Taking the mic as Deaf and disabled slam poets

For the last six weeks, partnering alongside Action Education, The D*List has run free spoken word poetry workshops for Deaf and disabled people to learn, write and perform. 

My highlights were seeing lots of new faces at The D*List community hub and witnessing the progress of the participants, who performed their poems so well. I also really appreciated the way that workshop facilitators Emma and Talia read out the poems of some of the participants who couldn't make it; it was special to still have them be a part of the night.

The growth of these poets is something I’m really looking forward to seeing more of in the future and I hope these poems will encourage others to come along to our next creative workshop to learn a new skill too.

Below is a selection of poems from the participants.

Healing by Matakorama

May we start healing from things we don’t talk about
Healing is part of mechanism that we taken granted
Healing is not a weakness it’s just an opportunity to bandage the wounds and cuts that we may restore in our hearts
Healing is part of course or circuit that we make up in fake scenarios
Healing is feeling all our emotions and allows us to be able present moments
I hope you heal the inner child in you
I hope your wounds and scars are fully healed

Being Deaf in a Wordy World by Bev (read by Talia)

Spoken word . . . . are you listening ?
Spoken word . . . . not heard
Spoken word . . . . third and final
Words flung forth with a flurry of energy,
marching me through a linear story
line by line,
a firm consistent flow of measured cadence
I see only the fluttering of the lips and slight changes in the
position of the jaw,
There is no facial fragrance, no lifting or dipping of the brows,
no grammatical shift of eye gaze, no otherly non words in the
mouth like pffffft or pah

These spoken words are menacing and violent, blasting the
breath from me as they slam me up against the ignorance of
the cultural collision when hearing and deaf meet.

I have been here many times before, my deaf hood stripped
back and my hunger to communicate clearly staggering under
the power of the words.
I am disempowered by a language I am less familiar with.
Unable to find a response that signals I am myself, not the
person you see, not the person you hear. This never ends well
for me.

Scrambling to my feet, almost too afraid to breath I panic, my
arms, my hands, my face begin to sign to you, but you do not
see my language and you do not listen to my humanity.
My hands change shape
You watch me as I sign, seeing no meaning you assume it is
meaningless, aimless gesturing and still I try, politely, with
forced sincerity, seeking words with which to defend myself.
I am speechless.

I pause and wait for courage. It comes to me, I fling my hands,
my arms, my face and body into action, changing shape,
direction, movement and body position. I do not want to slow it
down.
They align, everything moving together from one meaning to
another constructing a story, gaining traction, building
sense sign by sign by sign
constrained only by grammar and culture and my own ability to
use this oh so lovely language.
Language blunt and plain, finding signs that form coherent
precision and adding some translucence, elevated to
poetry, making them sing with sign bling.
Ahhhh People of the eye I see that you understand.

Signed word. Are you watching ?
Signed word. My voice is seen.
Signed word. Ah now I have been a poet.

[unlisted and unexpected side effects of becoming chronically ill and disabled] by Theo (read by Emma)

i know medical texts for hard-to-pronounce weird diseases better than most general practitioners
and i can sleep through the machines at the hospital like a baby falling asleep to lullabies, i know
what to say to the doctors in emergency care... approach it like trying to talk to your extended
family about politics; speak with caution, and be mindful of the details you choose to include.
do not to raise your voice and always focus on the facts;
i can do an injection without flinching. i can experience constant pain without flinching. most of
the time i won’t claim ten on the pain scale. i keep the ten as my golden ticket, i save it for when
i need to translate just how bad it is. a ten gets their attention.
disability is saving for the worst, and learning to gamble. take this medication and you might be
able to walk again, but in ten years you could get cancer.
in the meantime, use a mobility aid and do more, just be aware of the strangers, they all think
they have medical degrees
they want to know why someone so young has a walking stick, they want to know if i am taking
that parking space away from someone who needs it more, after all i can still walk right? they
want to know if i have tried exercise, or supplements, or praying, or yoga, (i have)
i want to say, the life i imagined is so far from me, a distant echo. still, i save a golden ticket just
to offer something to my future self, i imagine a future self, a survival, despite all the odds.
i hold up the life i wanted, and the sacrifices my body demands of me. i memorise side effects
and i recite them. i know each one
i’m learning how to manage the symptoms.

Pressing In by Áine Kelly-Costello

The rumbling and fracturing is closing in
Ministers’ pens pressing charges for failing to be programmed
To Jobseeker perfection
petrified into obedience;
Under the neoliberal machine, illness and disablement thrive;
Rest is unworthy, survival is exhausting
And some people want to make it easier to legally die.
I am scared, my friend, because you will be unprotected,
I’m scared we will lose our power,
I’m scared that being loud on Pay Equity and disability cuts and Regulatory Standards
Becomes an energy sucking vortex with no repreive - -
Me, I have enough privilege to be ok-ish for longer
Being public still rough but this is not about me, it’s about us.
We need to know: Where are the safety nets when the chats and hugs and disabled solidarity
can’t wipe the WINZ debt or pay the support worker travel?
Where are the disabled people not funded to live well in the community nor funded for
residential meant to go?
Because colonial governments never stop with the deficits and hierarchies, do they?
Variations on the theme of eugenics:
Wrong kind of disabled: no disability support for you.
Wrong kind of beneficiary: a 24-month red card for you.
Wrong kind of immigrant: no visa for you.
Ministers - you fashion your liberty at our expense,
Manufacture redundancies and no cause evictions,
Permit money supremacy on stolen whenua,
Press us into straight jackets till some of us can’t breathe.
Tell us, Ministers:
Are you proud of misery?
Is your insulation so comfortable you’ll never see?

My Parents by Jordan

1. My father always working hard for us.
2. My mother always cooking for us .
3. My father getting up early to go to work .
4. My mother always making my lunch for school .
5. My father taking me to rugby training .
6. My mother always cleaning the house .
7. My father having a cup of coffee .
8. My mother always telling me off when I do something wrong.
9. My father listening to my mother when she is talking to him about what happened when I did something wrong.
10. My mother telling me stories about when growing in the cook island.
11. My father having a cold one after work.

This poem I wrote is a tribute to the two people that raised me into the young man that I am today so before I set down I want to leave a  little message for our youth  out there to be grateful for your parents  for what they do for you because you only get one father and one mother so cherish the time you have with them before it’s too late.

A huge thank you to all that made this workshop and event possible. To Action Education, Talia and Emma - for your facilitation and warmth in all that you taught was much appreciated each week. DJ Ramon for giving us great tunes on the night and Sheldon for helping with the set up. Thank you to Auckland Council for contributing towards the costs of the workshops. 

And lastly, a massive thank you to all the poets and participants for your courage, creativeness and commitment to the workshops and showcase!

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