A Tribe is Deaf

“A Tribe is Deaf” Presentation by Jim Cohn 1987 National ASL Poetry Conference Thursday, September 24

ABSTRACT OF PRESENTATION [summarized by Joan Naturale]

Jim Cohn refers to a 1984 February 1 video when Allen Ginsberg visited and presented in a NTID classroom. The captions on this video were typed in teletypewriter (TTY) style. There are excerpts of the historic meeting of the poets Dr. Robert Panara, and Allen Ginsberg. The first excerpt shows Panara performing his most famous poem, “On His Deafness”. Cohn discusses the “Golden Age Poets” from the 1930-1950s Gallaudet era and Ginsberg’s affiliation with the Beat poets.

The next excerpt is Ginsberg discussing Patrick Graybill’s concept of poetry as a picture and idea similar to the work of the 20th century Imagist poets, William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound with an emphasis on imagery in their works. These poets had a lot of influence on free verse. Ginsberg states that the best poems that translates into other languages are those that have pictures, which is also best for Deaf people, as there is less emphasis on sounds and rhymes.

Cohn then discusses how a clear and strong image can be translated between languages and cultures and an excerpt of Ginsberg reciting his favorite lines from the “Howl” poem is shown. Graybill asks why he chose those two words “hydrogen jukebox” and Ginsberg explains its apocalyptic meaning—the noise of the jukebox is like the bomb. Ginsberg asks whether “hydrogen jukebox” could be shown in sign language and in a stunning moment, Graybill translates “hydrogen jukebox”. Ginsberg realized that Graybill had captured the word-image visually.

Cohn ends the presentation by discussing the legitimacy of ASL poetry, and quotes Earl Sollenberger, “you have to know what your tribe is speaking.” He shares the story of a Deaf boy who said, “it’s not NTID, it’s ATID.” When Cohn asked him what he meant, the boy replied, “A tribe is Deaf!”

Sign interpreted by Kip Webster.