helped propel the academic, linguistic, and societal acceptance of ASL. This revolution led to an
ASL renaissance, which created the flowering of ASL literature, including poetry. It is Robert Panara,
the first Deaf professor at RIT/NTID, who assisted in establishing NTID and the Theatre department
that started contributing to the video collections. He translated and dramatized English literary works
into signed language and brought them to life. Some of Panara's 1970s video performances are
available to view, including his dynamic class lectures on poetry.
NTID is fortunate to possess other video recordings that capture performances by Deaf poets
such as Pat Graybill, Clayton Valli, Debbie Rennie, Peter Cook, and Ella Mae Lentz. Each poet has
a unique signed language expressive style, which ranges from Panara's transliteration of traditional
English works and Shakespeare into contact sign with ASL features, to the avant-garde ASL and
spoken English hybrid work of the Deaf and hearing "Flying Words" duo Cook and Kenny Lerner, to
Valli's (the Deaf 'Robert Frost') original poetry created solely in ASL that uses rhythm and movement
to create a spatial expression.
One of the video recordings (circa 1984) includes the "Deaf Beat Summit," with noted Beat
poet Allen Ginsberg and Robert Panara presenting to an interpreting class. Panara performed some
of his poems, including his award-winning poem, "On His Deafness." When Ginsberg read a few
lines from his poem "Howl," a pivotal moment occurred with Patrick Graybill translating "hydrogen
jukebox" into ASL. Ginsberg himself realized Graybill had successfully captured the image in ASL.
This event created an 'explosion' of ASL talents in NTID students such as Peter Cook and Debbie
Rennie, who have since made names for themselves. Many Deaf people came to realize that they
could compose ASL poetry freely without the constraints of English. At first, translations were
emphasized from English to ASL, but that changed with the increasing appreciation for and a
number of original ASL poems that came out.
With the rise of this signing art form, a 1987 ASL Poetry national conference at NTID
showcased ASL poets. The response from the public was overwhelmingly positive. The ASL
literature conference continued in 1991 with lectures and performances by Valli, Ben Bahan, Cook,
Bonnie Kramer, Michelle Banks, as well as others and an ASL literature panel discussion, which
includes Sam Supalla, Bernard Bragg, and others. The third and last 1996 conference features a
keynote speech by Clayton Valli on his groundbreaking ASL Poetry dissertation, performances by
Julianna Fjeld, Missy Keast, and students Chris Holt and Jose Saldana as well as Peter Cook and
students from two schools for the Deaf. Sam Supalla, Kathy Fraychineaud, Tina Wix, and Jenny
Singleton present on storytelling, and Patrick Graybill offers insights on ASL Poetry.
In addition to these conference videos, there is a rare 1978 Poetry in the Palm of the Your
Hand video featuring Ella Mae Lentz who performed in Indiana at the time, ASL Lecture videos,
Miriam Lerner video interviews, Writers and Books video performances of Eric Frederick Malzkuhn
‘Malz', Flying Words, the Quebec Theatre of the Deaf's "Only 13", and Mark Azure, a Native
American story-teller. Discover these ASL pioneers' rare gems and use them freely for your studies
and research. For more information on this collection, contact me via [email protected].
The Power of ASL 12
Summer 2020 – Issue 18