"I am the book"--Deaf poets' views on signed poetry

Despite research commenting on and analyzing signed poetry, there is little research exploring the aims and intentions of the signing poets. This paper considers the producers of signed poetry, rather than their products. Using material gathered from interviews with three established signing deaf poets, we consider what they hope to achieve when they perform their poetry, including who they aim their work at, and how their perceived audiences influence their performances. This allows us to understand more clearly what challenges audiences face when trying to understand the poetry and how the poets can help audiences meet those challenges. We find that signing poets understand how deaf audiences have been conditioned to respond to poetry, and create connections between themselves and deaf audiences by using the shared specific cultural and linguistic experiences of deaf people. Although deaf audiences are their ultimate preferred audiences, poets welcome hearing audiences, especially if their engagement with the poetry leads to increased understanding of Deaf culture or encourages them to learn sign language. The close, embodied relationship between the poet, poem, and audience makes them inseparable. Written poetry may be abstracted and contained in a book; in contrast, the signing poet is, in effect, the book.