 This place wants to thank you for your support. She just collected $220, so thank you. Very pleased to introduce one of the few friends of mine who she's a deaf woman who has incredible energy. She just blows me out of the water. So I'm going to let her show this for herself. I'm not going to explain it because I just can't do it justice. Okay? Now help me. Welcome Debbie Rennie. Debbie, all right. Thank you, thank you. Funny, I just finished going to the bathroom and now I have to go again. Why is that happening? What's going on inside my body? Oh well. I wanted to show as many films as possible, but I had to guess so what I'll have to do is just shut up and start showing you them. And this is called Black Hole, the colors of ASL. A ladder reaching to the sky. At the top paint cans red, yellow, blue, green. Brilliant blue sky canvas. Red, yellow, blue, green, black. Hands are the brushes for the colors of ASL. The ladder is shaken. Down below it's a language tyrant. Get down, get down from there or I'll force you down. No, no, stop it, stop it. The red is the first to go down. Yellow, green, blue, tumbling, tumbling. Black, black, the black hole. Language tyrant disappears into the black hole. The ladder is consumed round by round. No, no, I won't be sucked down. I won't, I won't be sucked down. I won't, I will fly back up. I will fly back, back to the colors, to the colors. Wow, I feel like I was flying off the ground or something here. I travel a lot and I've seen some really fine things. This is called Nature's Metaphors. The mountain side takes the form of a Renoir woman in a petticoat lined between the pines. Looks like the part in a young boy's crew cut. Trees flow into yellow corn fields. The wind playing with the tops of corn stalks is like the hand musting a child's head. Leaves flutter about on birches like a young girl's tresses about her face in the wind. Which blows puffy white faces across the sky. Sunset is like the sleepy invitation of a woman's eyes. Okay, sometimes, you know, I'll see something happening. I won't understand it. I get frustrated with it. And then while I'm down the road, many years, I realize, oh, that's what was going on that time, you know? I'm sure you've all experienced that sort of thing. So that's what that was all about. One night I was reading, and I remember today when I was a young girl, little Debbie, had phones on, wired into jarring mechanical, garbled decimals. I looked to my teacher standing beside me. Suddenly, she grabbed the headphones from me. The headphones. The headphones. The headphones. She grabbed them. What is it I said? What? A tear slid down her face. The physical speed. The physical speed. The physical speed. I couldn't understand her words. The line I was reading in the book said, on November 23rd, 1963, it's possible that the CIA assassinated John F. Kennedy. Shot. This is called the void. Do you know what the void means? It's like total space. As far as you can possibly imagine, all the way far out into the universe. Like you have your eyes closed, and there's no wall. And it's just blackness. That scares me so. The void. Can't fire dies down. I kick the last of the glowing embers to ashes. And the darkness encloses like a shroud. I make my way blindly. I am at the mercy of this blackness. Losing the path to find myself prey to the nameless talents of the night. They claw and clutch at my hair. I push on. The path. I sense a clearing. And to the left of me, the forest continues on, off until it fades in the distance. A silhouette. And in front of me, a smooth, star-studded surface. A reflection. Looking up, I see a universe of light. And I am released. Okay. Some of you may have already seen this poem. It's an old one. So I had to find a replacement for it. But I think you'll love to see it again. At least I hope so. I'm sure you've all had something you can't resist. This is called I RAPED CHOCOLATE LAST NIGHT. Walking through the streets of the city, jostled by a businessman. An old woman. Buildings up to the sky. Car fumes choke me. Into the subway. And over by the newsstand. There it was. Chocolate. Swiss chocolate. With hazelnut cream filling. Only 39 cents. No, I mustn't. Okay, I went over to the magazine rack. Play girl, play boy. Play Chuck. A Hershey's bar. With a foil undone. Nestle's crunch bar. And then special dark chocolate. Completely naked. I put the magazine aside. No, no, no, no. Get my newspaper and get in line. Chocolate. Chocolate, chocolate. Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. I couldn't resist anymore. I grabbed a piece, set it on the counter. No bag, thanks. Grab my things. The train pulls out. I get in. Door's ladder shut. And we're off. Chocolate. Chocolate. I couldn't take any more. I devoured it. Yes, that's what I did. I went to the library. I was doing some research. I was looking up consumer reports. Checking out video cameras. Let me tell you, it was a completely worthless venture. Because the magazine was from 1985. And now the technology of cameras is way past what it was then. Man, life really goes by fast. Cultures change, fashion changes. Everything changes so quickly these days. So I'll present this poem called The Fast Pace of Life. How many of you have seen Get Up to See the Sun Rise in the morning? I know, Rochester, it never rises. It rains continuously. But any of you get up to see the sunrise? California, right? You must be from there. You're from California. Because that's the problem. Never get everybody. Yeah. Not many of you, it seems like a few. Okay. This is called sunrise. Late evening. Sunset. Red, yellow, blue, pink. Another day. The sun sets. Colors, orange, pink, gold. Yet