Every year, students across the country memorize and recite poems for the Poetry Out Loud competition. But for deaf students, memorization isn’t the only challenge — they first have to translate the poem from English to American Sign Language. From there, they work to interpret the poem’s meaning and incorporate it into their performance in ASL.
Traiton Kramer and Brayden Olson are seniors at Oregon School for the Deaf in Salem. They both competed at the state Poetry Out Loud competition earlier this month and join to tell us more about the process, along with Gayle Robertson, a curriculum specialist who coordinates the competition at the school.
Note: The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Every year, students across the country memorize and recite poems for local Poetry Out Loud competitions. But for deaf students, memorization is not the only challenge. First, they have to translate poems from English to American Sign Language (ASL). From there, they work to interpret their poem’s meaning and then perform them in ASL. Traiton Kramer and Brayden Olson are seniors at Oregon School for the Deaf. They both competed at the state Poetry Out Loud competition earlier this month and they join us now, along with Gayle Robertson. She is a curriculum specialist who coordinates the competition at the school. Welcome to all three of you.
Gayle Robertson: Thank you.
Miller: I should note that you’re going to be hearing the voice of an ASL interpreter as we go. Brayden, first. What first drew you to poetry?
Brayden Olson: I like to be able to sign the different feelings and translate that. I want the audience to kind of see my emotions, whether I’m sad, through my signing. And also if it’s comical, that they would know that that’s funny and to express that through my signs.
Miller: Do you remember the first time that you saw a Poetry Out Loud competition? I’m curious what went through your mind?
Olson: Well, I saw the deaf performers and I had never seen that and so that’s when I wanted to learn, and then I started reading the poetry and started signing it and practicing it. And then also watching TV, actors, I’m trying to think, like the different stars and them on the stage signing. And I thought that’s what it kind of drew me into. It was seeing all the other performers perform in sign language.
Miller: Traiton, what about you? How did you first decide you want to do this?
Traiton Kramer: So I have an amazing friend who just graduated two years ago and when I was in the eighth grade and they were a freshman, she noticed I was expressive with my signing, and so she encouraged me to get involved. And so I thought, well, I’ll try it.
And then when I was a freshman, I decided to go ahead and try out and started with my poetry and signing until my senior year. I figured it’s my last year and I figured I’ve improved a lot. I’ve changed a lot. I’ve grown and improved and I was actually really proud of myself. And, my teacher, Gayle, was really shocked on how well I was doing and I really didn’t expect that I would make it to the state national competition. And I’m really, actually, really proud of myself because I’ve actually been working really, really hard since I was a freshman.
Miller: Well, Traiton, how much do you remember the very first time you got on stage, I guess, as a freshman? You’d never done this before. What was that like?
Kramer: Well, I’d been so nervous, to go up on the stage and having to perform in front of people actually watching me. So I really worked on myself. I just focused on myself. Up until now, I wanted to show that I had the courage to do this.
Miller: Gayle Robertson, Traiton mentioned that you were impressed by how much he improved. Let’s take a step back. I mean, what is your role as coordinator? What does that entail?
Robertson: I think my biggest role is to carve a door in these poems so that the kids can get in them. The English, to some of our kids who are really smart, and have under a first grade reading level because of language deprivation, and their experiences in life, to open up a poem for someone like that and for them to see it for the first time, I think that’s my biggest role is to let them in. And then I just guide them through it and coach them through it and encourage them to show it to other deaf staff and deaf people to get real feedback from the community.
Miller: How does the poem selection process work? I mean, what do students have to choose from?
Robertson: At the poetryoutloud.org, there’s thousands of poems there that they change every year, that students can choose from. This overwhelms a lot of our students. So if they ask me to, and some students don’t take me up on this, I will give them a little anthology. I’ll say give me a couple of themes, give me some tones that you want to express. Do you want it to be really sad and slow? Do you want it to be really angry? Do you want happiness? And then I’ll go and make a little anthology by printing out some of those poems and handing it to them. So a lot of when we start, it’s me chasing students down the halls with poems.
Miller: When you make those anthologies or make those suggestions, are there choices you make that you make because of the students that you’re choosing these for, separate from the emotions? But I mean, the choices you make because you’re working with students who are deaf?
