Sign Language Poetry

I found out at the last minute about last night's inspiring poetry event at the Talbot Rice Art Gallery. It featured poetry from British Sign Language (BSL) poet Richard Carter. To start with Richard performed some poetry in response to some of the artworks in the intriguing Anton Henning exhibition that was displayed in the gallery. He then performed some poetry from his usual repertoire, some initially without spoken English interpretation.


BSL is a wonderfully expressive language and even without spoken English interpretation, I found it possible to understand the main themes of the poetry. I particularly enjoyed the poem Autumn where books became birds became falling autumn leaves.


After the event, I chatted (through an interpreter) to Richard about imagery in poetry and specifically about haiku. BSL is an ideal language for haiku, with its emphasis on images. In fact BSL haiku are even more pared down and compressed than English language haiku - two BSL signs can convey a haiku very well! There is a BSL haiku website here, where you can find out more and watch some BSL haiku in action.


There is a BSL poetry website forthcoming that should soon be visible here.


As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more.