another setting sun. Pink, orange. Sweet sleep. Early morning light. Brilliant, magical colors of the sun. Pure inspiration. I tell you, I don't catch many of these. I love to play with hand shapes. You know, I have to have a hand shape poem in here. And, you know, I try to find a challenge for myself. And so I used a three hand shape. This is called frog. By the side of a pond. A frog. Catches sight of a moth. The frog and his reflection. Splat. The next poem is in honor of Susan Chapel. You know, to get a green card means that you have permission to live in the United States. It's for, you know, illegal aliens. They need to get permission to be able to live and work in America. You know, they can become a U.S. citizen. In order to do that, you must get a green card first and the process goes on from there. This is called alien. The projector starts. And on the screen. Ow. Through star-spangled space. An egg. Green and throbbing. Throbbing and green. A bee approaches the egg. Ah! Where's your green card? A peasant scrambles for safety in her war-torn land. She makes her way to a train. A train heading north, heading north, heading north, a train leaving her terror-stricken land. She alights in a northern country. America. Freedom. And the star- Where's your green card? Okay, now we're going to change systems. Sound systems. And the reason for that is, I don't want you all to be suing me when these loud voices come through the headphones. You need to take them off. I don't want you to become deaf. Kenny Loner is going to join in with the voicing I must thank Donna for translating all my work. Can everyone hear? Except for the deaf people of course. I already know you can't hear. I'm sorry about that. Can the hearing people hear? Yes? Okay. This is a finger-spelt poem and it's the word calf. It's really important for me to share this with you because I've been pretty involved with animal rights. It's not real active, but I've done a lot of reading of books and the vegetarian times, various sorts of things. I'm a member of P-E-T-A, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. So I read this one thing that really touched me and I thought I would share this with you. It's a letter C-A-L-F. It's called Voicot C-A-L-F. C-A-L-F. C-A-F. C-A-L-F. It's to premium milk that deal, for your gourmet dining pleasure. A handshake poem, a five handshake, and it's four plus five equals nine. The title is peace. Russians come on four by four. Americans say that they've got more. We've got to keep an even score, both sides aimed and ready for war. If we all meditated on world harmony and peace was known in the spirits of all, the souls of all could be entwined, unwinding silver cords to rise above bodies and minds. Okay, this next poem in my last one is called Willi. It's a man who was a patient in a psychiatric hospital where Kenny Lerner worked. And we developed this poem together. It's dedicated to my landlord who unfortunately experienced this. And wow, unfortunately it's important that we express this to people over and over again. Willi, the doors swing open and there he is. Six foot eight, 275 pounds, suspenders and jeans, unshaven and unkempt. The world is in a box, but the trains and all those people and the picture left there and the earth is in a box and I don't understand how the earth is in a box. Yeah, earth rotating on its axis, the earth and the box revolving around the sun. And on the walls of the box are 400 foot wide shower nozzles and a huge pipe that leads to a plane. The pilot takes his plane off, up into the pipe heading up towards the shower nozzle. The plane sprays out into the box over the earth and the train pouted with people, a woman holding onto her son as the train stops. Cattle doors open and the people scramble out. She struggles to get to her father who collapses on the other side of the train car dead, stepping out of the train and into the line her son is taken away, dripped off naked and shaved and the line nears the door which cracks open and mist comes out. She enters a box like room with shower nozzles all around. And on the wall are one, two, three, five lines that you could almost put your finger. This shower spray on and mist fills the room and the planes fly into the box dropping mushroom bombs on the earth. A woman walks down the street, leaving only her picture in the sidewalk. A man runs screaming, skin peeling and the mist in the box as the woman screams and tears her fingers at the cement. And the door to the chamber cracks open and mist comes out. And the earth in its box, the lid cracks open and mist comes out. You see the earth and the bombs, bombs, bombs, brains crowded with people, picture left on earth is in the bombs, bombs that earth here, that means that means I'm stuck here, I'm stuck in the chair. And I'd like to thank Kenny Lerner and Donna for voicing you so that you could understand me. Really the shaking of the hands and the air and I'm doing it too is because I want to thank you. So we go back and forth thanking each other. We'll do that forever and ever in infinity like mirrors. I went to the library looking through the book stacks, pretty dusty, cobwebs, a totally vacant spot. I saw this book written by a hearing person, something was missing, so I decided I would make a book. A book for you all today. Here is the first page. Okay, first of all I have to thank everyone. I would like to give many thanks to Jim Cohn who has made this conference possible. And thank the Liberal Arts Department for funding the project. And thank you to all of you who have come here to the conference and made this a historic event. Without you it couldn't happen. So thank you all for