Interview with Karyn Lie-Nielsen

Question #1
WG: Karyn, your recent book Handbuzz and Other Voices is remarkable in that it is one of the very few books of poetry that takes as its main subject being the child of deaf parents. Can you talk a bit about what prompted you to write the book and who you envisioned reading it?

KLN: The quick answer is that growing up with deaf parents gave me lots of material to write about. Looking closer, a big prompt to tell my story came while I was working towards my MFA a few years ago. I submitted poems in workshop that featured events from my childhood. Lines in the text said "my deaf father," and "my mother didn't hear." The instructor came back with comments that indicated he thought the word "deaf" represented parents who didn't listen. In other words, this teacher didn't understand that when I used the word "deaf" I truly meant that each of my parents had a serious hearing loss. Having to define "deaf" to a college level instructor told me that there is little or no awareness of the existence of a deaf community, a community with a fully developed culture that thrives in the midst of a world dominated by sound-and-speech-abled people.

I have met people who upon discovering that I grew up with deaf parents show amazement that deaf people can raise children, (hearing children), hold regular jobs, send their kids to college, even drive. One of the first questions I get is "How did you learn to talk?" Of course the answer is that I wasn't brought up in a closed ghetto of deaf society. The whole world talks. All that noise that hearing children of deaf parents naturally listen to and imitate.

So when I started writing a collection of poems that centered on the subject of deafness, I was thinking about making a connection between the experiences of not hearing with people that can hear. I was thinking of a hearing audience. I guess I was, and still am, trying to explain that "deaf" is a way of life, not a choice or a judgment like "not listening," but a way of living.

WG: Question #2
KLN: In addition to writing your own poems in English, you translate English poems into ASL and ASL poems into English. On your website, you translate your own poem "Christina's World" that was originally composed in ASL into written English. How difficult was that for you? What were some of the considerations that you had to make in translating to retain the original feeling of the poem.

I enjoy the challenge of translation. When I was a girl, interpreting for my parents was common experience, like wearing everyday shoes. But it was different–and delightful–to translate songs or fool around with poems. Translating a poetic line is like getting dressed for a special occasion, it requires a whole different wardrobe.

Recently, as I was researching ASL poetry, I decided to try generating my own ASL poem, one created with Sign, not sound or written words. And that turned out to be really difficult. Why? Because first of all, I hear, speak, and write in English. That's my native language. I think in English. There were some false starts trying to compose a poem that communicates purely by sight. At last I realized that I needed to start with a visual form, so I made up my mind to work on an ekphrastic poem, one that comes from interpreting an image: a picture, painting, or photograph. The image I chose was Andrew Wyeth's painting, Christina's World.

The real Christina Olson, the character represented in the painting, had an undiagnosed debilitating disease that left her unable to walk. She refused to use a wheel chair, preferring to crawl when she needed to get around.

The original image has place, character, emotion and, interestingly enough, it conveys silence. I wanted all that in my ASL poem, but it was difficult to get away from thinking in English written words, instead of allowing the visual language of Sign to take over. Then I was reminded of the elements available to ASL poetry that Clayton Valli identified: repetition of handshape, movement paths, and how the sign space is utilized. With these tools I could more easily work on my ideas of representing Christina as both the woman inside the picture frame, and also the real life limits that she faced.

I didn't attempt to write the English translation of "Christina's World" until after the ASL poem was finished and recorded on video because I was afraid my English-speaking-thinking mind would horn in on what I wanted to be a purely visual poem.

And that task was challenging too. I was inclined to revise instead of translate. I had to hold back from rearranging words and lines, concerned with how it would appear printed on the page. Somehow I forced myself to look at the poem as if it was someone else's. My mantra became "translate, not revise."

Personally, I favor the signed "Christina's World" over the written version, mainly because I learned so much about the rich possibilities of communication while working on it.

WG: Question #3
Karyn, I want to return to what you were saying about Clayton Valli and to mention to our readers, a propos of your point about translating from ASL, that when Raymond Luczak first asked Valli's permission to translate his poem into written English Valli did not want to do it because he was afraid of what it would lose in the translation. There are a few writers, however, like John Lee Clark, who are attempting to draw from ASL in their own work with poetry. The question I want to ask you is, what do you think we can learn from ASL poetry that might be applied to writing poetry in English?

KLN: I'm glad you asked that, and I wish more writers would consider the opportunities that ASL offers. ASL literature can and should be important to writers if for no other reason than it offers the chance to discover a new lexicon that may enrich our art. Also, we can be inspired by new topics. ASL poetry often explores subjects related to the Deaf experience, and those topics can resonate with universal themes as well. Ultimately, the fact that Sign operates within the confines of a single modality–visual, not written–is, to me, incredibly inspirational.

The major power of ASL is the attribute of the visual. Imagine if sound had nothing to do with how we communicate. How would we tell our stories differently? Using Sign as a model, those of us writing in English might find that the effort to think visually refreshes old habits. Writers, naturally compelled to find words, phrases, and vivid imagery that more keenly show what we want to express, can benefit from the influence of a physical, visual language like ASL because the very nature of Sign is that it wants to make the abstract concrete.

There is the cinematic aspect of ASL poetry that is innovative and effective, as well. Signing poets can manipulate changes in space and time. Coming in close-up from a distance, for instance, or switching from the narrator to object and back to the narrator, or focusing on markers within the signing space to represent places, people, the past, present, and future, all these strategies engage an audience, warrant authority, and provide deeper insight into what the Signer is trying to express; and those ideas can also function successfully in writing.

