Poems written by deaf poets
You hold the word in hand;
And though your voice may speak, never
(though you might tutor* it for ever)
can it achieve the hand-wrought* eloquence
of this sign. Who in the word alone can say that day is sunlight, night is dark!
Oh remark
The signs for living, for being
inspired, excited – how similar they.
Your lightest word in hand
lifts like a butterfly, or folds
in liquid motion: each gesture holds
echoes of action or shape or reasoning.
Within your hands perhaps you form a clear
new vision – Man’s design for living;
so giving
sign-ificance to Babel’s tongues
that henceforth he who sees aright* may hear.
You hold the word in hand
And offer the palm of friendship
At frontiers where men of speech lend lip-
Service* to brotherhood, you pass, unhampered
Buy sounds that drown the meaning, or by fear
Of the foreign-word-locked fetter*;
Oh, better
The word in hand than a thousand
Spilled from the mouth upon the hearless* ear.
Dorothy Miles 1976 (1931 – 1993)
tutor: teach
hand-wrought: hand-made
aright: properly
lend lip-service: say something you don’t mean
fetter: chained and held prisoner
hearless: deaf
MORNING
Sunrise
The rain stops – and the wind dies
Stillness
See, in the pool,
Twin trees
AFTERNOON
I eat and sit, replete,
My dog does too.
A sparrow pecks and perches –
The three of us doz-z-ze!
EVENING
Like a flower the sun folds itself up.
Darkness, like a bat, flies close,
And closer –
Deaf-blinds me!
by Dorothy Miles
BSLversjonen av diktet finnes på videoen ”CACDP BSL Lingvistics ”.
By John Wilson
I came across a ship in a bottle
Its three masts proud, laced with sails.
The plaque beneath read, “Whaler”.
Her trade was killing whales.
Milan 1880, Milan.
Every Deaf person is taught to remember…
The sea is high, the sails full blown,
A sailor mounts the crow’s nest.
He sees the spray. “There she blows. All hands on deck.
Man the row boats!”
A graceful tail slices the waves.
“Pull, pull, pull”
“We’re gaining on her!”
The harpoons in hand, he sights the target, he launches –
Smack!
Deaf children, happily signing. Then, “Yes you, out to the front.”
The cane is flexed, a tiny hand outstretched and -
Smack!
“Hold her steady, I’ll hit home this time.”
Stung, the whale dives, pushing deeper and deeper through the dark.
But he is forced back up, breathless and choking.
M, m, k, k, k, p, p, p
The whale breaks the surface
Its tail slapping, splashing, splashing….
Then silence.
The ocean clouds red.
Whack, whack, whack.
Three red stripes, blood on your hands.
1980. “Save the whales!”
People take to the streets, shouting their protest.
The doors of the Deaf Schools are closing.
Deaf people take to the streets, shouting their protest.
Why? They’re killing our language!
Why? They’re killing our whales!
Stop!
The BSL dictionary gives us our language to learn, to teach, to make the children happy.
“Hey, hey, over here!” Flash.
The flashbulbs explode in waves of lights
As the mighty head bursts majestically from the depths
A graceful tail slices the waves and disappears beneath.
And all is calm.
Det finnes en BSLversjon av diktet. Spør om å se den på kompetansesenteret.
Let it pulse
Let it throb
Let it beat free to sign
Deaf drum
Those who don’t hear it
Use their heart not their minds
Don’t know how to listen
Are deaf to our signs
Deaf drum
Oh they’ve tried and they’ve tried
And they’ve tried and they’ve tried
For hundreds of years
To silence
Deaf drum
Let it pulse
Let it throb
Let it beat free to sign
Deaf drum…
…From the mist of the morning air
Where our children rise
And sign with the sun
And the warmth of our love
And in the night where they sleep
Listen
Listen
Let it pulse
Let it throb
Let it beat free to sign
Deaf drum
Deaf history
In 1874 Tylor wrote about BSL. He used the observations of a deaf man who was a teacher. The deaf man was called Kruse.
Tylor had a great interest for language and contact with many deaf adults and children. He explained the grammar of BSL. He described individual signs and had a great knowledge and understanding of BSL.
