 I want to make one additional announcement tonight's performance, there'll be an open mic, there's no headsets for tonight's performance, but for all the performances to come, we'll be using headsets, okay? So for people here who are new to our community, who have just joined this community, I'd also would like to make a suggestion to you that you don't clap for the deaf and the mormons when they're done, if you want to show appreciation for their work, please raise your hands in the air and shake them high so that people can see them. Now I'd like to introduce a very important person, Clayton Bally. He's a full-time professor at the Gallaudet University. He works in the Department of Linguistics, and he's studying for his PhD now, doing a correspondence course with the University of Ohio. So, I'd like you all to please help me give him a very warm welcome. Can't see anything. I have to see you. I really have to lighten up a little bit much better. Thank you. Now I can see all your faces. The reason I need to see your faces is that while performing, I'd like to have a little discussion in between and afterwards, so I don't like to just perform and then leave you all in the cold. I'd like to have some dialogue, so it's good to see your faces. I'm really thrilled to be here tonight. I remember in 1987 when I was here, there was a death of the National Death Poetry Conference held here in 1987, and there were five of us, Patrick Gravel, Ella Lentz, myself, Peter Crook, and Debbie Rennie. Five performers came for a death poetry conference. We did our performances, and it had a really powerful impact on all of us. We shared a lot of our ideas, but then that impact was gone. We had no further contact with each other. We hoped to have an annual or live annual conference, and yeah, this is the first time we've done together again as poets. Now this is called the Death Literature Conference, which is really great because it's more broad and includes poetry and comedy and different kinds of literature, and I hope that this continues annually from now on. In with my performance, I'm going to tell you a little bit about what Lentz had to make this evening. I'll present, and there will be an interpretive voicing. My presentation is a kind of discussion, but when I do my actual performances, there will be no interpretation. I prefer that you who are hearing and don't know sign language to watch, and although you may be a bit overwhelmed, I'm sorry about that. But what I'm doing is a kind of art. It is art. And ASL poetry is a way, a very expressive art, a very visual form of art that I want to be able to appreciate visually. Now when I perform, and the interpreter does not voice, that will be just the performance part, but afterwards, and in between my quality, I'll be talking about what I'm doing, and then perform the piece again so we're able to watch. Now the first time you perform the piece, you may be able to get some kind of idea of the big mouth field to remember all the different pieces of it. After I explain how you can go back and see it again, and understand it better, I'll be performing seven different poems for you this evening. Dan DeWine. You know the yellow flower that goes, and when you blow out those little spores scattered all around. I like to tell you a little bit about how I created the poem, Dan DeWine. Sometimes I was mowing the grass in the bottom. And those Dan DeWines were all older, and I had to pull them out, you know, so we just had to get out of here and bring the grass. And I kept saying, this thing is even crazy. And I thought, this is the same way as I am. This Dan DeWine, and myself, there's something uncommon here. And the poem emerged. A little bit now about this poem and what it meant. The other flower, the Dan DeWines, were multitudes across the green grassy area. And the man comes and sees them. And it's obvious that there it begins to pull them out and try to destroy them, roll them all down. The rain comes, the sun emerges, the grasses grow. And one Dan DeWine goes and spreads its seeds. And if he comes, it takes its seeds and then plants it. And days go by. And the Dan DeWine is 1,000 spores, meaning that you see what I presented at home. From the Dan DeWine, a pain from the flower and I carried away and spread these spread seeds. And says, he yells, he yells there. The spores have spread and he pulls it out but those seeds again and plant themselves throughout the grass. He's like rye. Did you notice anything like a rye as you saw in the performance? My body shifts back and forth. My hands shift back and forth. My hands themselves. What about them? Yes. I use my hands to move them in and out. And I often use hand shapes when I open my finger to hand. When I say, oh, flower, spread out across the grass and use this hand shape. And when they're waving, they're also the same five hand shape. And man incorporates that same shape. I use five hand shapes throughout the phone again and again. Just a kind of a rye. And also, when I use the classifier to signify Dan DeWine, you'll see that again when he's in the open hand shape. That's one kind of rye. Also, you see this hand shape, the clenched fist. What does that signify? This is the close hand. What kind of feeling is there in opposition to the open feeling of the five hand shape? A clenched fist, yes, signifies kind of anger whereas the open hand is free and liberated. So this is just the position of the close and the open. So you can see that there is the literal meaning of the poem as you watch it. So you may