Poetry, Signed

Poetry is most often distinguished from prose by its heightened use of linguistic elements. Sign poetry is no different, except where oral and written poetry pays special attention to the sound of language, sign language poets focus on the visual, spatial, and kinetic elements of the medium. As poets bring to the foreground the materiality of language through a conscious manipulation of the smallest elements of language—phonemes—they are able to create a variety of rhyming and rhythmic patterns. Sign language, like oral language, is composed of meaningless phonemic units that, when added together, create linguistic meaning. Rhymes in sign poetry are created through patterning of particular (1) handshapes; (2) locations; (3) movement paths; (4) palm orientations; and (5) nonmanual signals, such as facial expressions. These phonemic constructs allow the poet to compose poems with multiple layers of visual, spatial, and kinetic linguistic patterns.

The role of handshapes within sign poetry is so important that a number of distinct practices focus on the sequencing of handshapes alone. Ben Bahan has identified these practices within the larger category of “manual constraint” poems. Most familiar of these is the genre of ABC poems, in which the poet presents a narrative that is created through the sequencing of the handshapes corresponding to the manual alphabet. The first handshape is in the form of A, then B, and C, and so on, with each transition smoothly transforming into the next. Variations are then made possible by poets moving backward through the alphabet, from Z to A. A collection of these stories is found in A to Z: ABC Stories in ASL by Bahan and Jarashow.

Other manual constraint genres include “number stories” in which the poet uses the sequencing of handshapes based on the manual number system. Others include plays on finger spelled words, a poetic form akin to acrostic poetry. One such example, from Rutherford, is GOLF: The first handshape is the letter G, placing the tee on the ground; the handshape O places the ball on the tee; the handshape L shows the club swinging at the ball; and the F handshape signifies the ball flying through the air. Such poetic forms are popular among people of all ages within the Deaf community, as they invite people to play with the language [Page 736]to see what wide variation of narratives could be created within the constraints of particular sequence of handshapes.

In addition to manual-constraint poetic practices, sign poets make use of multiple patterning techniques to create densely structured poems. In Clayton Valli’s “Hands,” for example, the “five” handshape persists throughout the poem, weaving together images that correspond to the four seasons. Images of each season are located along a larger circle representing the full-year cycle. Valli ends the poem by breaking the plane of the circle, foregrounding his hands. In this poem, which lasts for less than a minute, there is a complex composition of handshape, signing location, movement paths, and nonmanual signals that work simultaneously to create a heightened use of poetic language, according to Valli.

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