Peter Cook & Kenny Lerner

‘Flying Words Project has accomplished what poets have been trying to do for several centuries now; to make their poems more visual, more embodied, more
alive.  To witness the work of FWP is to witness a milestone in literary history.’ Dirksen Bauman, Professor,Department of ASL and Deaf Studies, Gallaudet University

Flying Words Project is at once imaginative, experimental, and intense.  We are Deaf American Sign Language poet Peter Cook (I present the three dimensional imagery) and collaborator Kenny Lerner (my spoken words allow the hearing in the audience to literally see the ASL image and become lost in the movement).Together we create a moving tapestry uniquely accessible to both hearing and deaf audiences. Our collaboration started in 1984 when we began performing poetry together. We established a deaf poetry series in Rochester, NY, which led to the First National ASL LiteratureConference in 1992.

Flying Words has been featured at the Poetry Days Festival (Dzejas Dienas,) in the Latvian towns of Liepia and Riga.  We have also performed at the 36th International Poetry Festival in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Harvard University, The People’s Poetry Gathering in NYC, Theatre de Lucernaire in Paris, and many places in between.

Peter Cook:  I am also an internationally reputed Deaf storyteller and I teach at Columbia University in Chicago.  I love to tell stories to my son.

Kenny Lerner:  I teach History at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, NY and I live in the country with my wife, two children, and two dumb dogs.

You can contact Flying Words Project at Flyingwordsproject@yahoo.com