wonder what this meaning is. Have you been able to figure it out for yourselves as I'm speaking? Yes, it's a metaphor. You're right. Meaning that my poem has a literal meaning that you can see but also a metaphorical meaning. It's not just a pre-picture in the air. What you're saying? It's a metaphor for frustration, anger, from my experiences growing up in a deaf school for having my slain to take away from me and being forced to use the pluralism. Oh, of course, you're right. That's right. That's his discipline of interpretation. Having my designs taken away from me, being forbidden to sign, being forced to use or lack of communication, you're saying that it's a metaphor for that the world is imperfect and that it may have to show that the world is not always perfect. You're saying that when seeds spread, a seed is a symbol that seeds will always continue to live, that they'll continue to propagate no matter what. And that you cannot keep these hands clutched and they will open. Even if you don't plan it, even if you don't intend it, even if you try to rid the world of them, they still will continue to sprout. Exactly. That's right. So the sign, continue, is appropriate to use in the instance. This person's opinion, it used to be that deaf people were allowed to use their sign language and then the invention of the world made more methods of communication and education appeared and really diminished the ability for deaf people to use their hands to communicate. But now it's beginning to spread again that people are free to use sign language to communicate. You're right. What we've been talking about is a metaphor, is examples of how this poem is a metaphor for really deeper feelings. So the poem has a deeper meaning of what you nearly see when you first watch. Now, remember opening the poem with Moe, telling you about how it is Moe in the grass and how I realized that this dealing line and I have something in common. I was before punishment for signing and I use this, and I use this sign to say, to express my frustration at being oppressed in this way. And then again, I was abusing that sign to talk about how I was trying to rid the Dan boy. Now back in 1980, so 1880, the Milan conference, there was a Milan conference that occurred and it was a milestone in the history of deaf people. For that conference, sign language was forbidden all around the world. Deaf teachers were fired, sign language was shouted off from the province of the deaf. But now, again, sign language is continuing to be analyzed again. We'll see what happens in the future if we think it's going to take off now. Well, I agree. I really agree. Okay, I'm going to repeat the poem now so we'll have another chance. Okay, Melissa, in this poem, many things occur in the threes, movements of threes pulling out the seeds in the movement of three, well, in the movement of three, blossoming in the movement of three. I tend to use the movement of three over and over again as a rhyme. And I deliberately manipulate the poem in this way to create rhyme. There wasn't just an arbitrary expression of my feelings, but there was a deliberate plan of how I was to do this as a rhyme. The next poem is entitled The Lonely Sturdy Tree, and I'm signing it in this way. You know, a tree that's lived for a long time in this old weather. Remember 1978? That was about when mainstreaming started. Am I right there in the 70s? 73? I don't know. But that probably is that date. You're saying 1973? Okay, well, in the early 70s, mainstreaming began to become a wise method of education. And I was working in the mainstream school for deaf children, and I saw the kinds of frustrations that they went through. I became very frustrated. I had many clashes with the teachers. Now, I was at that point commuting from Reno to Carson City. I lived in Reno, and I went to the school to work in Carson City. It was a lot of 50 mile drive commute each day. And every day when I was driving, I saw this tree, and it really inspired me and out of it came this palm and a desert that's very flat. And then later, because of a mountain, it's all actually hilly, and the mountains are very cracky, with stones and lands. And on top of one of these hilly, dry mountains is the silhouette of an old, weathery, cracky tree bent from the wind. The sun beats down there, and there's no place to hide. There's only this one long tree survive every day. Now the wind always blows in this one direction, and has the trees blown over in that way. And yet it continues to stand and to wind brushes it off against its trunk. Through storm arms, through freezing cold, through sleet, that tree remains. Even through drought, when it's dry, the tree still lives. And as I watched that tree every day and every day, I thought about my own frustrations. I thought I was a kind of a spirit to this tree, and I'll repeat the call for that. When the black and white hills are hidden here, all the places here in NTID, at that time I was a student here back in 1971, my first year here at NTID, and the actual continued years of student in 1972. And this poem came about because at the time I was living in a dorm on the NT side, and I was in bed and the shade was going back and forth from the wind. I thought it was a very odd kind of a morning. I didn't like the sensation, but outside it was a beautiful day. I never forgot that and how I was awakened. Then at one point later it happened that I got a terrible toothache, and I thought I'd better run the dentist now and have it fixed or pulled out or something. It was so