coming. And I'd like to say thank you to my good friend Donna Kachidis who has been translating my work for me for a long time. You know I'm pretty lazy about doing that myself, so. And I'd like to say thank you to my love Kenny Lerner for his continual support of my work and my art. Who keeps me going and keeps me doing new things. Not for him I might sit home and be bored and have cobwebs growing off my head and neck. Okay, the preface. How I became a poet. Okay, first let me explain something to all of you. You know a long time back I was a young innocent girl and I fell madly in love with a man. I was so crazy about him. And he just shunned me away. And the reason he did that was because I was deaf. I was devastating. I got really bitter and angry. And bitter about my deafness and I didn't want to take it out on him. He was a friend and I wanted to keep that friendship. I cherished it. And so instead I wrote poems to express my feelings about that and kept him in private. Never showed anyone. And later on in life I met another man and we had a good relationship. But he said to me you'll never be able to understand music. And I said yes, yes I can. I can understand music you know. I can relate it to the colors that I have in my artwork. And he said no, no. We had total communication breakdown. I was really frustrated. And again really torn apart. And so I wrote about that. And again I kept it to myself. It was personal writing and I couldn't show it to anyone else. And later on I became involved with Sunshine too. And I found a poem written by a deaf woman, Dorothy Miles. And I loved it. I translated the poem and it's called Skunk. I can't remember the translation now. I don't have that poem with me. I guess I'm not organized. You see I don't forget things anyway. I enjoyed the work so much. Stein went on. I got involved with FTD, the Fairmont Theatre of the Deaf. I worked with them for two years. And they gave me different poems to translate. Oh you might be wondering why I'm signing poetry the way I am. First let me explain it to you. I went to DAA, the Deaf Artists of America. They had a conference. And we were sitting around having discussion about deaf art. There were all kinds of opinions being thrown in. People are saying what is deaf art? What does deaf art mean? Is deaf art a genre? A style? A movement? What is it? People said maybe we should sign deaf art like this. Someone came up to the stage and said today deaf people are signing ASL. It's really beautiful language and it's growing so much. In the past we had to write and use the English language but now we're free. And we're spiritually more free because of that. And so I'm signing poetry like the same sign for spirit except with a P because of that. So, anyway, back to my original thought. I've been signing translating poems a lot and I've really enjoyed that. And I came to RIT to study graphic design. I was studying because I decided that the theatre market wasn't very good and I might not have a job and I wanted to have something I could depend on, you know. I need something to make a living by, get some food with. So I came here to study. And while I was studying, who else but Jim Cohen came up to me and said, would you like to perform in the Birds Brain Society? What? Tell me. Let me tell you. My knees were shaking. And I said, well, I guess I'll try and present my poetry to people. And during that time I got so much feedback. There was so much interaction with other people. Howie Sego came up to me and he explained to me about Ella's work. He talked about timing and rhythm and hand shapes being the focus of her work. I thought about that and I realized, oh, translation isn't what I need to be doing. I can focus on ASL as the source. And so when I graduated from RIT, I really wanted to work with Patrick Grable. So I got a theatre internship here at NTID. I learned from the different teachers in the department. I learned about acting. I learned the principles of acting. And I learned so much. I saw so many people's different styles. And also I was involved with Patrick Grable's translation into sign. And that's the time when I learned about ASL Grounder. That ASL had a structure of its own. And I was so thrilled. And it was such an exciting process working with him. It was a real inspiration. And I was also involved with Howie Sego's Sign Mime class. And he talked about hand shapes. And I thought, wow, what a challenge. I was finding all these new tools to work with. So then I also learned about fingerspelling programs. Hand shape and fingerspelling are two different entities. And I'd like to talk about them each. Fingerspelling, there's two methods that you can use. One is to be descriptive and the other is to be used outline. For example, this is calf. C-C-A-L. That's a finger spelled pawn. The other thing you can do is outline. Mountain. That's outlining. You spell the word in the shape of the thing that it is. And for people here who don't know what hand shapes are, I'd like to show them to you. This is one hand shape. A five hand shape. This is an S, a D. I'd like to show your hand shape poem. And it's called swan. A solitary tree whispers its reflection in the calmly rippling pond. A majestic swan flies through the air, swoops down, skims the surface, splashes, then settles herself. In her comforting water nest, she regally glides. Also, another challenge for me is to take hand shapes and fingerspelling poems and have them not be the emphasis. I don't want that to stand out. I want it to flow. That's something I like to challenge myself with. It's important in my poetry to do that. For example, that sign and create with a W would never work