 I was looking for those haikus that I did the other day. Damn it. I got all my papers all mixed up. Do you have to copy each other? There was a haikus, yeah. He got the one with the haikus. Page of haikus there. Yeah. This one? Yeah. Yes. I had one question to begin. I read Miss Dark. Miss Dark. Thank you for coming here today. It's a pleasure to have both Robert Panera and Alan Insberg. We're in a specialized setting of an interpretive training program. We're beginning performing arts. So this is a wonderful way to begin that section of our program. Bob is a teacher here and a famous poet himself. He published a book called Silent News Anthology, which is a collection of death poetry in the 60s. Alan Ginsberg published Howell and other poems in 1956. That particular book changed the whole idea, concept of poetry. And both of these people have in common the idea that poetry is pictures and four interpreters. That's really important, I think, because if you have that idea in mind to see the picture, it will help us all interpreting poems. So briefly enough, I'm going to present Robert Panera and Alan Ginsberg. So I had one question at the beginning. In the room, who here is deaf? On this side, just a few of you. And most everybody here, everybody else, is learning language. And among those deaf, how many are deaf from birth and how many became deaf but heard first? Because I read an interview with Bob Panero, a conversation between Jim Cohen and Mr. Panero, in which he said that since he was deaf after the age of ten, he had some idea of sound poetry and so like rhyme and meter, that was his symphony now. He started as a musician or his father was a musician. And so he still retained the trace of music. Do you hear music in your head still? I have been reading in my years more than ten artists at the medical time. Ten Art World Po speaks of the ten aberrations that some musicians have. We have that. Many who have a high fever, I had 108 fever for ten days and was in a coma. Well, something is still ringing in there all the time. So I always hear the bell. Do you also imagine music in your head? Yes. I can turn on my head in the radio and bring back many of the melodies that I once could hear. My father used to play the guitar at home. He used to sing on a Saturday night when he came back from the Metropolitan Opera House listening to his favorite Enrico Caruso. He would come back singing all the time. Can you make up music in your head? I believe I have created some songs myself but not knowing how to write a score is no way you can reproduce that. Can you make up meters in your head? You make up poetry in your head. So do you hear it rhythmically in your head? Yes. Really, that's why I developed an early love for poetry after I became deaf. Poetry became a substitute for music for me. It also helped develop my vocabulary because of the round ending of words. I didn't always have to go to the dictionary to find out how to pronounce the word. And because of the meter within the line I would say where the accent fell on the first syllable or second syllable, the third, really helped a lot. So those were for the words you did not learn before you were ten years old? Most of the words I learned after ten. Okay. How many here heard before they became deaf like Mr. Panera? Have you had the same experience? Well, I still enjoy music if it's loud enough. You can hear some. Inside myself I can make some music, yes of course. If music is loud enough you can hear the beat. How many are deaf that had hearing like yourself here? Can you raise your hand again too? And what is your experience? I became deaf when I was three years old. So I really don't remember much about the sound before but same as what he was saying if the music loud enough I could feel the vibrations and enjoy that. Can you hear this? These are Australian... No, these are... From the wooden floor. We have a carpet over here. Yes. But I can imagine what that might sound like. I see. I make my own sound for it. I see. These are Australian Aborigine song sticks. And this is the oldest form of poetry in the world. The Australian Aborigines... You failed it. But sounds very wooden to me. Nothing. The Australian Aborigine method of poetry is based on rhythm made by knocking these sticks together. It is all oral, pure sound. Not written down at all. And passed from generation to generation. And they mention animals which have been extinct for 12,000 years. So it's the oldest living culture on the planet. And if longevity is a sign of sophistication it's the most sophisticated culture on the planet. If historical memory is a sign of high culture. But their method was a very simple rhythmic repetition. A congo. Yes. Very fair and laid prone. Yes. For those of you who were born deaf have never heard anything then... Nothing. Nothing. So do you hear music of some kind? No. Plains going over my head. Maybe. Really? So then what is your conception of poetry or your experience of poetry? I enjoy reciting poetry in sign language. But I have no idea about rhythm. I'm more fascinated with the words that the poetry uses and extracts. And I want to translate those into sign language that seems equivalent to the words to make it beautiful. And that's difficult. Maybe. Now to try to present one poem I wrote that maybe deals with this topic. Yes. Quote on his deafness. Maybe we get an idea of what Pat Greiber means when he can hear words of the word and sign. Pat Greiber is... That's me. That's him. But his interest in poetry is for the visual or the idea rather than the sound. There's no sound involved there. Purely picture and idea. Well, 20th century poetry is mostly picture and idea. So modern poetry, especially after Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the imagist poets should be the best is almost specifically tailored for those who are deaf. Pound pointed out that poetry had three different aspects for him. One was sound, melodpia. Then one was the dance of the intellect among the words, the wittiness or the sophistication or the strangeness of funny words being put together like the phrase Nazi milk. But the other was the pure picture aspect. The third was