football games at halftime. I think maybe even before maybe at the beginning of the game she signed it Life magazine photographed her and put her picture in the magazine on the very front I think it was from the year 1944 I can't remember the exact month, but her picture was emblazoned on the front in this pose of assigning Now of course the army was involved in world war two and I'm sure they all fell in love with that People sent that It sent her letters and proposed marriage to her because of being so far away and lonesome But there she was that night standing and telling this story And it was called the black cat It was written by Edgar Allen Poe I sat in that audience and watched with such a sense of excitement I remember this one picture particularly well Ah a sound is heard and a high screeching noise Where's that noise coming from? I'm in the basement Surrounded by walls of red bricks What is it a man takes up a pick And strikes the wall where he thinks he hears the sound the wall crumbles slowly slowly slowly, but there's nothing there The sound again Where's that coming from? And he strikes the wall again and again and it crumbles and two pointy ears show behind the wall And the wall crumbles lower crumbles lower as he hits the wall two glowing eyes in the dark And the wall crumbles lower Now little Patrick sitting in the wall there I wasn't lying back bored I was on the edge of my seat like at the movies You know movies back then didn't have any captions or anything and so I couldn't even imagine what was about to take place The wall crumbled lower And two fangs shine in the night Yeow A large screech and the man hacks and hacks with the pick And it's a black cat sitting on the skull Of a dead man hung behind the wall Now that picture had me scared witless I want to tell you and it indelibly impressed itself on my memory I have that picture there always I so enjoyed it and that's another reason the dorm life was so important and so exciting for us Now contrast this to the classroom where we'd go in And the language that we used in the dorm was absolutely forbidden there Most of the teachers were hearing and they couldn't understand us when we used ASL So of course they encouraged us to speak or to sign using English We had to be very patient and suffer through this Do you all remember this some of you now the teachers Really didn't know anything they didn't really understand how to deal with us or trying to try and understand our language Their duty was to teach us English and math and reading and writing everything using English of course that was their task I did pretty well. I was very good at reading and writing and it was very good at memorization too So I didn't have as much trouble with that But most of the class really suffered through this Sometimes if we signed we'd be punished. We had to put on white mitts And those drawstring was put between them and our hands were tied together If you caught a signing, that's what we had to do and we couldn't sign at all. We had to have our hands in front of us like that On the dorm we learned so much from each other And then we go into the classrooms and we wouldn't understand we couldn't explain anything to each other We just had to take whatever we could get from the teacher And this was what we had to put up with Now I was a fairly good student And I seemed to progress along fine throughout the years But in the back of my mind I felt like I was being brainwashed as to the importance of English And I really wanted to succeed at English to be a good person I look back now And I really realized that that had struggle had not yet begun because I felt successful I was doing well at English and I seemed to be moving up in the ranks But inside I really wasn't comfortable using English and that turmoil was beginning to have the seed sprouting of it This kind of continued I was in a school play and I did some acting and of course I signed but using English Later I went to Gallaudet College And I remember the year 1958 to 1964 very well Those were my Gallaudet years and they were very important It was a historical time When I went into college in those years and I was very very fortunate When I went into that college for the first time I couldn't believe it. There were nine teachers eight of whom were deaf I couldn't believe it and the one hearing teacher could sign pretty darn well But all those teachers in the institute You know, it was so it's such a An anomaly to have a deaf one Anybody who could sign but eight of my teachers being deaf. I was ecstatic. I was going to learn so much The same time they were deaf and they were signing but they were signing English Of course, I felt that this was impressed upon me very strongly that I would have to match the English skills to to be considered success Inside I felt like I wanted to escape. I wanted to join the theater where I enjoyed that sort of activity I really didn't enjoy as much in the academic arena, but I really really had a good time in the theater I liked all the adulation. I liked the pads on the back But even in the theater work, we weren't using ASL. We were signing English I still remember Let's see I want to jump ahead for just a second when I graduated in my senior year of Gallaudet college There was a large conference of all the alumni who came and there was a poetry competition Oh, I was really interested in that I'd make Ella has a little grin on her face because I think she performed that too We talked about how to translate that before how to do that poem What was that sign you just said somebody asked Ella LMA lens He's got a green coat on Okay, you ready? Ready Okay, this is called Richard