Karen Christie
Words: 1,043
[ASL Poem Review]

Deaf poets create poetry using ASL to share stories and emotions yearning to be expressed. These stories are often part of the Deaf experience, which means they are familiar to most of us Deaf people. In her poem "Black Hole: Color ASL," Debbie Rennie created a poem about the personal journey to Deaf culture, Deaf identity, and beyond. (The poem appears in the video Poetry in Motion: Debbie Rennie, Sign Media: 1990.) Perhaps, when you read about the poem, you will feel as I did: This is MY story too.

Like many Deaf people, I was not born into a Deaf family. Finding my way into the Deaf community happened much later in life. I attended hearing public schools and grew up thinking I was a hearing person who couldn't hear. Yet, along my life journey, there came a time when I found a path which led me to other Deaf people. This is where the poem "Black Hole: Color ASL" opens--with the description of a ladder. A ladder? Well, if you are looking for a way into a new place, it might be through a door, it might be a new path in the woods, or it might be a ladder. If it is a ladder, the direction one is aiming for is upward--moving toward a goal or a higher place. In the poem, a person walks along, comes to the ladder, and begins to climb. As she climbs the ladder, she looks all around, both back down to the familiar and upward to the unknown. Where is she heading?
If you look at her facial expression, you see that she is somewhat unsure--which was exactly my feelings when a young Deaf woman told me as she opened the door to the Deaf club, "You will be welcomed at the Deaf club, you are Deaf." Me? Going through the door, I was nervous, but moved forward. Where was I headed?

In the poem, the person continues climbing, and she stops when she arrives at a point on the ladder where a plank of paint gallons sits. Red, yellow, blue, green, and black paint symbolize ASL. How? Well, the title tells us--"Color ASL." And the person in the poem dips her HANDS into the paints! She looks up and splashes the colors across the canvas of blue sky like fireworks, like a Pollack painting. Here she is joyous. Her hands shift as she splashes paint, morphing into signing hands. Again, this provides flashes of memories for me. At the Deaf club, old grandfathers teased and flirted with me shamelessly. As I became more skilled, I learned how to play with my signs and became proud of beginning to learn how to fully use a language. So along this climb into the Deaf World, one needs important cultural tools. And of course, one of the most important tools is ASL.

While engrossed in signing/spattering colors across the sky, the ladder is shaken. She falters and looks down at someone shaking the ladder, beckoning her to come down. This part of the poem reminds me of another poem written in English by the poet Mary Oliver. In the poem "The Journey," which is as much a transformation poem as this one, Oliver also shows that such a life journey is not without detractors: "One day you finally knew / What you had to do, and began, / Though the voices around you kept shouting / their bad advice." Our journey includes others who try to pull us down, back to the old way. It may have been family members or elementary schoolmates, or a speech teacher who became appalled as I chose to become more involved with the Deaf World. "Come back," they yelled. "You don't have to do that--you are not like them!" Finally, though, I knew to look ahead.

As the ladder is shaken, the colors spill over. In slow motion, the paint can with the black paint overturns and spills in a huge black puddle near the bottom of the ladder. The person who was shaking the ladder disappears into the black hole. The black hole becomes a sinkhole causing the ladder to slip further and further down. On the ladder, she flails her arms and watches the sinkhole get closer and closer, threatening to engulf her.
What's this about? It makes me think about the Deaf World existing as an oppressed group. Whereas the individual shaking the ladder is a more personal challenge, the black hole represents how the hearing culture challenges us. Where does this idea come from? For me, it is the majority hearing world which threatens to "swallow up" the Deaf World. Whereas the Deaf World is a place of many colors for Deaf people, the black hole represents a place that pulls us down, a place where there is only one color--black--where we not only won't see colors, we will be in the dark.

What is then required when our world/ourselves are challenged in this way?
It becomes an opportunity for greatness. The flailing of arms magically transforms into the strong beating of wings. The person on the ladder rises up, flying skyward. As she flies into her sky canvas, the paint colors smear her face. Her expression is one of rapture. What does THIS mean? She becomes immersed in ASL and the Deaf World. It shows how self and language become intimately entwined. As we all know, devaluation of ASL feels like a personal insult. The symbol of flying is a symbol of freedom. And here, the she has been freed of worldly roadblocks, such as experiences with discrimination.

For me personally, I take the meaning even further. Perhaps it is because of the magic of flying, because of the rapturous expression, or because of my own personal yearning for something more. I see her as ascending to a higher, more spiritual path where her soul expands. And this, this is where and how the power of the lives of Deaf people lead beyond the community to personal, spiritual fulfillment. I know I'm not there yet.
Some days I flail against the black hole, and other days I imagine my feet just barely lifting off the rungs of the ladder.

=====
Karen Christie teaches in the Department of Cultural and Creative Studies at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf.

Debbie Rennie is one of the poets featured in Deaf American Poetry, available at https://www.clercscar.com/books/dap.html