Friday 16th March ‘Conversation about sign language poetry’

What’s old? What’s new? What’s to come?

• Where: Upper Tarble in Clothier Building
• What time: 7pm-8.30pm

Meet the festival poets and see a taster of sign language poetry. Enjoy the ‘conversation’ of the ASL and BSL poets as they discuss the British and American Deaf communities’ views of sign language poetry – past, present and future – in front of an audience from the Deaf community, Swarthmore College and other visitors.

Saturday 17th March Poetry Workshop

For members of the Deaf community

• Where: Upper Tarble in Clothier Building
• What time: 11am-1pm and 2pm-4pm

The festival poets will run a workshop to enable fluent signers to compose and perform their own poems. Dorothy Miles, the pioneer ASL and BSL poet, said: ‘every fluent signer is a potential poet’. This is your chance to explore your poetry potential!

We are delighted to announce that Kenny Lerner will run a workshop on Saturday 17^th March, 2pm to 4pm.  Kenny will talk about his experiences being the ‘hearing half’ of the Flying Words duo and doing the voicing of ASL poetry. The language of this workshop will be English.  This will be of special interest to interpreters, students of sign language and anyone interested in issues of translation and poetry.

The venue for Kenny’s workshop is the Kohlberg Building, Room 115

Saturday 17th March Poetry Performance.

Live sign language performances by some of the top sign language poets in the USA and Great Britain

• Where: Upper Tarble room in Clothier Building
• What time: 7pm-9pm

Live poetry performances by: ASL poets: The Flying Words Project (Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner) and Debbie Rennie BSL poets: Richard Carter, Paul Scott, Donna Williams and John Wilson

Sunday 18th March Panel discussion – ‘How does Signed Poetry work?’

• Where: Wister Center, Scott Arboretum
• What time: 10am – 12 noon

After the performance on Saturday night, this is an opportunity to explore in depth how sign language poems are composed and performed.