because the hand shape isn't correct. They have to make sense. Everything has to flow together. It's very important. That's an important aspect of my poetry. So I do get a lot from doing hand shape poems. I like to do them. I always include them in my poetry sets. Now I'm more and more involved with poetry. It seems like it's my life right now. My total focus is on poetry. I'm lucky, but I'm poor. Poor but lucky. It's definitely a priority of my poetry. Oh, I love it so much. Coming up with ideas, traveling, getting new experiences. It's all an inspiration for me to create. I feel like I've grown so much in my lifetime and there have been so many changes and so many different experiences. Things that I've seen. And my poetry seems to be growing parallel with my life. It's really amazing. My poetry has definitely changed. When I look back, I have to laugh at myself. When I see videos of my first poetry, I think I fell in love. And I'm really awkward with what I'm doing. It's not smooth. So it's interesting to see with hindsight now. I also perform stories and I'm a clown. My clown before I was so successful with that. But now it seems to be frozen in a static position. I can just look at it and say, oh, that's my clowning, but I don't really do it. Storytelling I do do still from time to time. And it's important because it's how I earn my living. I freelance for young audiences. They book me all around in the area schools in Rochester. That's my source of income. Now, how do I decide what the difference is between my poetry and my stories? Chapter one. I don't want you to have to look at that. That light is bothering me too. First of all, I'd like to show you. I'd like to show you a poem. And I'd like to share the technical words that I use with poetry. This is called Missing Children. You know those white cards you get sometimes in the mail? Pictures on them of little children and they say, have you seen me with a number underneath them? You know, on the reverse side, there's an advertisement. I hate to get them. It just tears me apart. You know, I'll go through my mail and bills, bills, more bills, and then I'll see one of these cards. It just kills me. I can imagine a woman, a mother and father, brothers and sisters sitting around feeling lost without their dear one, their dear one gone. And it goes on for years and years. I can't really imagine it. I can't imagine a child of mine that happening. And all over the world, there's so many people missing, so many children missing in wars, children of all ages, young to adults. That's really touching. So this poem, Missing Children, was written by me. Well, written isn't really the right word created by. I don't have a printed version of it, but it was created by me and Kenny Lerner. We worked together on that. I work with Kenny because he knows so much about politics. And I know a lot about children, so we're putting the two together. We came up with this. A passerby takes the card and on it, a picture. Under it says, have you seen me, a cute little girl? No, I haven't. Paper flies through the air and lands on the ground, face down, Nicaragua. Cute little boy, dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, dark brown complexion, working in the coffee fields alongside his father, the father and his son. Throughout the land, a similar scene, the father and his son. And through the thick, hot jungles, tens upon 20s of freedom fighters, ammo belts. People fall down to the ground dead, and the boy sees his father shot and killed. Freedom fighter grabs him, throws on helmet, and the boy continues planting seeds into the barrel of the gun. A funeral march in South Africa. The father and in the casket, his son. The father mourners proceed. The father and in the casket, his son. The mourners recoil from the approaching danger. It's both his boys. And in the casket, his son. Cute little boy, red hair, freckled face, blue eyes, looks to his father, the father and his son. Father down's bottle, gasoline, lights it across the way. A cute little girl with bow ties and her hair looks to her father and his gun. Collects them a picture of a cute little girl. Have you seen me? So I'd like to apply that to the technical aspects of my poetry. First of all, I have to tell you these are my personal rules. They're not yet law. No, no laws have been made. They're my personal rules. What I feel from the inside and what I've figured out about myself. I'm not a linguist. I'll tell you that. Okay, I'm really famous for repetition. And I usually repeat three times. That's my tendency. Every poem of mine tends to have that. For example, the boy planting seeds. Do you remember that? In the coffee fields, there was a small boy planting seeds three times. Then he's putting the seeds into the barrel of the gun and the freedom fighter shoots three times. In South Africa in the funeral march, the mourners, he noticed that my work tend to have that repetition. But if it's fast, can I have a repetition of twos? And I said yes, that is very much true. Sometimes the transition happens and it goes instead of threes to twos. I might count something, a certain movement, as one of the times. And it looks like two, but it's three. It depends on what feels right for me. If I feel like it's too overdone, it's taking up too much time. I think three times people will be really bored with that. So I'll just do it once. I have to feel what's right and what fits the energy and the emotion of the poem. Okay, frozen images. Oh, I love to work with them. I think they're the most powerful for me. And I think that's because I love photography. It's so moving to me. It's so powerful. You see, I just saw a picture