Corey. I'll sign RC on the shoulder. That'll be the name sign Remember I signed this a long time ago. All right This is how I did it Whenever Richard Corey went downtown We people on the pavement looked at him He was a gentleman from soul to crown clean favored and imperially slim and he was always quietly arrayed And it was always human when he talked but still He fluttered pulses when he said good morning And he glittered when he walked And he was rich. Oh, yes, richer than a king And admirably schooled in every grace And fine, we thought he was everything Everything to make us wish That we were in his place So on we worked And we waited for the light and went without meat And cursed the bread And Richard Corey One calm summer night went home And put a bullet through his head and signing rather slowly you might notice and I was trying to force everything into English. I was trying to get some sort of asl things in there, but Inside I felt that it was important to show these asl things these asl behaviors But I was trying to squeeze them into an english format Well, it seemed to have been enough because I won first prize at that competition, which was quite a delightful experience Now second prize was won by Mga Bienvenu's father So he was second runner up to me and that means That I was the most successful one in the class. It seemed the best poet at Gallaudet College It was Loy Gallaudet and there was Robert Panera there, but somehow I came up on top of that But still I had the turmoil inside and I hadn't read that poem written that poem myself I did write a poem that I tried to submit to a journal at the Gallaudet College and they didn't accept it They said well, there's no rhythm. It's not quite right and the last words of the sentences don't seem to rhyme. They don't match So I was very frustrated. I felt like maybe sticking to signing them was fine, but writing them I just wasn't good enough No, understand that my english is pretty fine and I majored in english at Gallaudet But while I was at Gallaudet College A certain important announcement was made that ASL was a true language Equal in every respect to english Well, I was pretty nonplus to this Because the gentleman who made this pronouncement a dr. William Stokey He wasn't so hot of a signer himself to tell the truth And I couldn't believe this. He was the one making the statement that ASL was the language. Who is he anyway? He had two research assistants working under him who were both deaf, but one of the assistants Grew up in sweden And then he came here to the united states And he became a teacher of english So he'd researched and I thought well, how does he know and then the other assistant was from hawaii And at the time hawaii wasn't even a state yet So I was a little puzzled by this pronouncement. Who are these three people who'd made this decision? I was very confused now some of my deaf friends and the clicks there said, oh, it's not true It's not true ASL. It's it's a bad language. It's bastardized english. It's not really a language And I was confused because I I wanted to be in that particular faction But I couldn't deny this growing sense of excitement and pride in me Because it meant that ASL wasn't just meant for the dorm only that it could be brought into the classroom as well and I really liked that but I was confused because I wanted to be fitting in with my deaf peers who felt that it wasn't a true statement Well, finally I joined national theater of the deaf I had written poetry before that time But I let it kind of fall by the wayside and buried it a couple years ago My mother sent me some poems that she found of mine Oh It was pretty interesting One of them was very important because it showed how I wrote at the time. Let me show it to you Now what this meant to me was that I seemed to be feeling pride pride inside Now in the school for the deaf I'd been sort of brainwashed that that english was the way to go It was the only thing to do and I felt this growing sense of inferiority inside as I struggled with these two things But this poem seems to point to a sense of dawning pride inside Of course, I was trying to write english more And I was trying to make those last little words rhyme at the end of each sentence eyes and skies school well Hmm kind of was soul proclaim and aim Well, I don't know what happened here Hmm sort of But you get the idea Now I thought it was doing really well, but still they wouldn't publish it in the school journal I kept on going with the struggle inside and then I joined national theater of the deaf Now at that time It wasn't really thought the professional the deaf people could become professional actors and when this was set up It was so exciting National theater deaf was set up and three years later. I joined How old was I at the time as the question Questions came from the audience. How old was I when I joined national theater the deaf? I was 27 years old Let's see I taught deaf children for three years before I joined And remember I was brainwashed because I'd been required to learn english and that was the most important thing So that's what I was passing on to And I just felt this conflict so strongly seemed to be passing it on I taught for three years and was incredibly frustrated And then I went to school to become a priest to the seminary They were all hearing in the seminary and I was the only deaf person And it was so unlike my deaf school experience It was as if national theater the deaf when I joined it was like another institute for the deaf because all the actors were deaf Most of us had deaf parents And so we had this exciting lineage to pass down and share amongst us There were