painful. So I called the dentist and told him and he told me, well, I'm sorry, but I have a very full schedule to have to wait until tomorrow. I told him, I'm sorry, I can't wait until tomorrow. I have an extreme amount of pain. But I told him I might have to do the best that I can and then went to bed to try to sleep. But the pain was not and I couldn't fall asleep. So I got up and started to pace the room and my pain diminished. So I started to sign and realized that was a good way to help me get through the night and out of that pain. This is a new poem that I started going to perform in 1981 even though I first conceived it in 72. The poem was written in a kind of style that may seem awkward compared to the way that I made both of these days. But I kept the stuff. That's why I'm going to submit my days that this is student year. I actually did videotape at that time when I watched the videotape and tried to keep the same style which it was conceived. Perform it that way today to keep the style of 72 alive. And you'll see that my poetry style has evolved since then in later poems. Windy Bright Morning is about this window where the shade has pulled down and the wind is blowing through letting you in through the cracks the light of the morning. And as I'm sleeping that light gets through my eyelids. Is it the wind and the sun know that I'm deaf and that I need a flashing light in order to wake up? Letting you know that I felt as if the sun and the wind knew I was deaf. So I get up to close the window. You know how RIT buildings are constructed, right? You have to close the window and as it swings out pull it shut. And that's the way all those buildings are built. So I pulled it shut and went back to bed to try to sleep again. But my body was very warm. But all of a sudden I felt the window again open again. And again the sun was flashing and an ink in my bed. The wind had opened the window and so on and the cold air was rushing in here. And I was styled and taken to bed and I got up and out of the shade a little bit and it felt pain. And this is something I want to be awakened to feel. You know here in Rochester every day there tends to be clouds over there. Rochester is famous for its cloudy weather and you'd feel like come on sun. But all of a sudden it was just one morning when the sun shone brightly cold and clear and I'll never forget it. He's asking me here does this woman have a hidden meaning? Is it a metaphor to something? And no I think this means this poem is really more for the enjoyment the beauty of the region and the feeling the expression of my experience at that time. The next poem is entitled Snowflake When I talk about this a snowflake was a concept that at one point I took a real liking to but I didn't know how to arrange it with my poem so I held onto the idea for almost three years mulling it over in the back of my mind and then one day I met a deaf child and I realized now that the snowflake had found its home and a poetry about the child. This is about the child with his body was very proud of the way the child could speak but strange when I made this snowflake and the snowflake destroyed the child I really didn't know why I put it together that way I wrote my poem and conceived it and then realized that the hidden meaning was more than I and I had been aware of when I created it after I had reported the poem I'll talk about that with you okay you don't see any oh goodness he said he saw no hidden meaning but there really is here he sings about the boy and his grandmother and then he does can't use ASL he uses English like someone uses a signed English an English word or being forced to use those words but for me really I'm talking about the boy using the oral language communication I just added a sign so you could see what he was saying you're saying that your interpretation of it is that sign thing which is so wonderful just like a snowflake is that's an interesting interpretation very good you're very warm he's very close he caught an important part that at the end the snowflake is dissolved you notice my face I do not I have a bit of a smile on my face very slight you're very close your interpretation is very close you are saying here that it's a feeling that the snowflake melting it is about the feelings that are hidden inside of it that your person has to fake it in order to make it and it's here in the world you're saying this snowflake is going and that later it will be able to spread to the earth and rise again that's interesting you're saying here that the meaning once expression in some cases must be blamed and hide one's anger knocking into a special truth feeling you're very close to him you're saying that you couldn't really follow all of it but at the very end you caught the idea that the snowflake is obliterated into the ground meaning that oppression is continuing and the smile is just a cover up for the hard feelings of that oppression you're saying that the meaning is of a little girl a little boy whatever I didn't specify the gender you're right that the meaning is about that the communication here is simply superficial there's no depth to it right very good yes you're saying the poem here is about the feelings of bitterness and disappointment that one feels when the snowflake is dissolved into the earth there's a kind of a bitter feeling you're right this poem here is very ironic the snowflake ends in like a special is mild but that mild discussion really is ironic the snowflake you know the natural snowflakes are like each snowflake has its own