I wish there were more opportunities for audiences to view ASL performances. The classic pioneers of ASL poetry are worth the time it takes to find them on video recordings. The creativity and energy that Signers bring to literature is really thrilling. Jim Cohn (who was important in encouraging young deaf poets to experiment with performance poetry) said it best: "What deaf people do with language is what hearing poets try to make their language do."

WG: Question #4
Can you add a bit to what you were saying about classic pioneers of ASL by telling readers who some of these pioneers were. Are there any particular poems that you would recommend them viewing?

KLN: Classic pioneers of ASL poetry starts with Eric Malzkuhn (his translation of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" demonstrates that language is not a staid reliquary, but has limitless possibilities); Robert Panara ("On His Deafness", the final line "rustle of a star" gets me every time); Dorothy Miles (her poem "Defiance" is embedded in my mind forever because of the power and passion of her delivery, and her innovation of transforming the sign for "I", to the lowercase "i"), Clayton Valli (As John Lee Clark puts it, Valli's "Dandelion" is "hands down, the signing community's best-loved ASL poem." Anyone wanting to delve into creating ASL poetry should view his video ASL Poetry: Selected Works of Clayton Valli), Patrick Graybill, (I love his part in translating the line about the hydrogen jukebox in Allen Ginsberg's "Howl", and I also admire the way he uses each hand to say something different, in his poem "Reflection." Graybill's clear signing style is accessible and mesmerizing in all his work. His DVD is titled Poetry In Motion.), Debbie Rennie ("The Swan"), Peter Cook, and the golden period in the mid-80s at NTID as portrayed in the film In The Heart of the Hydrogen Jukebox. Peter Cook's collaborative work with Kenny Lerner is charged with total energy, particularly in the piece called "Poetry," where the use of cinematic techniques that I mentioned earlier are exemplified with the poem's metaphoric portrayal of poetry as a butterfly one moment and a loaded gun the next, the gun with a bullet that fires out into the world and lands right back into our own hearts. "That's poetry."

WG: Question #5
You mentioned that when you were writing Handbuzz that you were thinking of a hearing audience. How do you think your work might have been different if you were writing for a primarily Deaf audience? Is that something that you think you might do in a future book?

KLN: Actually, I think the Deaf community has much more to tell me than the other way around. Deaf people are surrounded everyday by people like me, people who can hear, listen to the radio, catch peripheral noises, announcements on the intercom, traffic sounds, blowing horns, the voice behind saying "Excuse me." In spite of the ADA, mainstream education, closed-caption television, and other measures of progress, the world is still divided. Most of the able-bodied, hearing population doesn't think of the hearing-impaired population unless someone signing happens to appear within their margins. You don't often see interpreters or translators at public events, poetry readings, museum lectures, or guided tours, consequently, deaf people don't often attend those kinds of events. Lots of hearing people are surprised and fascinated when they come upon Signers in their environment–or on television, as with the interpreter for New York City Mayor Bloomberg who became a celebrity after Hurricane Sandy. On the other hand, Signers are probably never awestruck upon seeing people who move their mouths to communicate.

I don't think I'm finished telling the hearing world about my perceptions of the Deaf world. I don't always write about my parents or what it was like growing up with deaf parents, but when I do, what comes, comes with conviction.

The information I want to impart to Deaf audiences is the same as what I want to share with all audiences–my experiences, my impressions, the things I feel a need to express creatively. What I have learned–and want to continue to discover–about life comes from plenty of places: literature, creative arts, nature, and also from within the Deaf community, especially since that's where I started and that's where I return in order to recognize more about who I am, and who I can be.

WG: Question #6
When you say that you don't think you are finished telling the hearing world about your perceptions of the Deaf world, does that mean that you have another book in the works?

KLN: Thank you for asking and I'm glad you're interested! I do have another poetry chapbook that is in a publisher's hands right now, however that collection is not focused on the relationships between the Deaf and hearing worlds as Handbuzz is. Lately, though, I have been working on a couple of short stories with central issues concerning the Deaf community, and I'm hoping these pieces find publication soon. I've also been busy working on ASL translations of the poems in Handbuzz and Other Voices, with the idea that the Signed poems can then accompany any poetry readings that come my way, thereby making the event more accessible to Hearing Impaired audiences.

WG: Question #7
Karyn, I've really enjoyed interviewing you about your work. I know I've gained a few insights about Deaf culture and I think our readers have too. Is there anything that you would like to add to what we have discussed about your poetry or writing about Deaf culture before we end our conversation?

KLN: Perhaps I'll mention the story behind my poem, "Hank Williams and My Father." My father lost his hearing to a fever when he was a boy. He actually had some residual hearing, and liked to brag about owning a radio while he was a student at the Missouri School of the Deaf. When I was growing up, he owned several 78 rpm Hank Williams records, and we had a record player so that he could play them, placing his hands on top of the speakers to "listen." Then he set his foot tapping and would occasionally sing in his own original and very genuine Deaf-voice. At those times my father was as engaged with music as any hearing kid I ever knew. That, along with his wonderful sense of humor and positive attitude about life, made a big impression on me and inspired the poem. When I read it aloud, I can still see him with his hands on the speakers, and I am filled with heartfelt gratitude to Hank Williams for somehow transferring that wonderful spirit and engagement with life to my father. Of course, I hope readers find that aspect of his personality in the poem.

Thank you, Michael, I've enjoyed talking with you, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk a little bit about some of the history of ASL poetry, as well as my own work.