a few hearing people involved in the theater who were Voice actors for us But when we acted on the stage I did pretty much exactly what I'd done with what I previously showed you with Richard Corey And also with not waving but drowning We signed very very close to english the reason being that the voice actors for the most part weren't very skilled signers They hadn't really learned it very well yet. So we had to sign pretty close to english so that they could follow us The audience was comprised mostly of hearing people About 85 percent who were watching the performances And that's why the national theater the deaf ntd adopted the philosophy of hearing and seeing each word We didn't know if this was wrong or right, you know, we'd been brought up this way taught to accept it So we just followed along with it But strangely enough The eighth year that I was with national theater the deaf The director david haze Signed this on the shoulder h on the shoulder He didn't know much about deaf culture But internally I think perhaps in the back of his head even besides this philosophy that they'd adopted He was curious about what was going on. He came up to me one day and said excuse me. Would you mind performing? a monologue I'd like you to do an excerpt from on the harmfulness Of tobacco And I thought That's strange on should be about anyway I shouldn't be on the harmfulness of tobacco should be about anyway, but that was the official title of the monologue on the harmfulness of tobacco but david haze said now I want to tell you what I want you to do is to go practice alone all by yourself just with the voice actor just the two of you plus the director Who didn't know any sign language at all and also with an interpreter the four of you Now I don't want any of the other deaf actors to help you with your translations Absolutely forbidden just the four of you sequestered alone to work on this I wasn't really sure what his point was and then he said I want you to sign just like you sign in the dining room And I didn't really understand what he meant sign like I do in the dining room Oh like Well, I think that's what we call asl And I don't think I was really ready to show that in public to anybody you want me to do that well I was a good boy. I deferred to authority once more and so I went and practiced And I didn't really think I was very skilled at translating but back then But I took the English and I translated as best I could into asl or I tried to at any rate It was a very slow process We went into a large barn Where I would rehearse the director would be sitting there since he didn't know any sign language often Just not off to sleep So I really wasn't signing to many people The only other person there who was really watching me was the interpreter whose parents were deaf and she really enjoyed watching me The director was asleep the interpreter was watching me and the voice actor really didn't know any signs But was trying to follow me was a very very good actor by the way But he had to try to to follow what I was doing in asl It was a five week experience that tended to be very lonely I had to practice in the afternoon by myself and then go eat with my other peers the other actors for an hour Or practice a group production and then go back and be alone Well, opening night finally arrived and my knees were knocking like you couldn't believe Because this was the first time I publicly displayed my translation work I really didn't have any idea prior to that. I'd be doing it Now of course, who did I think were going to be my worst critics? The deaf actors sitting in the audience my peers Those were the ones that I was terrified of the hearing people they wouldn't know the difference anyway So I still remember I started to sign this monologue and I noticed sitting in the audience there A real thrill waving through the crowd People were crying with me people were laughing with me as performed the hearing people seemed to really being enjoying it But inside of me the emotions that I felt welling up within me were just coming to the surface so rapidly and so easily I felt like I could really enjoy this Amazing surfacing of emotion and acting that was that was happening I felt like a newborn baby and then just learning to walk It was such a wonderful experience. I enjoyed it As I look back Maybe my translations weren't exactly asl Perhaps you could call them pse pigeon signed English. Maybe It wasn't English But it was sliding over towards asl Maybe right around the middle or a little bit over towards the asl side Now during that time in national theater of the deaf a few people came up to me and said oh, it's really important That you've got to talk about asl and deaf culture. This is really monumental Now remember I'd been brainwashed for so long so long of a time that I wasn't quite ready to accept this I left national technical and national theater of the deaf and then I came here to national technical institute of the deaf ntid At that time boston had a large symposium called the national symposium on sign language research Teaching that was a big conference and they invited me to go to that And give that same monologue by the russian author that I'd done before that was not going to be any voice interpreter It was just going to be me That meant that all the hearing people who came to that particular performance knew sign language So it was not going to be any problem for the audience to understand I had this little tiny voice inside of me saying oh, should I go fast? Should I go slow? And I just waved that voice aside and thought let's just go for it. I felt liberated I was very nervous, of course. I wasn't over