2007 Joe Flaherty and Wendy Low Interviews by MIriam Lerner
Channel: RIT Libraries
Date: 2019-03-26

Summary by Joan Naturale. Joe opens up the interview discussing the visibility of the Deaf community in Rochester. He didn’t know about Deaf poetry but there were people like Jim Cohn and Wendy Low who were doing poetry readings. It was a real active time of people discovering poetry, particularly performance poetry. There was a lot of communication with writers and poets and Deaf people accessed these performances and readings so the two audiences would mix together. Seeing the Deaf poets struck him as something really unique not happening elsewhere and something that grew out of Rochester. He said that ASL poetry was unique in that ASL is beautiful to watch which you might have seen before, but combined with voice interpreters, it is more understandable for the hearing community. You have two communities who can experience the same activity and event in the same way, although the hearing people see the beauty of the sign language and body movement as well as hear what’s being signed and the Deaf people can experience poetry in their own language. 

The Deaf poetry movement parallels other voices coming forward. There was a time when it was the same with women poets (poetry is the language of men) trying to get recognition.  In the 1950s-1960s men would say “your place is in the home and your work is not worthy of poetry”. Other groups emerged such as Black poets who discovered their voices. The academic status quo was saying “no, we know what poetry is, and it’s these white men who do it”.  

Wendy describes her introduction to the Deaf community. She was an English teacher and poet and was fairly naïve about the Deaf community. She describes how she felt when using signing a poem in sign language. One day she started to recite a poem in sign language about the snow in Rochester and she felt articulate and poetic expressing herself that way. It was better in sign language than in English because of the spatial and visual nature of the poem. She felt relieved that she could be herself in this new language. The poetry interpreters were excellent because they understood what they were interpreting. They were flexible with language and how it works in poetry. She felt privileged to see their work. There would be important poets like Allen Ginsberg in town so seeing interpreters expanded her mind about how sign language could work in poetry. At that time she was not good enough to understand ASL poetry without voice interpreters.

In order to learn sign language which is how she learned Spanish or French, she looked at the poetry videos. She gets bored easily…watching everyday language on a video doesn’t work for her. She would watch Clayton Valli’s work over and over again; also watch Patrick Graybill and Debbie Rennie until she understood every little nuance. Even it was the 50th time she was viewing the video, she would find something new. It enriched her sign language learning skills because she memorized those poems which gave her a repertoire of moves in a language she wouldn’t have had otherwise. In the Deaf community, there 
was a resistance to poetry because it was the enemy in English class…it’s hard to understand because it’s based on English. Some people questioned whether ASL was a language and capable of poetry and would argue that it wasn’t the equivalent of English poetry and that it didn’t have a history behind it. Just because there is not a written record of it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. There is a history of poetry within the Deaf community.

When she discussed poetical duets, she used Peter and Debbie as an example. She received criticism that it was not poetry, and responded that it is a different kind of poem, a performance. A sonnet is a poem but so is the performance poem. There was a legitimacy issue. If it’s a legitimate language, then it had to have literature. ASL does something that hearing people are jealous of and that’s transformations. Visual description: Joe Flaherty has short gray hair and glasses. He is wearing a green short-sleeved shirt over a white t-shirt. He is in front of a brick fireplace, red curtains, and part of a painting. Wendy Low has pulled-back brown hair and is wearing a purple dress with a necklace. She is in front of red curtains with a Writers and Books poster. For more information, please go to the Deaf Studies Archive finding aid link URL: https://archivesspace.rit.edu/repositories/2/resources/815

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