of myself in the newspaper like that. I thought, wow, I loved it. I love the idea of a frozen image. And so I like to have that in my poems. A lot of my poems have frozen images. For example, the pictures in missing children. For me, it just sends chills up my spine. I like to end with frozen images. I always tend to do that. Like the papers falling on the ground, stiff. Okay, hand shapes. I always like to play with hand shapes and have them alternate with each other. Most of the time, sometimes I focus on that. Sometimes I don't. Even if I don't focus on hand shapes, somehow they tend to come up in my poems. It's just inside me. I've been working on that for three years, you know. I just knew with this little three-year-old poet. But in South Africa, you see the five hand shapes holding the coffin and the mourners. And they play off each other back and forth. Hand shapes are such amazing things to me. Transformation of signs. Like the paper flies through the air. And then when it turns over, it's the same as the sign for dead. The paper becomes death. I have another poem where I'm thinking about my complaints and I say, my complaints, my complaints. I'm through with them. It's like the complaints are written down on a piece of paper and I can just crumble them up and throw them away. That kind of idea. I tend to play with abstract ideas in that manner. For example, that when the bomb goes off and I cover my ears. My ears are covered with the five hand shapes and I'm holding the coffin. But I've changed from one place to another and that transformation happens smoothly. He asked about transforming images from image to image. Concept to concept or sign to sign. Well, the paper is an example of that. It flies through the air and then it becomes death. It has two meanings in one. And the sign travels. It flows. Valley is a good example of that. He's really beautiful choreography in his language. He traveled from place to place until he would arrive in another place. Choreography of language. I've been involved in taking dance classes and so I know a little bit about choreography. And I'll use things, my body, movement and play with the trees. These signs for trees in the jungle. I feel like I'm choreographing the language because this is the sign for tree. But for me, I choreograph it and emphasize the dance of it and emphasize that it's a jungle to show that. So choreography is a part of my work. Okay, speed. I like to change speeds. And why I make things slow at one time and fast in another is, let's see, for example, the car pulls up and I want that to be smooth and fast so I do it fast. But it just goes fast but I want the feeling of smoothness. Then the sirens are a real interruption and so I sign them really fast. The car comes up rather slow. It's important to emphasize that. I want to emphasize the moment when both guys' boys come out and so I do it really slowly and grab the gun really slowly so that I'm building up the audience's expectations and their fears. What the sign is isn't that important but the speed of it is. The contrast between the fast and the slow and I want people to see the emotion and the expression on my face when I am one of both those boys. Most of my poetry stays in one place. Now, I don't mean I nail my future to ground. I do move around a bit and I move my body a lot but I try to stay in the same place to keep the same placement and challenge myself with that. Most of it is in one space. There's a few poems where I move around a lot. Maybe I'm experimenting, seeing how they work. If it'll work or if it won't. I missed facial expression. That's true, I did. The answer is yes, I did miss facial expression. Okay, facial expression. It's very important. Number one. Number one in sign language. If I sign with a blank face the meaning will get across. The movement is not half as important as the facial expression in conveying meaning. For example, I have one short haiku I'll do for you. Butting from the earth. One flowing movement but the expression gives most of the meaning. Expression on my face. Can I... Can I jump on? Can I go on now? Okay, other concerns or considerations. Emotions. I'm a very emotional person. Maybe that's why I do really belong in the theater world. You know, reality is really important and for me, I have to really feel it. I have to feel the emotion that I'm trying to convey. So when I'm holding up the casket in South Africa I think of that child and that he's gone. Feelings are so important to me. Very, very important. The next thing is puns. I'm famous for using puns. Yes. I guess, it's strange. I don't even think of English in my mind. I'm not thinking that. But I always tend to play with puns. I love idioms. I gotta tell you. I like the idiom hot shit in English. Oh, I love it. I love it. First I say, hey, what does it mean? What does it mean hot shit and try to figure it out? Then people sign me. They show me the meaning in sign language. They'll say what deaf people tend to sign. For hot shit, you know? So I learned that a few days ago I was teasing my roommate. So I was teasing my roommate about hot shit. And I said, you know, the toilet is boiling with your shit in it. Those kinds of puns I didn't make. Okay, I'd like to apply to one of my puns from last night, alien. I did have a pun in that. I don't know how many of you have seen it, but when I read the newspaper about illegal aliens, people from El Salvador who are refugees have left from there. And I saw this one article in the picture of a woman holding her little boy. And they had to get out. They had to get out of America. They live in Buffalo. They've been there for five years. A woman had been