Teresa Garratty: What I learned from seeing a Deaf poet perform

In a vain attempt to be somewhat sociable, I recently went along to a poetry evening called “Last Word 2018; What Words Are Ours?”. Why on earth did I do something like that? Well, I’m glad you asked! As part of the line up full of hearies, there was one deafie lurking amongst them, performing signed poetry.

I’m a huge fan of deafies mixing in with the mainstream. It doesn’t happen as often as I’d like for various reasons, so when it does I like to support it and then some!

If I’m being honest (which I always am, because lying and deceit is NOT COOL!) I was a little apprehensive about going along. I’m not really “into” poetry. I’m partial to a bit of Dante’s Divine Comedy but that’s about as far as it goes. Also, the other minor setback being that I can’t follow sign language to save my life.

Even though all of Zoë’s poetry isn’t strictly in BSL (it incorporates other elements, such as VV/Visual Vernacular), I was pretty sure my feeble brain wouldn’t be able to keep up anyway.

There isn’t really a work around for this. It’s not like I could sit in the back row reading my BSL dictionary (which by the way, is half the size of the freakin’ universe) but I still wanted to show my support and sometimes all that requires, is that you turn up!

In case you’re wondering, the hearies spoken word poems were interpreted. One poet even invited the terp to stand centre stage with her and she performed an occasional sign or two for poetic emphasis. I’m not sure if this was down to Zoë’s influence (hope it was!) but it was nice to see a bit of sign language had spread into the ranks like some kind of glorious viral contagion!

Eventually the time came for Zoë to perform. I won’t delve into the content of her poems too much because, well…you didn’t pay for a ticket, did you?! Also, my understanding of them is probably WAY off, but that’s the beauty of poetry and art in general. It is what the audience makes of it.

I would however like to mention a couple of aspects of her work which most certainly tickled my pickle! As I said earlier, the poems were open to the interpretation of the audience (scroll up, it’s there!) but Zoë did have a someone voicing for her. While that’s not exactly out of the ordinary, you might be surprised to find that this person was not a terp but in fact a trained voice artist.

Zoë knew that poetry reading requires a specific kind of vocal talent, something that can’t always be expected of an interpreter. So she used a unique combination of interpreter (Naomi) and voice artist (Hazel) for her performance. The terp voiced the conversational dialogue in between poems and the voice artist covered the poetry sections.

A lot of effort from all three went into rehearsing, you could even say that this is where Zoë directed her spoken voice. She carefully noted when and where the voice pattern should match her movements, which words should be emphasised in accordance with their importance within the poem. The result being that the voice over was a perfectly accurate translation of Zoë’s BSL/VV.

In addition to this, Zoë had written or scripted you might say, the dialogue to be used as a voice over. This way, the words were all hers. It was her voice, so to “speak” (pun alert!). So in a sense, she had not only performed visually through BSL/VV for a deaf audience, she had also preformed in spoken English for the hearing audience too. It was undeniably ALL her work. No dispute about it. If you were deaf or hearing what you were getting was 100% Zoë.

That’s something I’ve not really witnessed before when it comes to performance interpreting. Usually, it’s mostly down to the interpreters preference of how to translate BSL to English. This is hugely effected by such things as skill level, professional knowledge, past experience, and confidence in delivery etc. As you can see, that’s a lot of influential factors, so it’s no surprise that Zoë wanted to take the reigns and make damn sure that what was being said out-loud was as true to her own voice as it could be.

There’s a lot of discussion about how interpreters work with performers at the moment and I think Zoë’s combination of terp and voice artist is definitely on the right track when it comes to creative pieces. It’s important for hearing ears to realise that the spoken voice that echo’s through the auditorium isn’t coming from the speakers, it’s not even really coming from the voice artist with the microphone.

It’s Zoë’s voice.

If you’d like to see (or indeed HEAR Zoë for yourself) you can catch her performing at “A Bit of a Do” festival this September along side non other than the lost voice guy.

Don’t miss out!

Read more of Teresa’s posts (with cartoons!) by clicking here.

Teresa is a freelance film maker, photographer and full time cynic. At school, she was voted “Most likely to end up in a lunatic asylum”, a fate which has thus far been avoided. Her pet hates are telephones, intercoms and all living things. Follow her on Twitter as @TGarratty