that aspect and I really wasn't as Cognizant about all the linguistics of asl But I really enjoyed going in front of these people and giving this performance It was so easy to emote and I'll show you these excerpts Okay The story behind this monologue is that a man whose wife asked him to go and give a lecture to the ladies club of the town Talking about how bad tobacco was and that you should stop So when the man arrived At the ladies club his wife had not yet gotten there and he thought what he'd do is talk about his wife behind her back Make fun of her He kept on looking over his shoulder hoping that his wife hadn't show up He didn't want to explain about the harmfulness of tobacco at all. He'd start with that and then he'd start cutting up on his wife Now this is the English And I tried to translate it That woman Ooh suffers from rheumatism And she goes around in that yellow dress With black blotches So she looks like she's covered With cockroaches The English you think? Yeah, right, none. Okay, second excerpt We live in house number 13 And all my daughters were born on the 13th And our house has 13 windows And the third excerpt My daughters, oh, they went into raptures over it Especially the part about the bedbugs But I just read it I read it through and tore it to pieces Okay, you can see the evolution there, can't you? Is that poetry or not poetry? That's not a poem Well, I translated it and signed it in ASL. I don't know Now Peter Cook, oh this question Okay The sign themselves look like they were poetic in movement Now it's very important That my experiences over the years Seem to have taught me to agree with what Peter Cook said this morning That deaf people really shy away from poetry and tend to be Very very hostile towards the whole idea The reason being that you're taught in the schools that you have to learn English You have to try to understand English and struggle with that all your life Poetry, ugh, get out Now if a person stands and explains it Okay, that's English poetry, right? ASL poetry Is a more expressive more signing mode, right? I thought poetry just meant English and I was wrong Each country has their own poetry each culture has their own poetry in Japan In England in Switzerland in Africa, they all have their poetry and their language Now, but when I grew up in the schools for the deaf, I didn't know that I have a very strong belief That the schools for the deaf first should teach the children their own deaf language Teach them that to enjoy and learn and appreciate poetry and storytelling and history and everything And then if they want to learn foreign language, let them learn English as a foreign language I think they'd enjoy it so much more then and then they wouldn't believe the signing is wrong I suspect that's why many schools for the deaf Have to really be patient and suffer through what's going on now The deaf teachers inside are still going through the same turmoil that I experienced before They want to teach English, but they want to be free to sign in their own precious ASL A large percentage of deaf teachers are leaving the field now. It's dwindling down And what's left at the deaf schools now are hearing teachers There's only about Seven percent of deaf teachers now Before it was at least 40 or 50 percent, but it's diminishing in an alarming rate Maybe it has something to do with the economics of it and how much they can be paid But the deaf teachers seem to be escaping that profession They didn't want to be burdened with that responsibility anymore If deaf children knew that they could Express themselves in poetry, maybe they utilized that more and feel more free to show it About three weeks ago a deaf person a friend of mine came to visit me Love but two of us have been friends for a very long time and we were chatting Planning it to me And I can't exactly match what she said, but here's a facsimile. Okay in your liver Suppose in your liver lives this little person And this little person's job is to shovel and shovel and wait and wait for the food to come down the gullet And land in that liver and what they do is they till the soil with that shovel And they mix it up and around and everything turn it into sugar And send it through the body to be metabolized Well, sometimes a little person waits down there with their shovel and all that comes down is cookies and ice cream and cake Well, the little person in there thinks that's cheap sugar It's not something they can really play with and deal with with that soil So they just stand aside and let that go pass right on through the body But when there's potatoes and starches and good things the little person shovels again And then the body has enough sugar to function and that's hypoglycemia Oh That I feel that deaf people are so skilled at analogies and comparisons really adept at it That for me is poetry Now it's not exactly a poem that's written out in nice neat stanzas and phrases that you stand and you memorize In that particular way and that you try to do in english But it's another example Here's another one Fred and Norman Was sitting in our audience I'd asked her a couple of weeks ago about something and she said she remembered a long time ago when she was in the school for the deaf That she was a supervisor Sometimes I remember uh, she remembered different deaf preachers who were itinerant who would come from school to school and give their sermons She remembered that as we were talking because I think I'd experienced that too And one day they were talking about what heaven was how you got into heaven It's like walking down a road and in your arms you carry a brown bag You trudge this road And as you're near