Robertson: Yes. The emotions are first, the facial expressions and the expressions of the emotions are definitely first. I’ve had students say, oh no Spanish, English, ASL, those aren’t my first language. My first language is facial expressions. So that’s always first. And then I do kind of look for the poems that are very visually forward. Brayden picked a different poem than what I suggested because it was visual. Yes, but it was so complicated, had so many things I thought, oh, he picked the wrong poem, but it was amazing what he did with it. I underestimate their experience and their trauma that adds so much depth to their experience. I often underestimate them.
Miller: Brayden, it’s possible the poem that Gayle is talking about there is one that I find really challenging. It’s a contemporary poem by a poet named Samiya Bashir, “When The Saints Went.” I want to give folks, our audience, just a sense for a couple of lines from it. And then you can, if you don’t mind, explain how you take that and turn it into ASL. So this is part of it:
[Reading “When the Saints Went”]: “Hollowed out caves and dog stumps forced ragged, toothy grins. All ablaze. A laser show shot hot through the tinny night. Every husk wore a well lit protrusion. Every breath an asthmatic thrush more material than the silence that surrounds each carcass now.”
So it’s challenging in English. How do you approach that in ASL? I wish I had the benefit of being on Zoom so I can see your face right now. But there was a great smile on your face as you were about to talk to us.
Olson: So actually, a lot. I don’t actually understand a lot of English. So I got some help. So with trying to translate the words, I asked if I could get an illustration of it and then that would help me, better than just reading it. Then also repeating it and repeating it and seeing the illustration kind of helps me create the signs. When I first read it, I made some mistakes and stuff and then I had to read it over and over again and to prepare myself to actually translate it into ASL.
Miller: Why did you choose this? I mean, as we heard, your teacher didn’t recommend this, she didn’t think it was a good idea. This is a poem that’s full of all this dark imagery. What drew you to it?
Olson: I wanted to have something that was emotionally sad, so that’s why.
Miller: Traiton, one of the poems that you chose is also sad, is a story of lost love in a sense. It’s by Dorothy Parker. It’s called “Song in a Minor Key.” Let me give folks a sense for some of the lines here.
[Reading “Song in a Minor Key”]: “But the days go by, and the lilacs die, and trembling birds seek cover; Yet the lady stands, with her long white hands held out to greet her lover.”
That’s the way it reads in English. Can you describe how you approached this poem?
Kramer: So when I read all the pages first and then I kind of use my mind to move the words around to kind of summarize. And then I tried to find the right appropriate signs to do that, to summarize, and then to actually make sure it fits, so people will understand what’s going on.
Miller: So all of that, it’s just the first part. It seems like it’s the first half of your task and then you have to actually perform it. You have to physically communicate this to the audience. Traiton, what’s that like for you?
Kramer: Honestly, I actually like to show people about my deaf culture and to show them that we can do poetry and hear. In hearing people, they can speak it but we can sign it too. And I like to show people that our facial expressions, they can kind of watch our signing and our body language to help understand, to show our emotions, connected to that and to change just the signing style. So people will understand us because we can’t speak and it’s not only for hearing people, it’s for deaf people too.
Miller: How much do you care, Traiton, if the people in the audience know ASL?
Kramer: Well, I think there needs just to be, just equal access, whether or not you’re hearing or not, or whether or not you’re still learning ASL. I’m willing to help people learn ASL because that would be cool if hearing people want to express the poetry in sign language. So we really just like to show our culture and to show people how sign language is and how easy it is for hearing people to be able to learn sign language, to communicate with deaf people. That’s what I enjoy.
Miller: Brayden, what about you? What is the performance part like for you?
Olson: So I tend to get maybe a little nervous before I start my performance, but I just do some deep breathing and I just try and get up and sign. And sometimes the bright lights are a little too loud for my eyes, but I just try and focus on my signing and my poem, just to stay in my own little bubble of my signing. And I just remember to come with my straight face, do my deep breathing. Breathing really helps me when I’m on the stage.
Miller: Gayle, how does the judging work?
Robertson: There is a panel of judges, usually three to five, and one of them knows ASL or is deaf. And then there’s two accuracy judges, one of them is hearing for the hearing competition and the other one is deaf, so that they can catch the nuances if the students are off from their original. So what happens is the week before, we record the students’ performances and then they’re given that video to practice from so that everything that they do is exactly the same as their video. And that’s how we do accuracy, to make it fair between the deaf and the hearing contestants.
Miller: Because the hearing contestants, they get dinged if they don’t say “the.”
