Black Hole
Christie
privilege. While this is an ongoing process and I still certainly have a long way to go, I
feel a need to at least mention that at the time of writing, I used the phrase the “Deaf
Experience” to refer to a common experience many Deaf people face. This term has since
been shown to lack recognition of diverse Deaf experiences, particularly the intersectional
lives of Deaf people. In acknowledging this, it is hoped that ASL literature and responses
to it will become more representative of the lived experiences and beautiful array of Deaf
intersectional identities that make up our community.
- Karen Christie
ASL Poetry of Black Hole: Color ASL
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gopK8V2wmoU)
Translation
The ASL-to-English translated work of Black Hole: Color ASL:
Ladder, rings, ladder upright
I walk come to ladder, and climb up
See pots of red paint, yellow, blue, green
Blue skies, dip into paint, splatter paint
Ladder shakes, people shake, I totter
Paint spills, the ladder shaken to dislodge, paint spills
Black hole looms, and I am endangered, paint spills
I flail and stagger, black paint spreads, I flail
Ladder is pulled down, I stagger and flail, struggle
Black looms, black looms, black looms
I fly and soar, colors all over, I fly
Colors all over, I fly, I soar. (Peters, 2000, p. 67)
Acknowledgments
Rennie's Black Hole: Color ASL videoclip in this article from the 1987 National Deaf
Poetry Conference is courtesy of RIT/NTID Deaf Studies Archive CLIR GRANT Project.
SASLJ, Vol. 2, No. 2 – Fall/Winter 2018
85