Dorothy Miles memorably said that the aim of sign language poetry was to change the world. She did like to think big, but last night I think it did, in a small way.
The students at the University of Bristol Signing Society had asked me to give a 45 minute talk on BSL poetry. I've been focusing so much on the work of new poets recently that I thought it was time to revisit Dorothy's work. I dusted off her poem 'Trio' and talked to them about it. There wasn't any way to project a video of Dorothy's signed performance of it, so I did it myself and then talked about how BSL poetry works, using 'Trio' to illustrate it. It think on the whole the audience found it interesting (nobody fell asleep, or if they did, they didn't snore and disturb the rest of us, and nobody threw anything or burst into tears or stormed out) and their questions at the end were nice ones.
So far, so not very unusual. But at the end of it a deaf student came up to me. She said she had been to a mainstream school (so, with hearing classmates) and had never seen sign language poetry before. She has been a signer all her life but for the first time, seeing that poem, she felt truly proud of her sign language. She said that the poetry felt like music to her. Watching it she felt warm and comfortable - like it was something soft and gentle.
Sometimes, researching and publishing, and teaching formal undergraduate and masters-level courses, I can lose sight of what sign language poetry can do. Perhaps learning about it last night changed the hearing students' worlds in a small way, but that one young woman seeing Trio and understanding for the first time how sign language poetry can make you proud to be a Deaf signer - that changed her world, and it changed mine too.
I think Dorothy would be pleased. I am inserting the recording of her performance of Trio too. I hope she wouldn't mind that, either.
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