heaven you lay this bag aside That bag is your body and what's left without the body is the soul and that's what enters heaven See that's an analogy a comparison A third example Is prayer what does prayer mean? How do you explain it? Well, it's like your mind and your heart are always so busy and convoluted and full with condyptions and plans It's like a tv screen and the scramble the signals all scrambled and convoluted, but when it clears The picture is something you can enjoy and be vivid and when the mind and the heart clear of all their turmoil Then there's a clear direct link to god And that's prayer See it's in pictures and images And the reason that I showed those three examples So just recently just a few years ago 1984 February 1st. It's an important day. What happened? You all know what happened? Alan Ginsberg and Robert Panera Came right and We ended up I ended up doing the hydrogen jukebox. That's right. You saw that this morning Now, you know before that time If you told me that I would stand in front of Alan with Alan Ginsberg someday and talk about a hydrogen jukebox I don't think I would have believed you But that's what happened. How did I arrive at that point? How did I get from where I'd begun? To what impacted me so strongly at that time? Alan Ginsberg permitted me to sign that and he said that's right. That's what I meant And inside something was born Translation work and I was being lauded for it Hmm Now at the same time I met this man with long hair named Jim And he said he was a poet and asked me if I was interested in poetry And I thought oh, he's just impressed by all deaf people. He thinks isn't your sign language pretty I thought he was just like the rest He wanted to develop this group called the birds birds brain society and the cellar Which is a bar here used to be called the cellar here at rit and tid So I said fine. I'll go sit in on it. Now. I'd seen peter cook sign before But when I saw him at the birds brain society Wow The poetry was right there There it was And then debbie ready she too performed there And then it was my turn. I wanted to And I had to get something together. I didn't know what I translated english into asl And I was getting more and more facile at that But inside I felt like I still wasn't expressing myself very well I like to show you this that poem now that's the first effort that I made in translation Now my way is a little bit different than peter cook. Remember, I grew up translating and translating and translating English to asl Now for this poem what I tried to do was sign it first and then write it down in english later thus reversing the process I was teaching a class at the time at ntid called creative translation and sign Meaning that we'd write we would write in english and then later we translating into asl So this one day I told my students in the class Okay, now I want you to come up with a poem in sign language first. Don't even worry about the english Just come up with the poem first Okay, you got a couple weeks to do it Now you see I was the teacher And I really needed to practice what I preached I guess so I kind of painted myself into a corner Oh for a week. I really went into conniptions trying to decide what to do I played with signs and and I was One time standing In the cu waiting to meet a friend to go get something to eat and I was letting my mind wander and I noticed in the high corner of the building a balloon that was stuck Maybe there'd been some sort of party or celebration and the balloon had floated up and become lodged in the corner of the building I looked at that and looked at it The world seemed to just fade away and all I was left with was myself staring at that balloon mulling over the image Until this palm was born I'd like to show it to you now Maybe I forgot it Oh, well, it seems I forgot the overhead transparency Which would you prefer the words first or the sign want to see the sign first? Whoa overwhelming majority This is called the surprise I'm imagining a mental clear picture There's a little girl diminutive and cute A balloon held purple and squeezable I let my balloon grow so tall Until it stopped by the string I tie that string around my ring finger She pulls the toy down and lets it soar off So does the string For well for well That balloon purple pulls the string And this string pulls my mind picture away Okay, I want to see the words later. I'll try to uh that I later wrote down Okay, now this I'll write put this in English for you. That was the surprise t-h-e-s-u-r-p-r-i-s-e I'm imagining a mental clear picture There's a girl Big word here diminutive And cute a balloon held Purple and squeezable in quotes. I let my balloon grow so tall Till it stopped by the string I tie that around my ring finger She pulls the toy down Let's it soar off. So does the string Farewell and farewell The balloon purple pulls the string And this string pulls the visual picture away Now, which do you prefer the signed version or the English version? The signed it seemed everybody agrees. Well, I have more I have several But I'm not going to share that with you now You're going to have to come over to the ntid theater tomorrow night and see the performance part for the poetry Now I've sort of given you this history of myself And as for future events and what's going to happen that I can't really foresee As I meet more and more deaf poets and I have more information shared with me and that I share with others It's hard to foresee what's going to happen in the future I know that it's a positive experience definitely and especially for deaf children I'm sure it's going to instill a sense of pride in them No longer this horrible