Robertson: “And” instead of “a.” They have very specific things. So our students, grammar is in their face, so if one eyebrow goes up, that’s a ding if it didn’t happen in the video. So it has to be exactly accurate to their performance since ASL is in a different order and a different construct and structure than English. That’s how we make it accurate.
Miller: But only one of the judges has to be fluent in ASL, has to truly understand what the deaf poetry performers are doing. But what about the others? I mean, what does it mean to have people judging you who don’t know what you’re communicating? At least they don’t know in a deep way that there’s…I think they don’t know the nuances?
Robertson: Right. Yeah, they wouldn’t catch the eyebrows, they wouldn’t catch the small shifts and the gaze and all of the stuff we do. But it’s poetry, and poetry is beyond language, and poetry hits that commonality of emotion and experience that we all have. And so if a judge, especially a judge who loves poetry, and they all do, sees that visual performance, they often fall into that poem too, and not in the same way as someone who knows sign language. But I think that’s one of their challenges is to pull in those hearing judges, make it as obvious as you can, make it as visual and as big as possible so that they also can understand it.
Miller: Traiton, is that something that you think about, reaching a judge and communicating to them, even if they don’t understand your primary language?
Kramer: I would say yes, but I also just like to show them what I’m doing and how my movements and what my emotions show, my facial expressions - if I’m sad or mad or happy. And so they can understand what’s going on through my facial and my gesturing.
Miller: Gayle, am I right that your students won the state championship two years in a row, last year and the year before? What’s the secret of your success?
Robertson: I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been doing this since 2009. So it’s not like every year we win. That was amazing that it happened two years in a row. The last time we took state was in 2009, the first year we started. But every year is a success. Every year is a success because students go away from this experience with three poems in their bloodstream, in their hearts, for the rest of their lives. So that’s the success that I’m looking for.
I think the winning was timing, and we had good performers and I think it’s the connection. It’s that these students connect with so few adults that know their language. Sometimes their parents don’t know their language. 90% of the cases, parents are hearing, and not 90% of them don’t know sign language, but many, many parents don’t have a full understanding of their kids’ language. So that connection and going line by line sitting across the table from one student and saying, OK, what does this say? What did you mean by this? Why did your eyebrow do that? Write that down, note that that kind of interaction is priceless.
Miller: Brayden, as Gayle just mentioned, you have these poems that are now will be a part of you forever that you know deeply. And then there’s the process of learning them and working with Gayle or other people to really understand them. You’ve done this for a number of years now. I’m curious what else you’ve gained, what you’ve gotten by doing this?
Olson: Well, since I’ve been doing this since I was a freshman up until being a senior, it’s actually given me more confidence to actually get up and perform. That was tough. So that’s what I’ve learned. I have more confidence.
Miller: Confidence that you carry with you in other ways, in other places. Traiton, it seems like you want to jump in here.
Kramer: I used to be nervous, but now I believe in myself, that I can do it and to show people what I can do. And I’ve started acting and when I’m performing, I hear people. When I hear people laugh, it makes me proud of myself, because I know that they’re understanding. And Brayden and I are proud of each other, in that we have more confidence in ourselves and we believe in what we can do, and we’re just never going to give up.
Miller: Traiton, you both talked about being young, being in eighth grade or being freshman and starting this, and seeing older classmates who were doing this when they were seniors. But now you’re the senior. Do you think about young kids seeing you?
Kramer: Yes. And I actually just love to show the elementary kids, up until middle school, because I believe that they can do it, and they can if they have the passion. They just can do it and never give up. And I like to pass that along and hopefully maybe they would never drop out with this Poetry Out Loud. Maybe they can join the competition and express themselves. And maybe they want to share their deaf culture as well. So I actually really love to teach them, to be expressive with their poetry.
Miller: Brayden, what do you hope that young people who see you elementary school kids there, middle schoolers, will take from seeing you?
Olson: I want them to think that it’s cool, getting up and signing. And then to enjoy themselves, and it actually makes me feel good to inspire them.
Miller: Well, Brayden Olson and Traiton Kramer and Gayle Robertson, thank you very much.
Olson: Thank you.
Miller: Brayden Olson and Traiton Kramer are seniors at the Oregon School for the Deaf. They took part in this year’s Poetry Out Loud state championship. I should note that Katie Lineburg was Oregon’s state champion this year. She is a senior at Saint Stephen’s Academy. She’s going to compete in the national competition in Washington D.C. at the end of April. We were also joined by Gayle Robertson, who is a curriculum specialist at the school and who coordinates the competition for students there.
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