80 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
80 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
CHILDREN OF AN EXPRESSIVE GOD
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Preview by Karl Young
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The Roman alphabet you're now reading evolved over a period of some
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four thousand years. Though it began as a form of picture writing, its
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main line of development has been toward phonetic notation, eliminating all
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pictorial content and intrinsic significance. The result is a set of flexible
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symbols, capable of recording any sequence of words simply, clearly,
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transparently. It can be seen as one of humanity's greatest marvels.
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That is , if you can hear and hence understand its phonetic
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base. If you can't hear, it may seem diabolical: a system of
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communication that presupposes intuitive knowledge of a
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dimension of reality completely outside your experience, one
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that might just as well depend on your ability to perceive X-ray
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frequencies. Though deaf people can master this seemingly arbitrary set
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of symbols it remains a foreign language and reading is not the same sensible
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activity it is for those who can hear.
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Given the absence of sound and the foreignness of alphabetic writing, it might
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seem that poetry is an area of experience from which the deaf are excluded.
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As a matter of fact, ASL (American Sign Language) does not as yet include a
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sign meaning "poetry."
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But poetry is more than linguistic frameworks, and there
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are deaf poets. Some have reached out toward a hearing audience.
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A good example of this is The Flying Words Project, made up of
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deaf poet Peter Cook and his speaking partner Kenny Lerner. They
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will be performing at Woodland Pattern on Saturday, April 1, at 8 p.m.
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The center of Cook's poetry is ASL, a means of communication
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through hand gestures. This flows into a larger mode of expression,
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including gestures that employ the whole body, facial
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expressions, and mime. Cook has adapted techniques
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from the movies into his poetry, including close-ups, angled
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shots, zooms, and panning shots. Anyone who has seen a skilled
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signer communicate knows how graceful and expressive these
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gestures can be. Add to this the skills in other forms of nonverbal
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communication, and it's not hard to see how deaf poetry can be beautiful,
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and not completely alien to those who don't understand ASL. It is an intensely
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physical art, and hence demands empathy.
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Cook's work ranges from the comic to the deadly serious. He
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presents clear, high-impact images, sometimes in surrealistic
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sequence. The audience may find itself riding in a Space Shuttle
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along with Cook, exploring several new worlds at once; or Cook
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can lead them apprehensively through a booby trapped tunnel in
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Viet Nam. What's it like to be trapped inside a bottle of beer?
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Cook has a rendition of that experience.
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Kenny Lerner translates Cook's signs into spoken English enhanced by a wide
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range of mimetic and abstract sounds. He originated the minimalistic approach
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to vocalization which has greatly influenced deaf performing arts and aided the
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interaction of deaf poets and hearing audiences. Lerner and Cook have been
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working together for four years, chalking up a fair share of awards and
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generating interest in deaf poetry and theater.
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In the days of Imperial Rome, poetry readings were popular -- and poets were
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well aware of the need for physical gesture in poetry. It was common for
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poets with poor declaiming voices to hire orators to do the actual reading.
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But it was absolutely necessary for the poet to stand next to the speaker
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and supply the appropriate gestures. Maybe those of us who hear have lost
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something since that time. If we look for what is essential in poetry outside
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of sound, we can see rhythm, balance, and surprise as basic elements. These
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can be achieved without sound. Cook can even approximate some of the
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traditional repertoire of spoken poetry. A series of parallel rhythms can
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suggest lines, and Cook often employs handshape rhymes.
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But more important is communication of basic human feelings. Cook and Lerner
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may appeal particularly to people for whom the words of contemporary poetry
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get in the way. Lerner entered the field of deaf education in 1980 after
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seeing a production of "Children of a Lesser God." His inspiration came
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from both the human drama of the play and the beauty and expressiveness of
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signing. The movie version of that play ends with the line "do you think we
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can find a place where we can meet -- not in silence . . . and not in
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sound . . ." Perhaps Cook and Lerner are in the process of finding a collective
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door to such a place.
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