working, going along fine. Till the boss came up to her and said, where's your green card? And a green card permits aliens to live in this country. So alien is a strange word and it means that you're strange to this country. And I thought of the movie Alien. It was first in 1978, I think I saw it. The first version of it. With that explosive egg. I hated the movie so much. I really, really hated it. It was so bloody. It was awful. So I took the concept of alien from the movie and my disgust at the situation of aliens in this country. I feel like we should be helping them instead of throwing them out. Parents and their children have to be kicked out. If they went back to where they lived originally, they would die. What's that all about? It's too much. I applied that and came up with my interpretation of it. Combining the two. That was inside of me. I didn't realize it. I didn't even realize it was upon until I started playing with it. So I put the two cultures together. And once I found that in the newspaper, I played this poem. Now the next area is Haiku. I think Haikus are the most beautiful poems. They're images. I just love them. I've been influenced by a few for sure. Peter Cook was really influenced by the beats. But I've been influenced by Haiku a lot. A little bit from Peter. He's my roommate of course. He's gonna influence me a bit. I have to put up with that. So I'd like to show you Haiku. First a Japanese one. I can see Donna's reaction. I didn't tell her I was gonna do this. Funny, cute, sitting there. But I trust her, no problem. This is the sign for Japan. Sorry, that's how they sign it over there, Japan. Is that right, Patrick? Is that the right sign for Japan? The outline of it? The outline of the island? Okay, Japan. Because it's an island. This is a Haiku. Lour is blossom on the hill. Okay, well I try to think how I could create a Haiku. I just thought I'd pick two natural images. I tend to collect Haikus in my poetry. Okay, it's an interesting thing. What does poetry mean? Well, I looked it up in the dictionary and I tell you I was blown away. Wow, that really struck me. I kissed the dictionary after I read it. It's so beautiful and so simple. Now I'd like to show you a story. Show you the differences. I don't really focus on the terminology that I talked to you about earlier for my poetry. Or the techniques of that. It seems like you need to go. Go ahead and go if you need to. Feel free to leave. You seem hesitating. I have class. You seem really drawn, split in the middle. Sorry, that's the sign for you. Oh, really? Really? It's interesting. You gotta tell the performer first, oh, I'm going to the bathroom first. Or not the performer, so I didn't mean that teacher. Or, you know, if you're having class discussion, you have to say, I'm gonna run and go to the bathroom. Oh, wow. Okay, that's nice. I like that. Less paranoid on my part. Let me show you a story now. Something that really happened in my own life. My roommate, his name is Debbie Awesome. She and I were sitting down to dinner. We talked and ate until we had our fill. And then Debbie had to go out and do something. So she left and I cleaned up the kitchen, putting away the dishes and straightening up. I thought I would read a book. And so I opened it up and started reading. You know, it's a story about a witch. Black pointed hat, frizzy brown hair, green face, and a green long nose with a wart on it. And fingernails like claws. Oh, but don't get me wrong. I wasn't afraid. After a while, I got tired and I set the book down. You know, I'm deaf. So I didn't know if my roommate had come in or not. So I had to check. I went over to her bedroom, cracked the door open, and I could see her bed was pretty lumpy under the covers. Oh, yeah, she's in. I wanted to obviously sleep. And so I went to the door. And I locked it. I was afraid. But oh, no, no, I mean, I wasn't afraid. Don't get me wrong. No, no, I wasn't scared. There's nothing to be afraid of. And it's time for bed. And so I went into my bedroom, pulled down the covers. Five, of course. Is that five? Yeah, yeah. So cozy and toasty, warm. I fell asleep and immediately began to dream. It was the witch with her pointed cat and frizzy hair, green face and a warded nose in her claws. And she was after me. I woke up. Oh, okay. It's just a dream. And I went back to sleep. And again, I dreamed of a thunder and lightning storm. I woke up so frightened that I could see out the window. It was a full moon. Right. I went back to sleep again. And the next thing I knew, the whole house was shaking from side to side, the walls. And I looked out the window, and there was the light going round and round and round. And the witches boom, banging on the window. She wanted me. She was there. She wanted me. I pulled back my covers as quick as I could. One, two, three, four, five. And I ran, ran to the window. And there she was, the walls shaking. Her light going round and round and round and her boom, banging on the window. I got closer. My heart was pounding closer and closer and closer. And there she was, her light, banging. Why did you lack me out, little one? With her frizzy hair, long and the broom. What's wrong? What's wrong with you? What's wrong? You lacked me out. I'm your roommate. Oh, it was Debbie with her long hair. I ran to the door and bolted it. I'm so sorry. I thought you weren't bent. I had no idea. I'm so sorry. Your hair and I thought you were, no. Oh, I'm sorry. I should have bought that flashing light for the door. There was something about deafness because a lot of kids just don't know. You know, they have no idea what deaf culture is all about. So I wanted to find a deaf story that hearing