This article presents an overview of NGT performing arts in the Netherlands through the life and work of poet Wim Emmerik. Neder landse Gebarentaal (NGT) is the Dutch name for Sign Language of the Netherlands. Drawing from ethnographic research, performance samples, and interviews of performing artists, educators, and researchers, this article…

This article discusses a new way of thinking about analyzing sign-language poetry. Rather than merely focusing on the product, the method involves observing the process of its creation. Recent years have witnessed increasing literary and linguistic analysis of sign-language poetry, with commentaries on texts and performances being set within and…

This paper considers the range of ways that sign languages use geometric symmetry temporally and spatially to create poetic effect. Poets use this symmetry in sign language art to highlight duality and thematic contrast, and to create symbolic representations of beauty, order and harmony. (Contains 8 tables, 14 figures and 6 notes.)

This article argues that poetry written by nineteenth-century British and American deaf poets played an important role in the period's sign language debates. By placing the publication of this poetry in the context of public exhibitions of deaf students, I suggest that the poetry was mobilized to publicly defend the linguistic and intellectual…

This study investigates the cultural and educational ideas of the French deaf poet-teacher Pierre Pelissier (1814-1863) who was an instructor at the Paris Deaf Institute from the early 1840s until his death in 1863. As a young man, Pelissier became interested in composing poetry and through his verse, captured many of the social frustrations…

Focuses on original poetic composition in American Sign Language (ASL). The development of a documented body of poetry in ASL and of a framework for poetic usage has demonstrated that the limitations of gestural sign systems are inherent in the cultural development of the deaf and has affirmed the legitimacy of the deaf community and its language.…