Interesting reading from last night
Nov. 19th, 2009 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catherineldfI trotted over to Hamline U. for the monthly Queer Voices reading Series event with poet Jim Cihlar and deaf essayist/poet/editor Ray Luczak. I've met Ray before and I'd been wanting to check out the space since I'll be reading there in April, hence the motivation for stopping by after yet another long day of day job kerfuffle.
Jim did a fine job and I liked some of his imagery but he got largely upstaged by Ray (but was very gracious about - big plus points for that). Over half the audience was deaf or hard of hearing or an ASL interpreter or training to be an interpreter so it had a very different feel from the usual reading. The ASL interpreter who signed for the event was amazingly good, at least for those of us who don't understand much or any ASL - she was very expressive and emotive. She got lots of compliments from the audience though, so I'm guessing it worked for everyone.
In addition, a couple of the audience members brought their own interpreters who were using signed English instead of ASL. It turned out that no one else knew they were coming so they had to do all their signing on the fly, which was pretty impressive. It also meant that those of us outside the deaf community got to see two different forms of signing at the same time. I can see why ASL is more popular. It seems to more useful for encompassing a range of emotions and context that signed English doesn't seem to get to.
To make things even more interesting, Ray opted to sign his reading in ASL while the interpreter narrated it from the audience for those of who are sign-impaired. He chose a section from his memoir, Assembly Required: Notes from a Gay, Deaf Life, but he's also got numerous plays, two edited collections (Eyes of Desire Vol.1 and Vol. 2) and a forthcoming novel out. The section that he signed from/read dealt with growing up in a small town in the U.P. (say "da"!) and dealing with the isolation of being deaf and gay. It was quite moving and I picked up the book to add the myriad stacks around the house. In short, really interesting guy and well worth checking out. Glad I dragged myself out for the event.
Jim did a fine job and I liked some of his imagery but he got largely upstaged by Ray (but was very gracious about - big plus points for that). Over half the audience was deaf or hard of hearing or an ASL interpreter or training to be an interpreter so it had a very different feel from the usual reading. The ASL interpreter who signed for the event was amazingly good, at least for those of us who don't understand much or any ASL - she was very expressive and emotive. She got lots of compliments from the audience though, so I'm guessing it worked for everyone.
In addition, a couple of the audience members brought their own interpreters who were using signed English instead of ASL. It turned out that no one else knew they were coming so they had to do all their signing on the fly, which was pretty impressive. It also meant that those of us outside the deaf community got to see two different forms of signing at the same time. I can see why ASL is more popular. It seems to more useful for encompassing a range of emotions and context that signed English doesn't seem to get to.
To make things even more interesting, Ray opted to sign his reading in ASL while the interpreter narrated it from the audience for those of who are sign-impaired. He chose a section from his memoir, Assembly Required: Notes from a Gay, Deaf Life, but he's also got numerous plays, two edited collections (Eyes of Desire Vol.1 and Vol. 2) and a forthcoming novel out. The section that he signed from/read dealt with growing up in a small town in the U.P. (say "da"!) and dealing with the isolation of being deaf and gay. It was quite moving and I picked up the book to add the myriad stacks around the house. In short, really interesting guy and well worth checking out. Glad I dragged myself out for the event.