British Deaf Association announces Kabir Kapoor as UK’s first BSL Poet Laureate

A British Sign Language (BSL) version of this news story, released by the British Deaf Association (BDA) is available to watch now on Vimeo.

Kabir Kapoor, a Deaf designer from London, has been selected as the UK’s first BSL Poet Laureate – the BDA has announced.

Kapoor’s poem was selected out of 12 submitted, after the charity invited Deaf people to apply for the role which would see the winner “encouraged to create poetic works in BSL around major national events in the UK from a Deaf perspective”.

Rebecca Mansell, the BDA’s CEO, previously said of the opportunity: “Scotland has a Makar, Wales has a National Poet, and Northern Ireland has its own Poet Laureate. We feel the time is now right for a Poet Laureate for British Sign Language.

“We want to show the nation that British Sign Language is a rich, expressive, visual language that can do anything English can – and more!”

The winning entry, which is untitled, is described as an “uplifting poem on unity and positivity”.

Commenting on Kapoor’s entry, the judging panel said it was a “huge pleasure to watch”, and that the poet was a “confident performer with a really important message of solidarity and togetherness”.

The panel was made up of BSL translator Benjamin Gorman; Deafinitely Theatre artistic director Paula Garfield; Deaf Studies and BSL lecturer Dai O’Brien; and actors Moira Ross, Donna Mullins, Nadia Nadarajah and Jean St Clair.

The BDA said: “It was a difficult choice. Our seven judges voted on the fluency and creativity of the poet’s language, the content and originality of the poem itself, and the confidence of the performance.

“The top three were very close, just a few points apart! In the end, we identified our top three poets.”

Kapoor will now be awarded a £500 prize and the opportunity to work with DeafZone at next year’s Glastonbury Festival.

In second place was Visual Vernacular (VV) poet Zoë McWhinney with a poem “about the history of the recognition of BSL”, and in third was BSL teacher and instructor Michael Watkinson with a piece titled “Sailing in Silence”.

McWhinney and Watkinson will be awarded prizes of £200 and £100 respectively.

Videos of the top three poems are due to be released online soon.

Photo: British Deaf Association.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.