Today, linguists are only rediscovering what was known earlier and had been forgotten.
Adapted from Sign Language by J. G. Kyle and B. Woll. Cambridge University. 1985
Thomas Braidwood began to teach deaf pupils in Scotland in 1760.
Braidwood’s was famous for teaching his pupils to speak. His method was called The English Method or Combined Method. At Braidwood’s school they used both sign language and speech. A man called Arnot visited the school in 1779 and wrote:
“He begins with learning the deaf articulation or the use of their voices: at the same time he teaches them to write the letters and make words. He next shows them what the words mean. After this, he shows them how to use the words in sentences.
Mr Braidwood said that the deaf have great difficulty in pronunciation, reading and writing. They converse using signs.
When we visited the school we found that the boys not only could converse by the help of a signed alphabet, but they understood us, although perfect strangers to them, by the motion of our lips. “
Braidwood moved to London in 1783 and opened schools there. He also opened schools in Edinburgh (1810) and in Birmingham (1812). Members of Braidwood’s family ran all the schools.
Adapted from “Sign Language” by J. G. Kyle and B. Woll. Cambridge University. 1985
In 1865 there lived an old French man in a village called
Sible Hedingham in Essex. The man was deaf and could not speak.
He made his living telling fortunes and giving advice to the local people.
The old man was attacked by Emma Smith on the 3rd August. She said he was a witch. Soon, lots of people gathered. They dragged the old man down to the river. They pushed him in to see if he would sink or swim. The man managed to swim, but the next day he died.
Emma Smith was arrested and tried for murder. She said that the old man had bewitched her!
This was the last time “witch swimming” took place in England.
BDN May 2001
uuuuuuu
A Bizarre* Island Experiment
King James IV of Scotland was clever and quite a scholar. He got ideas from reading Renaissance writings. He wanted to discover what the original language of mankind was.
In 1493, King James IV placed two babies and a deaf nurse on an isolated* island off the coast of Scotland. The island is called Inchkeith. The nurse was to look after the children until they started to speak. The King believed that the first words the children would say would be the language of Adam and Eve in Eden: the language of God.
King James’ experiment was not very successful. It was unreliably reported that the first word the Inchkeith children said was the Hebrew word for bread, but no one believed this.
Amongst the deaf community it is agreed that a really reliable report of the experiment would conclude that King James came close to proving that the original language of the human race was Sign Language with a slight Scottish accent.
Similar experiments were carried out in Sicily by King Frederick II, in Egypt by King Psamitik and by the Emperor Akbar in India.
* Bizarre: strange * isolated: lonely
Adapted from BDN December 2001
Deaf Fenian
Among the arrests made in Ireland after the troubles on the memorable 15th September 1865, was that of the entire staff of The Irish People, the newspaper for the Fenian party. One of the staff was Kickham, a leader-writer, who was born deaf and used sign language. Kickham is a very able writer, one of the raciest novelists Ireland has produced, and a poet of more that average excellence.
Kickham was sentenced with James O’Connor M.P. and several others, to twenty years imprisonment.
entire = hele staff = personalet Fenian = politisk parti for Irsk selvstendighet
raciest = vågelig M.P. = politiker på stortinget
The British Deaf Monthly, 1898
Deaf School on Former Prison Site in London.
Today, Clerkenwell in the centre of London is a nice area to live and work in. In the past, dangerous thieves and robbers lived there. Clerkenwell inspired Charles Dickens to write about Oliver Twist, Fagin and Mr. Pickwick. In the crowded, dirty and shabby streets stood a terrible prison, known as the House of Detention.
The prison was built in 1615. Prisoners were cruelly treated and every day someone was beaten. About 10,000 people were imprisoned each year between 1700 and 1775. Thousands were sent from the prison to America and Australia: men, women and children. We know that the first deaf European to arrive in Australia was a woman called Betty Steel. She was transported from Clerkenwell to Australia for stealing bread.
The Clerkenwell prison was pulled down in 1890, but the cellars remained.