sense of inferiority. I know that's going to lessen They'll have more and more of a positive self-image and more esteem And English and ASL will be accepted as equivalents Poetry in English is fine and poetry in ASL is growing It's rising It's becoming printed in books and videotapes and expanding and it's going to get better and better. Thank you Okay He is asking me I was recently talking about how my mother taught me to read and write English But my mother wasn't really a skilled signer. So how was I able to learn from her? Okay When I was 10. Well, actually I want to back up. I went to school and I was five so five six seven eight nine 10 I was reading and writing I was memorizing things and processing things, but it wasn't until 10 that I was really fully understanding I'd go into the kitchen and see my mother And she was making an angel food cake one day Whipping it up. She was really busy making this Maybe it was for a birthday a birthday cake. I don't really remember why she was doing this I went up to her and I said mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy And she decided we were playing a sign game. I said let's play a game And so we tried to come up with this game together that all of us could play My mother was busy remember So how was she going to do both at the same time? It was important to count how many strokes would be the angel food cake because if you do it wrong Of course, it's going to fall in the oven. So she's saying wait wait wait You can play your old game play another game. I and I said no, I don't want to play old game I want a new game come on So she put the cake down cake batter down and we went into the family room the living room and we got out of book Called beautiful joe the first sentence Said my name is beautiful joe and I am A ker I didn't know what that meant Well this infuriated my mother even further so then we went to the dictionary ker see you are see you are what's it say? an ugly dog Ah ugly dog and so I matched the dictionary meaning and the word in the book Oh and a little light turn on my head and then I understood My name is beautiful joe and I am an ugly dog Oh, it's a new game So I read and whenever I didn't know word I went looked it up in the dictionary and it was fun And maybe my mother had planned to teach me that way. I really don't think so though So the school would ask me to write essays sometimes So I would be writing and struggling with what to write down I'd show it to my mother and she would tell me She'd take a red pen and but she wouldn't make any corrections She would really just explain to me how to rearrange the words in more grammatical form So I would try to write and if I did it right she would she would give me positive feedback for it It wasn't like in the classroom where you go and they mark it all up with a red pen and totally deflate your ego My mother wasn't really good in sign, but she was successful in her teaching methods for me Yes Okay, the question is As I grew up I was brainwashed in English, right? And when I signed how did I know if that was ASL or English? How did I know the difference? Well really at Gallaudet College when I was there that's when this famous proclamation was made about ASL being a real language And they defined all the rules and the grammatical structure and the syntax There were meetings and many people were there like Ella And I read a lot of articles and sign language books about the transformational grammar involved And I didn't understand it a hundred percent, but just my gut feeling was that there was a comfortability about it And I knew that's what was happening My experiences with meeting different people made me realize it too And the important thing is that I feel that children should learn ASL as a language They should study it and know that they have a language with rules with syntax and then they'll have a growing sense of pride And then later they can study English easier Be a lot easier for them Okay, this person is asking me Did the teachers who taught me English know any ASL? What do you think? I think teachers who teach ASL should be bilingual definitely You only learn English through another native language if you're not an English speaker You could learn if you're Spanish you could learn English You couldn't learn English through French could you so you really have to use your native language to attain a second one? I'm kind of worried about is your voice okay mirror? You're tired. I'm fine go ahead Okay, she says she's fine go ahead She's asking me What do you mean teach ASL first? How would they learn ASL? How would they learn English vocabulary? Okay First Okay, wait a minute First you have to enjoy yourself you have to enjoy what you are and who you are And then it's easier to express things If inside you have many internal doubts and and demons raising their heads Then it's really hard to let some of these out and express yourself right Now if children enjoy themselves and enjoy expressing themselves Then they can learn English and internalize it Vocabulary is hard, but it wouldn't be too difficult to overcome It would be fun to be like a game to pick up new words and new vocabulary And then their understanding would really blossom How many people are really really wonderful and cognizant of all of vocabulary and English in all the united states? 