culture, the hearing children could relate to and I developed that one. Okay. Okay, first of all I'd like to talk about the storyline. I was practicing my lecture with Donna signing to her and she put down some comments and one thing she put down was storyline. The next day I was going to practice and I signed storyline and she, Donna said to me, well, what were you signing before? You weren't signing storyline. You signed it in ASL a lot more clearly. And so I saw that I looked at the English and it affected me and I was signing English. So I tried to keep away from the stuff. But anyway, the story I just showed you you could feel the events building upon one another. One thing led into the next. But in poetry I don't focus on that so much. I might take short images, concise images and put them out. You know, I might take the witch and exaggerate her and show her her nose with a ward on it and have that be a frozen image. I don't know, I haven't developed a poem about that yet. It's possible. Plenty of the expectations of the audience. So they can get a sense of feeling what's going to be next, what's going to happen next. Character development. I didn't show that too much in the story I just did for you. You know, because I was being myself. I was being Debbie, not another character. I have a really long story that I took a segment from to show you about character development. It's called The Elephant's Child. You might know that. It's written by Kipling. I forget how you spell it. Oh, he's famous for his just so stories. He has a lot of different ones. Like this. Baby Elephant her plunked along and he went up to his uncle the giraffe and he said to me, excuse me, but would you mind telling me what do crocodiles eat? And with that his uncle the giraffe kicked him with his hind leg and he went flying through the air and landed on the ground on his buns and it hurt. Then he ran into his uncle, the monkey and the baby elephant said, excuse me, but would you tell me what do crocodiles eat? And with that the monkey took him and threw him and he went flying through the air and landed on the ground on his buns and it hurt. But nevertheless he had an insatiable curiosity and went up to his aunt the hippopotamus and said excuse me but could you tell me what do crocodiles eat? And with that the hippo kicked him and he went flying through the air and landed on the ground but still he was curious. Sorry I can't tell you the whole story. It's about 15 minutes long but come watch me perform a story sometime and you're more than welcome. I always like to have the audience involved when I tell stories. I like them to get involved. So in that story for example I have them sign with me, what do crocodiles eat? I teach all the kids that what do crocodiles eat? What? I teach them that and then every time it comes up in the story, excuse me, what would you mind telling me? What do crocodiles eat? And I get them to sign with me and they're the kids signing. The aspect of it. Okay. So what does a story mean? A definition of a story. This is a test. Is that right? That's a good definition for stories. All the rooms on the same level of a building. 10 stories. Ha ha ha ha. That's the pun for you. That's me with the puns. This is wrong. Definitely wrong. Found it. This is the dictionary definition. I love this definition. A series of related events are happenings. Could be true or not true. I like that. I have stories myself that I tell are true and ones that are fictitious. And sometimes I put them together. Okay, so I just label my poems for you and my storytelling for you. Showed you how I label. Chapter two. I ask you. Do we have the right to label others' works? I think I have the right to label my own work. I can say this is ASL poetry. And if you disagree with me and you say no, that's not ASL poetry. All right, you have the right to do that. Because there are so many different ideas. So many different life experiences and perceptions and perspectives. Okay, let me explain something about art. Okay, one time I mail ordered something. A skirt. And it said that it would be aqua. I was thrilled. I had this picture in my head of what that aqua skirt was going to be like, like the ocean, green and blue. I couldn't wait to get it. It was so disgusting when I found it. This is it. Is that right? Is that aqua? Not to me. Maybe to some of you. Maybe you think it's aqua. Doesn't look like it to me. Looks like light blue. It's pretty anyway. So I kept it and want to send it back, you know. Probably send me back the wrong color again. I don't want to do that. So I'd like to ask you what color are my tights? Are they aqua? Are they aqua? What color do you think? Turquoise. The tights are turquoise. Teal. Teal. Teal. Green. Red. Green. Green. Green. Blue. Green. Red. Green. See? Everyone has different perspectives on the same color. Interesting. We can take that and relate it to art also. There have been so many arguments about what is art. I'd like to show you some slides. Lights down please. House lights down. Can you put down the house lights? Okay. I'd like to ask you do you think that these two works are the same style or the same? Can you see me? I want you to be able to see me. Okay good. You see these works. They clearly look the same. Do you think they're the same genre? Which means the same style or part of the same movement? See people saying no. Blood. And then there's people saying yes too that they're the same. Nose and yeses. All through the house. Okay. They're considered completely different forms. To the right is Cubism. To the left is Orphism. Cubism focuses on one object, takes all the perspectives of it and sets it out. Orphism