Donna Williams: ‘A Bilingual Poet’s Dilemma’ travels across the pond!

I’m a deaf poet who works with both English and British Sign Language. Ideas come to me in both languages, and when I’m composing a poem, I try to focus on one language at a time, but it’s not easy.

Sometimes one can think of the right sign but not the right word and vice versa. Then, when you’ve finished composing a poem, how to translate the darn thing? Both spoken and signed languages can be beautiful languages in their own right, but getting them both to be beautiful at the same time is a huge challenge.

For my BSL poems, I find it easier to have a highly fluent interpreter watch my poem (hat-tips here to Kyra Pollitt and Donna West) and give me English translations that I still use today – giving the script to an event’s interpreter and rehearsing with them; I’m a big believer in the value of prep, and I want the best possible versions of my poems to be performed.

For my English poems, I do my own BSL translations, indeed I’ve played in the past with signing them in Sign Supported English or in BSL. When I sign then in BSL, I need someone else to read the poem – with SSE the signs follow the English word order but with BSL I’m focussing on that grammar and I can’t – and I’d like to meet the people who can – produce two distinct languages at the same time.

I look at the challenges of working with two languages in the poem ‘A Bilingual Poet’s Dilemma’, where I lament about the difficulty in choosing a language and then the appropriate signs and words for the translations.

Sandra Alland, the editor of Stairs and Whispers: Deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back wanted film poems to be included with the book and asked to film this poem. I eagerly agreed and is was a fascinating experience; a day full of playing with my BSL translation (and outtakes!) while taking into consideration lighting levels, backgrounds, props, camera angles and voiceover pacing – kudos here to Yvonna Strain, the intepreter / voiceover artist and Ania Urbanowski, the co-director! So many technical discussions, and very educational for all of us.

That was last year, and since then, the film poem has taken on a life of its own. It was part of the aforementioned Stairs and Whispers book and featured at the launch and related events along with the books’ other film poems, by Andra Simons, Jackie Hagan, Mark Mace Smith, Markie Burnhope, and Miss Jacqui, and three other signed poems by deaf poets; Bea Webster, Gary Austin Quinn and Alison Smith. (More info and book available here).

Then ‘A Bilingual Poet’s Dilemma’ was accepted for Magma poetry magazine issue 69: The Deaf Issue, an issue entirely created by poets with experience of deafness, all across the spectrum from ‘hard of hearing’ to ‘partially deaf’ through to ‘signing Deaf’. For me, at the launch.

It was great to see so many flavours and experiences of deafness all under one roof, and I wished all deaf people could come together in the same way, regardless of ‘levels of deafness’. This magazine featured several signed filmed poems, by Ksenia Balabina, Andile Vellum with Sophie Woolley, and Alison Smith. The magazine is available here and features many thoughtful poems and articles, some of which really resonated with me.

Now ‘A Bilingual Poet’s Dilemma’ has been picked to be a featured poem for National Poetry Month Canada with Angel House Press! It’s the featured poem for the first of April – happily not an April fool’s joke, though hopefully the poem does make people smile – and think.

Take a look at it by clicking here: http://nationalpoetrymonth.ca/index.php?NPMid=542

It’s been wonderful watching this poem fly, and watching other signed film poems get out there. Despite the disappointment over the BSL GCSE being stonewalled, it was still debated and broadcast live with BSL interpreters, and that fight’s not over.

Not one but two films featuring sign language took home Oscars. Maybe increased awareness doesn’t automatically translate to change, but it’s my hope that we can use that increased awareness to get that big ball of change rolling. Downhill. Fast. Like a giant barrier-destroying round of cheese in a particularly demonic cheese-rolling festival. It’s possible I’m letting this metaphor get away from me.

Why not create some poems of your own and send them to poetry magazines / competitions? Let them know we’re out there!

In the meantime, check out that book and magazine and their film poems, they’re all great!

Donna Williams is has written a range of articles for Limping Chicken. She is a Deaf writer and blogger living in Bristol. She’s a BSL poet, freelance writer, NDCS Deaf Role Model presenter, and occasional performer. She tweets as@DeafFirefly