75 percent you say no Nobody knows all of it. Nobody knows all of it. It's a very small percentage of people who were that adept at it Have you read a book called when the mind hears? It's a by a gentleman named Harlan Harlan Fleming Harlan Lane, excuse me the interpreter was incorrect As I was reading the book It was telling the story about a teacher of sign language from 200 years ago Only 10 percent Even went into college at the time So It means that the system is incorrect if still not even 75 percent attend college There's a question way in the back Okay, the question is as I create poems and sign them and then later write them down in English Do I prefer doing it that way or do I prefer doing it the other way around now a long time ago? What I did first was to write them in English and then later sign them But now I've reversed this process and I prefer to sign them first In my native language of asl without having to bother with the written translation I sign them until I'm content with the way I have it with Following the rules of asl and classifiers and hand shapes and everything And then I reflect on what I've written and try to match it with English equivalents As I've written them down I changed them over time I sometimes work with a hearing interpreter because of course English is not my first language But it is theirs if I work with a hearing person They can make suggestions about what sounds a little better So it's more like a team concept That way we can meld our two interests our cultures and our languages together The hearing person can help me choose the words if I feel at a loss for the vocabulary A hearing person might say Oh, there's maybe too many words there. Maybe you only need a couple Maybe two words are enough because you're doing so many images in mind that the audience will readily understand what you're doing You see I'm still learning that surprises me about that statement that I wouldn't have to have as many words Sometimes I don't have to worry quite as much about it And I don't have to worry about that second language when I write them in my first Okay, okay, okay Thank you for reminding me I'm supposed to end my talk about asl translation and poetry and I forgot Thank you Do you want me to put this one up? I didn't have the thing I wanted to end it with Okay, now if I sign it now, don't look at that page. All right As I sign it Want me to shut it off? Nobody heard him the dead man, but still He lay moaning. I was much Much farther out than you thought And not waving but drowning poor chap He always loved larking And now he's dead Must have been too cold for him And his heart gave way They said No, no, no, it was too cold always Still it's so exciting to be here I'm finally going to show my work to all of you And it's so incredible to see other people's work displayed and shared with each other. It's unbelievable I feel like there's I feel like I'm a newborn baby and it's really exhilarating for me The first poem I'd like to show you I just Recently created this poem. It's brand new Really, I didn't write it down. I should say I I just created in signs just a couple of nights ago I've been involved in this conference and I couldn't get to sleep I was so excited. Why can't I sleep? I wonder what's going on? I know I'm tired. I worked all day teaching and directing a play every night here at NTID But there I lay tossing and turning and staring at the ceiling I lay there with my blankets about me and the lights turned off and and pretended that I could go to sleep But my mind was working overtime This poem presented itself to me I signed it and later on I worked with my interpreter. His name is Miriam Nathan She watched me sign this and then we talked about it Of course, my first language is American sign language and my culture is that of the deaf English is Miriam's first language and of course her culture is hearing So we had a nice exchange of ideas and it was really a delight to work together and I'd like to show you this It's called liberation You could maybe sign it as if it were freedom or oppression Be gone English English English English English English English manacled my hands freedom freedom freedom and signs weight weight recognition acknowledgement equality Collaboration and really that's how I feel tonight as I grew up. I really experienced a terrible feeling of inferiority I felt that the only way to be a success in the world would be to use perfect English Which wasn't my first language Now, of course, I've always respected English and now I feel that ASL is a perfect counterpart to it. It's perfectly equal In my poems tonight that I'm going to show you Reflect things that I've thought ever since I was small that I grew up thinking about About three years ago. Maybe it was about four years ago Friend of mine and I decided to go to new york for Thanksgiving vacation And we were enjoying seeing the sights one night the two of us went to the part of new york city called little italy Walking along the streets By the side road we saw a bakery There was a restaurant next to it In the window were the most delectable-looking cakes Oh There was this one cake That I would say it was absolutely Sinful it was a devil's food cake We salivated and looked at each other and thought oh, maybe we should go in and have a cup of coffee So we went in We'll go and have coffee and then we'll go back to the hotel So we sat and we ate and we chatted and drank our coffee and just talked the night away. It was so much fun Then we went back to our hotel Where we went into our respective beds Well, my friend just went out like a light immediately and as for me I tossed and turned Oh, why did I eat that cake and have that darn coffee with all that caffeine? Now I can't sleep. Well, there I was And then I started playing with some signs in my mind and the result was this poem It's called the paradox Sings a story While pounding the piano keys She sings where's my man The man of the keys Those white and black ivories