on the other hand focuses purely on circles. While Cubism again focuses on the different perspectives of one three-dimensional object. This is Delaney's work and Picasso's work. Okay. Next class now. Okay. Are these the same? Yes. A lot of people say yes. Yes. One no. Yes, yes, yes. Well, most people are saying yes. Completely different. Completely different again. Why? This is called Synchronomy and it works with a blending and bleeding over of colors. It's very musical. It's like an interpretation of music into color. Again, this is Orphism focusing on the circles. Are they the same? What do you think? A lot of people say no. Oh, there's some yeses. Yes, yes, yes. No, no, no, yes. They're completely different. This is Cubism, Picasso and Orphism. Again, the circular emphasis. Picasso, the different perspectives. Are these the same genre? Everyone's been saying no, no, no, no. You think? No, again? Again, they're completely the same. Completely the same. It's Impressionism. This is the work of Van Gogh and this is the work of Monet. I have a story to tell. Something that happened. It's a sad story. Van Gogh, which we sign with a V by the ear because he cut off his ear, you know, to give to a prostitute, believe it or not. During that time in life he saw Monet's style and he showed him his work and he said, see, I do Impressionism too. Monet said, no, no, no. No, no, that's not. Van Gogh's work is not Impressionism. No, it's not, it's not. So all through his life he was so frustrated by this. He did all his work, showed his paintings one after another to various Impressionists. Then he died. No recognition for his work. After he died, people said, oh yeah, his work's Impressionism. So. Okay, House Life, please. So my point is what? About labeling. You see Van Gogh's situation. He's put into the category he wanted to be and after he was dead. The point is not what you label something but that it is art and that it's expression. And artists have the right to label their own work but not the right to label other people's work. That's a personal decision to be made. Okay? So the epilogue thought it's very important to support your community and all the different perspectives and all the different art forms within your community. That support will help the growth and help all of us grow together instead of bitter discussions and arguments about who's doing what and why they're doing it. Okay, for example, you think in ballet or gay are they professional ballet artists? I said you hey, you haven't seen their sexual activity. So the important thing is if a person says I'm gay but claims himself gay that's fine. You can support that and people in the community whether they're hearing or deaf need to support each other. They will learn from that person. When you see lectures about poetry and all the various styles you get ideas from those things. It's very important to support poetry in the community, especially interpreted poetry. It's really blossoming and it's really a bridge between two cultures. Of course deaf culture is very precious and needs to continue. It's like a diamond. You don't want to break it apart. You need to preserve it. Thank you. Okay, we have some questions. Can you repeat your question please? What about labeling relating to poetry itself? In the world of poetry? Okay. He asked could you explain more about poetry and labeling in the world of poetry? Okay, what I'm saying is that if a person thinks that labels themselves as a person playing with language of poet than they are. I might look at someone and say oh that's poetry and say to them you know I go up to them and say you know I think what you're doing is poetry and not label it myself and say that's poetry and walk away. It's important to have interaction with each other. You know some people in the deaf community might prefer seeing stories rather than poetry that's fine, it's up to them. But it's good to communicate with people and find out what they call themselves what they think their art form is whether it's poetry or not. Any other questions? How do you label yourself? He asked how I label my work is it ASL poetry or deaf poetry and I say that it's ASL poetry because I focus on playing with the language. That's my own interpretation of what poetry is playing with language choreographing it. People have a right to disagree with that if they like. But I like to think that my work is ASL poetry because I'm not talking about deafness in my poems particularly deafness isn't a major theme. What's the difference between what's the difference between deaf poetry and ASL poetry? What's the difference? I'm telling you this is Debbie's interpretation. ASL poetry focuses on ASL as the medium. Deaf poetry focuses on it could be any deaf person writing English any deaf person creating poetry and possibly talking about deaf themes or issues. I have one poem related to deafness I guess I would call that a deaf poetry. My poem JFK I remember where that was all about now. Just that one I did it last night it was deaf with a deaf issue. Just one in my whole set. I'm also the college of ASL but that's also ASL poetry. I have one poet that talks about ASL but it's also ASL poetry because it's playing with language. If you write and express poems and you call yourself a poet you think you're a poet then you are a poet. You have to believe strongly and say I am a poet then you are a poet. You express your feelings that way and that's your interpretation and that's your art you have a right to label yourself that way. Whatever you decide to label your art that's what it is. Okay that's a good question. Just trying to challenge me. Throw me off my feet here.