Deaf American Poetry: An Anthology

I picked up this poetry book at the library (edited by John Lee Clark, Gallaudet University Press, 2009). Through the words of 35 deaf American poets, it conveys what it was like to be deaf over the past couple of centuries in American history. The first poets tend to be negative toward themselves, but they gradually become more self-affirming, with an angry or melancholy poem here and there. I want to post some of my favorites from the book. Some of the poems moved me nearly to tears, and overall they gave me a much greater appreciation for the deaf identity as a culture--particularly in ASL as a heart-felt mother tongue and in the ability to be completely fulfilled and whole despite the larger culture's assumption that one is "disabled" or "lacking something." I'm sure these first two are in the public domain, but correct me if I'm wrong:

To a Bride
Mary Toles Peet (1879)

Thou askest, O my friend, a song to-day;
But what soft note, what subtle melody
Can thy young heart's delicious joy convey?

In Life's enchanted lyre, one chord alone
Can thrill thee with a music all its own,
And fill thine heart with one most perfect tone.

What need, then, hast thou that I sing to thee?
June roses for thy bridal, fair to see,
Are sweeter music than my notes can be;

And song-birds flitting thro' the fragrant air,
And stars that gleam, like living eyes, from where
Thine own turn softly in thy troth-plight prayer.

Then silence, sweeter than all varied sound,
Shall fold thee soft, like loving arms around,
For life's most perfect gift thy heart hath found.


A Prayer in Signs
Alice Cornelia Jennings (before 1900)

No uttered word is ours--no solemn tone
The reverent air bears upward to the sky
No eloquence of meaning, borne along
Of voice and accent, meet the God on high.

But dare ye tell us that we do not pray--
We who so truly "lift up hands of prayer,"
And by the speaking gesture mark the way,
Our heart's desire would take to reach Him there?

"Our Father!" that appealing gesture lifts
With force more potent than the spoken word,
Desire, petition for the precious gift
Held in the hand of One All-Seeing Lord.

"In Heaven!" we picture in the circling sweep
Of arm and hand, the glorious dome above;
"Holy Thy Name!" with reverent movement keep
The sacred thought of purity and love.

"Thy Kingdom!" with imperial touch we show
The badge of royalty--the sceptre's sway;
And that Thy glorious Will may work and grow
Potent and perfect, this and every day.

Our opened hands with daily bread to fill
The Lord we ask, "Forgive as we forgive":
O hearing brothers! we are like you still--
The hardest this to pray, and this to live.

From tempter's touch, whene'er beside he stands--
We pray thee still our weakness to defend:
And by the symbol strong of broken bands
We crave deliverance, succor, to the end.

Once more the royal sign--"Thy Kingdom Thine!"
"The Power," that sign is vital, living, strong:
"The Glory": rays of brightness seem to shine
And scintillate around us, sweet and long.

"Forever and forever!" round and round
The finger sweeps, and who shall tell us then
Expression for the prayer we have not found,
Nor join us in our glad and grand "Amen"?


I am less sure about the copyright status of this one, so I will only post the last three stanzas. It's by a poet who eventually committed suicide. Beautiful, but profoundly sad.

from "I Will Take My Dreams . . ." by Felix Kowalewski

I will stand with my dreams on the top of the highest mountain;
I will brush from my hands the dust of their tears.
I will stride to the edge of the abyss before me--
The yawning abyss of dreamless years.

I will seize my dreams on the top of the highest mountain;
And then, in despair, I will fling them down!
I will see them fall, to burst in a thousand fragments
--The fairies, the music, the lovely lady's crown!

I will sit me down on the top of the highest mountain.
I will stare at the lonely waste of rock and sky.
I will lay me down at the edge of the abyss.
I will dream no more; and dreamless, I shall die.

And, part of Kowalewski's friend Loy E. Golladay's reply to his poem (obviously wasn't too happy that his friend chose to kill himself, nor agreeing with his despairing worldview):

from "Surely the Phoenix"

... You who have hurled your dreams from the highest mountain,
And watched their splintering crash to the ground;
Did you see all the stars that were torn from their courses?
Surely the universe shook at the sound!

...

Nothing begins where nothing ended,
All things enter whence all things fly;
Surely the dreams go on forever--
Only the dreamers die.

Die, then they cast away their dreaming,
When they scorn the grain in the search for chaff.
Then Death sits back in his gloomy cavern
To laugh . . . and laugh . . . and laugh.


Aaaand, on that happy note... I'm just putting off homework, so I'll go do my studently duty.