the pure picture aspect. The casting of a picture on the mind's eye. And ever since their work, the reason we've gone into a lot of free verse different from the kind that Bob likes has been the emphasis on the picture aspect. And especially in the 20th century, there has been a lot of translation from many languages into English and from English into many languages. And the poetry that translates the best is the poetry that has pictures in it and does not depend on the sound and doesn't depend on the rhymes but just depends on the pure picture. So there's been more and more of a tendency to develop an international poetry style which is free verse that is open verse that doesn't have a recurrent near and doesn't have recurrent rhyme but has harder and harder, clearer and clearer pictures. I understand that. And we myself also greatly appreciate free verse especially that imagery of modern poetry that Pound and his group calls would be hard and career or concrete and very precise. Maybe we can show some examples of that. Yes. First, let us go to your poem that you propose to present. On that subject. Yeah. Okay. I will take off my coat because that is how I work when teaching the deaf. My ears are deaf but still I seem to hear sweet notes with music and the songs of man for I have learned from fancy's artisan how written words can throw the inner ear just as they move the heart and so for me words also seem to ring out loud and free. In silent study I have learned to tell each sacred shade of meaning and to hear a magic harmony at one sincere that somehow notes the pinkel of a bow the crowing of a dove the swish of leaves the raindrops put a puddle on the eve for all the sigh and drumming of guitar and if I tool the waffle of a star So then it becomes a hand dance also and that's what I mean to sigh with that rhythm and rhyme deaf people have a particular enjoyment of poetry to them it is their form of music painting pictures in the air for example we take a few for haiku poems Are these yours? No, I'm quoting from other poems So the performance of haiku then becomes an invention of a pantomime so it's another actually transferred into another art form like dance or pantomime That's really clear For the time we could throw several more Would you like to try interpreting some haikus that I wrote? I can't help it Part the great boy If I can I'll ask Pat Grable Well first one by Jack Karowak Karowak was a very good writer who was influenced by haiku and by Oriental meditation but had a good ear but also had a very good eye In my medicine cabinet the winter fly has died of old age I'll write it down Yeah, but is there something to write? Oh, does this get erased? I mean, is this a race also? How did he sign old age? What was the sign for old age? Time has passed We have to have that We don't want to use too many signs For example, years passed or strange winter comes We have to work on things like this like poets who work on their poems revise, revise, revise and even when reciting that you often have to rehearse we have to do the same Yes Let's try one of mine I'll write it down This is great This is a great invention A white board instead of a black board That's a big picture Lots of space in the picture Is that visible? Clear as a visible picture? So that was in the half light of dawn under the star Pleiades, a few birds wobble Half light That's the half light Dawn Stars Very fine, thank you The ambition of a good poet is to be able to write something that is visually sharp and clear And when I am writing I'm partly because I have experience of helping translate my own poetry into many different languages I've become more and more conscious of the fact that you can't The only thing you can translate is pictures The only thing you can translate completely is a picture You can't translate the wits of the language or puns and you can't translate rhyme but you can translate the picture So that becomes the test of poetry for me So in a funny way it's fortunate that modern poetry is the closest verbal formulation to what might be useful for people who are deaf With modern poetry the sound is lost but the main thrust is picture Very cool, like new movies European directors came up with new hard-and-curved Australian movies And the same principle Do most of the people here know that about the development of modern poetry? Maybe we should give maybe four minutes of history Would that be useful? Yes, so Something else interesting about deaf people and our language of signs Back in the nineteen We talked about the nineteen fifties Nineteen fifty-eight Pat Grayberg was a student at Dacarys At that time we were studying Greek plays in the Humanities program We were teaching adepts to the freshman class and after two months the class thought why don't we give that play I've never given a great drama before However, another professor named Bernard Saga and I got together and he said first we would have to translate the play into signs So we worked on that for a month translating it and writing it in no case or no form which was really probably we'd call it things in English or something like that Picture signs Very, I will show you what I'm talking about Very pictorial Made for the deaf performer who would have only a few weeks time for a rehearsal to memorize the lines without struggling with meanings and things like that We printed the script picked a cast went on with rehearsals and we found a remarkable phenomenon In great plays the chorus which was composed of fifteen members that provide the mood music that you have a movie score that you also provide the amount of dance movement to show changing emotions within the play We found that in Greek choruses they have strophy and antique strophy or movement and opposite movement point and counterpoint because sometimes if they were happy they would be pleasing to the skies at a time they were fearful would be the reverse movement We found in translating your four sign lines that same thing came out beautifully in signs I'll give an example Yeah, the race is so silent Lee One of the lines in the second choral old and adipose a pole will fire and bolt that bring and salons and