Toward a poetry and poetics of the Americas (32)

“Poetry” by the Flying Words Project, in ASL and English

Flying Words Project

Peter Cook: ASL Performer

Kenny Lerner: Voice Performer

 

“POETRY”

 

 

POETRY

            POETRY

                         POETRY

clenched fist, unfurling from the heart     

poetic feet beat embodied meter     

POETRY IS THE SHOT

hand-gun shoots bullet-becomes-planetary-orb

                       

ORBITING

            CIRCLING

                        REVOLVING

                                    EXPLODING!

 

IT IS THE OPEN WINDOW

 

IT’S CAUGHT

            baseball catcher blown back

ball-becomes-bubbling-sauce

SMOKING

            SMOKING

 

IT'S THE FLAME

                                                bullet drips into a pot

AND IT TASTES DELICIOUS

Cook tastes bullet-sauce

IT’S LOADED INTO THE MAGNUM

 

AND IT’S SHOT . . .

 

toward the audience. stops. rewinds.

 

            RIGHT BACK INTO YOUR HEART

 

THAT’S

POETRY

            POETRY

                           POETRY

clenched fist, unfurling from the heart,     

poetic feet beat embodied meter

 

IT’S THE PAINTER

AND THE PORTRAIT

           

 

Painter slathers a handful of paint,

thick-river-curves-on-canvas

 

 

then becomes the portrait painted,

thick river-curves slathered on the poem’s face

 

……...…………………..

 

 

little-finger scribbles on the fourth-wall-canvas

 

poem’s face scribbled in fine little-finger lines

 

 

…………………………..

 

painter slashes diagonals across the canvas

brushstrokes mouth and jaw right

eyes and forehead left

 

 

face-poem slashed in diagonals,

brushstroked mouth and jaw left

eyes and forehead right

 

…………………………..

 

IT’S A PLATE OF PAINT

            SMASHED INTO THE PORTRAIT

 

IT’S THE PAPER

            RIPPED OFF THE EASEL

                        AND CRUMPLED UP

 

Last g(r)asp of the poem:

hand screaming out of discarded canvas

 

 

AND THROWN INTO ORBIT

 

 planetary orb twisting in the cosmos

 

IT’S A FOREST OF TREES

painted onto nature itself

            BUSHES

                        UNDERBRUSH

paint-hurled-becomes-sun

A BLAZING SUN

           

         A RED TAILED FALCON

                        paint-hurled-becomes-bird

                          RISING UP TOWARD

                                    THE SOURCEFUL SUN

                       

                                    BURSTING OUT

                                   

                          SUNBATHED RED FALCON

 

                                                    SWOOPS DOWN

 

 

hand-wings-soar-into-flight

 

 

IT’S A BUTTERFLY

become-butterfly-lights-on-poet’s-head

-brushes it off

 

A TREE

poet tenderly paints a tree into being

 

                          POETRY

            “P” falls like a leaf

A LEAF FALLING

index-finger leaf falls

then another

 

 

 

            LEAVES         

F

   A

L

   L

ING

 

five-finger-leaves flutter

 

TOWARD THEIR REFLECTION

 

                                                            IN THE RIVER

 

POETRY

            POETRY

                         POETRY

 

clenched fist, unfurling from the heart,     

poetic feet stamp out embodied meter

 

 

IT’S THE BOMB BAY DOORS OPENING

Bomb drops to the ground

 

MUSHROOM CLOUD

 

                        THE NUCLEAR  WINDS

 

                                    D I S INT   EG  R A T   I N      G       H     A   I         R

E    Y   E     S,

CLA   TT   ERI   NG                  T  E   E  T  H

 

BONES 

 

H  E  S

 

G

O          N                     

E                   !   

 

Textualized by H-Dirksen L. Bauman

 

COMMENTARY

 

(1) The signing poetry emerging as an aspect of the culture of the deaf” challenges some of our cherished preconceptions about poetry and its relation to human speech. ASL poetry represents, in itself, a language without sound and, for its practitioners and viewers, a poetry without access to that experience of sound-as-voice that we’ve so often taken as the bedrock of all poetics and all language.  In the real world of the deaf, then, ASL (American Sign Language), like its national and autochthonous counterparts elsewhere, exists as a fully formed language: a kind of writing in space and an independent language without recourse to any more dominant form of language for its validation. The extensions it brings to our definitions of poetry can hardly be overstated.

 

(2) Writes H-Dirksen L. Baumanabout in his textualized version of “Poetry” as conceived and performed by Flying Words Project: “As a sign language poem can only be fully appreciated in its embodied performance, readers are encouraged to visit the video link provided here to see Flying Words Project’s ‘Poetry’ in its original form. Those who view the video will see (if sighted) Peter Cook’s blend of ASL and gesture and will hear (if hearing) Kenny Lerner’s voicing, which is not intended as a translation but as a verbal supplement, painting a context within which viewers can grasp the significance of the visual-gestural images.

 

“Presented here in print, the ALL CAPS words on the left margins are the direct transcription of Kenny Lerner’s voicing, while the italicized text on the right margins consists of my own ‘imagist condensations’ of the ASL/visual/gestural performance that the audience would see for themselves.”

 

That Peter Cook enhances his performance with a range of mimetic gestures and non-verbal sounds is also to be noted.