unique design each snowflake is an individual every snowflake is its own entity and what could that equate to what could that concept equate to the snowflake is like each different person in the world who is also unique right it is poetic the snowflake is a metaphor for individuals right the snowflake well first you see we have the sun the sun now is representative of warmth with energy and heat and also of authority who is an authority the father right the father who is above and an authority who has the power and the heat of him radiating down now the snowflake that is a metaphor for the child and when he lands into the heat of the father it happens he lands right and this is symbolized a symbol of how he loses his identity he is dissolved into the heat of his father's power now it looks very beautiful you see my expression is that it's all very lovely but ironically it's embarrassing so I'll do this more in depth for you so you can see it again that's another dimension oh did you notice something you were saying that when you said that about that child it really struck me how did you know that the child was deaf how did all of you know that because of the way they were trying to live and put it in the way that they spoke and the way they said my name is that's right okay I see how you caught that now you're saying that the father is saying say it is say yeah huh that's good he's saying that he's saying that I am five years my M is like an S oh and an S meaning in some way an S why do you know how those pieces have a chess board small ones called haunts and my vision of them is that haunts are small and small and so a diet of eggs and the other is a sand evidence but all for that and I dedicate this part very important in this time okay one of the times one of the times what were you saying I can't watch too many people one time here you're saying that the government won't help the quilt is not for them and the other is extremely important you're saying that there are no support for people like this but they're neglected and they end up dying but what's this about the planets that are turned up at the end does that mean that there's peace at the end there's freedom prevails you're saying that the flag when there are people and they're overturned there's no identity when people are left on the ground like that you're saying that there's a remembrance and an honor of the dead people right but notice you're going to say but who is this who is this who is this the flag is like this with stars and stripes but then people tend to say stars are like this and sign it this way I've seen this over and over again and in two different places in parts of the country I see all over that people sign it this way and I've taken them the radar for the dead community the stars spreading out ahead and stripes going across and I want to take the flags and lay them up like this what does that signify how does it come down for the dead community that it's dying but there's two flags here you're close it shows that that American needs support but they're still dying that's close that's American support I'll give you support but they're still the flag you're saying at the end that there's a question of oh well I'm warning you that when the hands turn face up it might mean the flag is there face up but the people will survive beyond the stars and stripes but the world in the south is gone the world in the flag is gone you're saying that the face up flag symbolizes the people who have aid to our who are simple who are honored in the quilt the handles of the quilt you're right talking about the quilt you're saying talking about the quilt and what if the American flag was a part of that quilt what would that be about? if the American flag was down there as a part of pieces of quilt that means when the soldiers die and war there's a parade and they always put quilt when the soldiers die quilts are often placed over the over the coffin that's right it's an interesting interpretation or when the flags placed over the coffin what you're talking more about deaf people many deaf people who have aimed for that that's right this is really true that this is a difficult point to decipher but it's important when I sign the stars and stripes as I do this is a way of saying the deaf people and when the evolved these flags are overturned it's a way of saying that the deaf population will diminish the world will diminish it may grow again but at the time it's diminished because of the of AIDS that community is very small to begin with it may be able to people may say oh we can find a cure and people will survive days after all but too many people in that community get it then we might not be able to save that community she's asking here why are there two different flags well because it's symbolizing both of my friends John and Sam so there was a group of us who were walking performing arts one night we were discussing something and having a nice time when all of a sudden there was a really nasty fight between two of us the next day it seemed that it had dissolved but one person the one of them who had been involved in the argument came up to me and said later you know I told them I was sorry I really disturbed me she was the one that said she was sorry so I created this poem and dedicated it to my friend who said I'm sorry does that mean any deeper meanings held within this poem you're saying that I won't say anything you may say you're sorry now but it's my to be silent I think it's good enough to leave your interpretation to