fork I said we didn't do this Well my end movement now and a pole will fire with firing bolt fire and salons and fork we have a movement going away from the body so with firing bolt downward movement that bring fire and salons and fork goes in the reverse direction more of this thing that happened often in strophy and strophy and the chorus of 15 members doing that often with the movement and signs always steers the pole Well in the actual hidden physical meaning and picture always steers the show totally like that I will show you another example another example is the half the printed text from the book and the sign language of the version beautiful poetry for signing is thrust out of our iteration but for signing we have no pictures it seems very abstract seems almost impossible to translate about an arrogant which at the top stands also and all the people call him great to God becomes angered and strikes him and he aww you what I mean what is your favorite Shakespeare for signing the man is very difficult to choose name and my favorite baseball player or movie or book what is the most vivid Shakespeare signing I don't know there are many things maybe too long to do Mark Antony for example friends if you want some piece of it or we could do part of Hamlet I immediately wonder what can you do with the abstract idea of to be or not to be the rest of it is slings and arrows about rage is fortune but what about the main face to be or not to be how would you translate that because that's not a picture you often discuss that in class with students what is Hamlet's problem abstraction Hamlet's problem seems to be abstraction abstraction a cross of life and death a cross of musty act to his father or be a good Christian father of the rulers of the state and so on there are many variations sometimes the director wants to be or not to be another director to be or not to do to act another more poetic way to be or not to be what does this mean in terms of being to live to live to live not to live what is the root the question what is the sign language etymology or the origin of that gesture for to live to live to live to live to live to live to live to live to live to live and this would be the reverse reverse movement that's the things we try to do when sign language translations that's universally understood that gesture as life just a no, he says no our sign language is not irreversible no, no, I mean for those of you who use this particular ALS ALS that particular sign is so how would he sign he sign those signs are easy to understand and all over the world might be understood many signs that deaf people use in other countries are not understood well this particular sign to live signs like this but with the L that's an L with an L no heart so your to live would also include patting the heart so there would be some variety in the translation into the sign language a variation from signer to signer same as spoken language same as translation our poetry spoken in first wouldn't have the same meaning and effect same thing same thing so what is the most effective and famous poem known in your sign language what's the biggest the biggest hit what's the biggest hit the biggest hit the biggest hit really? because of the I would say that if he died a long ago in school we used to sing and then in the classroom until it was for a bit but that's probably most well known for the deaf people what other poems because they're still used maybe we like to see that in signs yes I can't read I have to sing and ask it we don't have to stand up you can stay seated but I've always believed that I have to sing that song by Robert Marlowe in Yankee he studied him before every game by now all deaf people can read the lips for the words look and the camera focuses on the fact and then the speakers the lips oh say can you see it's nice but it's nothing like a sign so what would the sign go oh say can you see by the dawn's early dawn what so proudly we held at the twilight's last gleaming with broad stripes and bright stars through the power of the sign over the ramparts we watched what so gallantly streaming and the rockets were there the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave of the free and the home of the brave how would you sign that we shall overcome do you know that do you know that have you ever worked that one out we shall overcome we shall overcome we shall overcome someday oh deep in my heart I do brave we shall overcome someday Welcome some day Tiger tiger I have a I have a version that I sing But there's no point it I'd rather see it I'd rather see it in picture Well, there's a bird. There's one thing about the sung version or about the medical version Which probably could be adapted to deaf language Which is the fact that the The meter of the tiger is based on the heartbeat. Have you thought of that as far as that poem? That's interesting because Target target burning Through the forest of the night. What a mortal hand and I That's framed I see for symmetry What distance deep and sky Point the fire of your eyes What is there we aspire what the hand that sees the fire and What folder and what art could push the similes of your heart and When your heart began to beat What well him for died what see What the ham? What the train from what fire came thy brain? What the angle what what grasp? There is deadly terrors cast when the stars put down their spears and Warded heaven with their tears Did he smile is what to see Did he who made the land? make me Target target burning right Through the forest of the night What a mortal hand and I That's framed I see for symmetry Is that a poem that is great? Is that a poem that is well known? I mean the death Well, I think because of the national theater of the death Which Part helped to find part Graeber way back in 1967 They have won National and International I came all over the world more than that. I really believe That it was a national theory of the death that is Tartar list to Worldwide acceptance of sign language Many standard thing So that I've carried poems I got all over the world. Yes What are the Main Poems that have been Worked out into sign language. What are the most?