2007 Kenny Lerner Interview
Channel: RIT Libraries
Date: 2019-03-26

Summarized by Joan Naturale. 2007 Interview of Kenny Lerner. This video is from the Miriam and Kenny Lerner collection. Lerner is interviewed by Miriam Lerner. Kenny reflects upon the ASL poetry movement in the 1980s and how he fell into this world and met Deaf poets. He met Jim Cohn, Peter Cook, and Debbie Rennie and collaborated with them in their works as a member of “Bridge Of” and the other half of “The Flying Words Duo” with Peter Cook. He had been working at NTID as an intern and part-time English instructor when he started learning sign language, which he picked up through his friendships and collaborative work. His strength was in providing ideas and images for the poetry work. 

His role with Peter is not as an interpreter, but occasionally voice cueing during Peter’s performances. This type of poetry work was so new and free-form, which many people did not understand. Interpreters and others criticized Kenny for not voicing everything Peter signed. Kenny is not trained as an interpreter and his role as to provide just enough information to enhance Peter’s work, making him the main focus of the performance. He shares his struggles with his role and whether he was doing enough for Peter. He considers himself a performing artist, not an interpreter. 

Kenny participated in the Bird Brain Society and attended or performed at Jazzberries and Writers & Books. What was unusual during this time was the interest shown by both the Deaf and hearing communities in poetry. At that time, interpreters helped both communities access the poetry works which led to growing friendships and cross-cultural sharing of works. He reflects upon the first National ASL Poetry Conference and seeing five talented ASL poets with different styles---Ella Mae Lentz, Clayton Valli, and Patrick Graybill, the first group to experiment with ASL poetry, and Debbie Rennie with Peter Cook who was doing innovative free-form works. There was much excitement about highlighting this new form of poetry art, ASL poetry. 

Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner performed often and obtained grants to travel throughout the state of New York which led to invites to other cities. Peter Cook was interested in a Deaf Poets Series so a grant was written for that. They invited Deaf poets from all over the country and Canada such as Eric Malzburn, Serge Briere, Johanna Boulanger, Terylene, and others. Kenny appreciates his deep friendship with Peter and they still meet every month or so to get together and perform. Computer and video technology help them practice their works. He feels fortunate to have met Deaf poets like Peter and Debbie who fostered his own growth as a performing artist. Kenny considers it a gift to spend so much time with Peter. When Peter was younger, he wanted to be a Rock & Roll star. Now it is almost like he has become one, a “Rock & Roll Star for the Deaf”. No music, no sound, but “he is a star.”
Visual description: Kenny Lerner is wearing glasses and has curly chin-length brown hair, mustache, beard, and is wearing a graphic print gray and a black t-shirt.  He is outside near a tree. 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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"This project is supported by a Digitizing Hidden Collections grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation." https://www.clir.org/2018/01/clir-ann...