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Hearing people commonly understand deafness as the inability to perceive sound. They see deafness as a communicative as well as a physical disability. But in the past few decades the Deaf community has sought actively to transform these narrow views, both within the Deaf community and "outside" in the hearing world. At the core of this transformation is the use of American Sign Language (ASL), not only as a means of communication among the deaf but also as a means of communication with the hearing world. ASL is, however, a language foreign to most of the hearing world. How, then, can this language bring the two worlds together? ASL poetry can help create a dialogue between the Deaf and hearing communities by illustrating the complexity and value of Deaf culture and of its means of communication. The work of Bernard Bragg, Clayton Valli, and the Flying Words Project will serve as examples.
Poetry has been traditionally an auditory art form. Rhyme, alliteration, and meter have always been meant for the appreciation of the ear, if only the internal ear. But poems never have been simply words. They are extensions of the self, the exploration of thoughts, moods, and feelings, even whole philosophies and cultures. Poetry demands a heightened sense of language and an appreciation of the psychological universe behind its linguistic structure. Assessing deaf poetry, therefore, can help the viewer understand not only one mode of communication between the Deaf and hearing communities, but also the entire world of the Deaf community-how the deaf want to be perceived and how they perceive themselves.
At the same time and by its very nature, ASL poetry subverts both the hearing and written paradigms normally associated with poetry. Signers and viewers of ASL poetry become the majority; the hearing audience become the minority. The discomfiture of this position, unusual in itself for the hearing, is intensified by the non-written and non-oral nature of ASL poetry and by the use of a language most hearing do not understand. This reversal of roles and this new kind of poetry become powerful challenges to old traditions and misconceptions, to normal concepts of poetry, and to the role of audience. Poetry is no longer abstract; in ASL it is a physical presence...