up and down up and down and she sings and she sings Where's my man That man I love Women women all over so many and men the men among them they watch the singer Whaling where's the man Where's the man The piano makes a soundless pause Women in the black and white room rise to their feet with their men clapping their hands continuously And the singer black grins and bows Then she walks To meet her man Well for her The song is only a song The inner song always pesters me Where's my man The man I love my mother can hear and can sign My father can hear And can't sign This true song inside of me persists Persists Where's my man The man kind of heavy I know That's why I've always kind of felt this oppressing sense of inferiority I guess And I think that once in a while all people feel that in it and it plagues them now and again But you know you're in Rochester the sun doesn't shine very often right Right, but you agree Debbie. I'd ask you that question. Okay, so it's a consensus A few years ago I was sitting in my apartment And there was absolutely not a ray of sunshine. I sat there with my mug of coffee looking out the window just ruminating about life And this poem came to mind I thought I'd play with hand shapes a little bit with it And these are the hand shapes that I chose to use You can use it for happy or sad or Come here or anybody know any signs it would be like this trouble troubles one sign that uses that hand shape others father There's one piece. Yeah, that's the idea So these are the two hand shapes I chose to use and also these There's three and all This poem is entitled The disease mindless heartless And dark lives Suicide prone Sessed for life where they walk All day All night Looking For something They don't know Hello-less Goodbye-less Dark lives Laugh seldom If ever Cry at times They gaze at nothing All day All day Hoping For somebody They could laugh Oh about two years ago You might remember when the space shuttle challenger exploded And then the astronauts died It was such a resounding shock throughout the world And I sat and thought about that and came up with a poem to commemorate that event This is something that I wrote myself and Actually, I came up with insigns and later worked on the words This is called Reflection Could mean reflecting on something, mulling it over Could mean a reflection in a mirror Four Three Two One Zero Ssssss Smoke And the lift off of the challenger inspired me One minute 49 seconds later Explosion And my heart halted The main shuttle descended And with it my heart It dawned upon me a flashback Memory 1963 President Kennedy was shot His head blown to bits His body falling downward And with it my tears Thank you Oh just this last spring I was so busy I was teaching school classes I was doing my church work Just seemed like there were calls coming from me from every side Well, this one woman Name Wendy Lowe She's a teacher here at NTID She approached me and said Patrick, would you mind coming out to the woods back there? There's some woods out here in back of the college union And she said that come out behind Engle where there's the woods We're going to have a big poetry conclave out there There's a big field and a lot of woods And she asked me if I'd mind going to participate With all the students to show some poetry And work on something and have sort of an impromptu workshop She asked if maybe I'd be willing to show a little bit of my poetry Well, I thought okay, okay, I'll try to make it, I'll see And it was really wonderful That she tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to do this Because it made me think about a thing or two And then I came up with this other poem That I really enjoy And it really seems that I write poems best under pressure And when I have a lot of things bugging me And a lot of people wanting to me for different things This is called The Distant Call I have not walked there yet Why? The crowd wants my attention They want my skills At times I seem to be a whore The pleasure, popularity and adulation The ego swells Up to the neck with onuses and plans and self abuse Ah, the spotlights are turned on The curtain opens, the show is on The audience wants encores I'm so tired I want to scream There are the woods There are too many calls One call beyond captures my eyes God has given me free will Yes, I forget this Too many calls again Stop This choice I make alone This is the last poem that I'll do And I really, really love it I wish I had such a long, voluminous list of poems to do I seem that I have come up with a small A small canon of maybe four or five And to come up with more I don't think I have that right now I seem to have a block But maybe later I'll be adding to that When I was in School for the Deaf I learned about very short poems called Haikyuu Haikyuu's And when I was with National Theatre of the Deaf We learned more Haikyuu poetry and performed some of it Usually there are brief poems comprised of just three lines With just a few syllables And that's all I thought that was really interesting And I wondered if I could perhaps Think of something that was Complimentary to this Something just like it in sign language And I came up with a few of those on my own This grouping of four Haikyuu's Is called Memories Number one Every Sunday That smokestack Red brick Kansas School for the Deaf Number two Cheap institution colors Paints Eyes sore yellow Pale blue Sickly green Number three Again A speech lesson I talked in signs Punishment Mids tied together Number four Miss Killcoin My teacher Always waddling in the grouch That bulldog Thank you Thank you very much Thank you Okay, let's give a hand Let's give a hand to Patrick