yourself this poem speaks for itself pretty clearly would you like me to repeat it again anyway shall I do it again okay okay fine now do you want me to explain anything more about it first or not shall I just go ahead and do it again no yes I shall just go ahead and do it again fine do you want me to talk about it no no it's not like I was saying no I just do it there I'll leave it up to you and you can all decide for yourselves and let me tell you though it's very complex you may watch it and be completely amused but that's fine after I perform I will discuss it in depth and that's when I perform for the second time I did it much more clearly it's called the game I created this poem because one woman named Barbara Cannon was giving a presentation about death culture and the answer and at that time it was 1985 and I sat there completely fascinated by her talk and there was one point that she made about cochlear implants and she was talking about the inner ear and you know how they always talk about the big ear you don't want to put this gigantic poster the huge ear on the wall for everyone to look at you know the poster that you've all seen over and over again and I really like this idea of the big ear you know that often has people see it as one big ear without even looking at it it's really disgusting it was very true and so I thought of a poem and I asked Barbara if I could add her idea into a poem about the big ear she told me that was fine so I gave her a lot of thought but I realized the counter was very difficult to work with and I struggled for a long time it was almost three years and eight until finally it happened that Barbara's birthday she invited there are many people invited to a party for her and I thought I'd love to present to her this poem about the ear to dedicate to her for her birthday finally came up with it and entitled it a famous sign like this they're completely puzzled by it this is like a band you're right it's like a band she said it's like music you know like a big band they're a band your culture almost right what's this on what's going on here this is about just about the inner ear people people who are deaf or people always trying to find out how to improve deaf people hearing trying to make them able to hear better they try to help when they even enter into the ear to try to fix it right this is correct very good you got the point you get the nail in the head and finally it's as a comparison between the ear and the cave right you go down into a cave and the tool goes down into the ear and you know the different lines around the ear compared to stalactites from the cave and once it's being pulled out things being pulled out do you know what they do they clean out the ear what's being pulled out what's being pulled out cilia right and if I'm planting a cold layer implant into the ear placing it deep down inside it's hard to know if this your perception of this is positive or negative if you say it's negative wow you're right if you couldn't catch it but you're right I'm not overt about my impressions of this I love anti-duty and I want you to have to work hard to figure out what it is that I really what it is what I want the real point is I just like to talk to you and and I'll be looking at a picture an image that I gave in Snowflake and I can do with a cave and you then figure out what my perceptions are on these images we have the cave and then we have these steps you know stairs going deeper and deeper down to the cave what do these stairs symbolize it's the lines from the cochlear implant all the lines from the cochlear implant and then these lights what do they symbolize the electricity right the energy the electricity is being wired down into the ear and these drips and the lights what's that like air conditioning placed within a cave meaning that really the natural elements of the ear are taken out and these artificial elements are placed in and it's very ironic you notice the ribbons that I set up and the lights and the chairs red white and blue placed throughout the audience symbolizing the air it's like now why would I do something like that why did I bring up the American flag because it only supports this right because this is during the time when they get used when they use bright colors and tie-dye and all that kind of thing interesting very interesting and hallucinations they glow nice and what I'm also talking about money here is that the cochlear implant costs millions of dollars it's very expensive you're putting a lot of money into a kid when you do that so I'm sure that technologists the people who are using this only have seed dollar signs otherwise when they think of placing cochlear implants now what's all this about this brightness up in the sky it's about the sound about misperceptions very good about anger it's basically interpretation but my interpretations are the distance these are the sounds that I can't hear and a cochlear implant just makes those sounds increase in volume so they make your implant not in a great amplitude so what benefit is that okay now I'll perform it again alright and this is the last final evening but I'll let you know that being here was really exciting for me I'm teaching them children now and there's more news about about children getting cochlear implants so I really want to talk to you I really want to give you a message about that thank you for listening to my analogy take care I want to thank the interpreter for interpreting for Clayton Valley tonight it's just a chapel I want to choose your voice