In 1892 a school for the deaf was built on the site of the prison. The school had seven classrooms, a large hall and a kitchen. It was called the Hugh Myddelton School and had 60 pupils. Hugh Myddelton was a rich man who paid for London to be supplied with clean water.
The school was bombed during the war in 1943. The pupils were sent to the Frank Barnes School, which still exists today.
Today you can visit the cellars of the old prison, which are open for tourists.
A.F. Dimmock
BDN. May 1997
Deaf Holocaust Victims in World War II
History shows that Jewish people have suffered many tragedies. The Holocaust, however, was the largest, single incident. Over six million people were killed, mostly in concentration camps. Not only were Jewish people targeted by the Nazis, but deaf people, in fact, all handicapped people, were also on the Nazis' list. The Nazis believed that certain groups of people, including Jews and handicapped people, were "imperfect". They wanted to create a single race that was "perfect". One method used by the Nazis was forced sterilization.
Forced sterilizations started in the USA and other European countries in the early 1900s. It was called eugenics. The idea was to prevent the growth of “undesirable people”, including Deaf people, by voluntary or forced sterilization. Doctors during that time were enthusiastic about the idea of preventing the birth of "undesirable" people.
The Nazis adopted the idea of eugenics in the 1930's and 1940's. Mentally ill people were killed in hospitals. The definition of “undesirables” included Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and disabled people. This led to the murder of 11 million people, including many Deaf people and six million Jews.
It is important to note that the Deaf community in Germany at first supported the Nazi idea. Deaf members of the Nazi party volunteered for sterilization and joined the military organizations. In 1933 the Nazis decided that Deaf people could not be members anymore.
Professor Biesold
Professor Horst Biesold is German and was a teacher of the deaf. He has researched into the fate of the deaf victims of the Nazis.
His interest began when he noticed that many people in the deaf community did not any have children, and asked a friend about it. The friend looked anxious and sad. He made two signs that Biesold didn't recognize. "I said, 'What's that?' and the answer was, "Sterilized by force.”" The Professor was astonished. He had never heard of this before. That was how he began his research.
He discovered that at least 17,000 deaf Germans had been sterilized, but that it was kept secret. The Nazi government had told the victims "You don't speak to anyone. If you speak to anyone about your sterilization, you have to go into the concentration camp.... .” Biesold writes: “They are ashamed about their fate and that they can't have children."
Biesold said he later came to realize that many of the teachers in schools for deaf people, had been Nazis who did not want to reveal the things they had done. But now there is a new generation in Germany, and they want to know what really happened.
Memorials to the Deaf in Berlin and Tel Aviv
Berlin, Germany
On a Plaque on a wall in East Berlin it says:
“This is all that remains of the Hebrew Institute for Deaf-mutes, also known as Israelite Institute for the Deaf. Fascist bandits dragged off 146 deaf Jewish students in 1942 and murdered them:
The school’s headmaster Dr Felix Reich, along with 11 students:
Marion Schlessinger Intratof (USA)
Henni Sonntag (USA)
Horst Marchner who was the oldest at 12 years old (Germany)
Annie Marschner Senchel (UK)
Klaus Silberman (UK) Lothat Bibier, the youngest as 3 years old (UK)
Ruth Danzinger Fallman (UK)
Hans Schwartz (Israel)…….. ”
Tel Aviv, Israel.
The Holocaust Memorial for Deaf Jews was established at the Helen Keller Center in
Tel Aviv, Israel in January, 1991. Chaim Herzog, president of Israel at that time, wrote "The erection of the "Yizkor" site in the Helen Keller Center, in memory of the thousands of deaf Jews murdered by the Nazis, is a very important initiative to all those who perished in this terrible Holocaust; whose noise they did not hear, but whose blood streamed in rivers of the blood of their communities."
Now that so many years have passed, we should never forget what has taken place and vow that it will never happen again.
From the Internett. Deaf World Web.
Sterilization = an operation to stop people from having children reveal = talk about
Vow = promise murdered = killed
Tasks
Who were the Nazis? What is a concentration camp? Find out the names of some of them.
What did deaf people in Norway experience during the war? Visit the Deaf Club and make a videoed interview of some of the memories of the pensioners there.