John’s poetry has a palpable, insurgent kind of feel, loosening tactile freeze and hearing-sighted visual bias. It reminds us of language’s capacity to help us feel though others, for others to feel through you, for the empathetic connection of being in feeling to help us remember that distinctions like ‘others’ and ‘you’ don’t really feel right. This feeling of words–a kind of skin talk, hand laugh and tactile feedback loop–reminds us that language is a contact no individual can stand. John’s readings are an invitation into languages field of touch; to speak in feeling together.

John Lee Clark is a DeafBlind poet, essayist, and independent scholar from Minnesota. His chapbook of poems, Suddenly Slow, appeared in 2008. He has edited two anthologies, Deaf American Poetry (Gallaudet University Press, 2009) and Deaf Lit Extravaganza (Handtype Press, 2013). His latest book is a collection of essays called Where I Stand: On the Signing Community and My DeafBlind Experience (Handtype Press, 2014). His work is included in the anthologies Beauty Is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability, Deaf American Prose, St. Paul Almanac, and The Nodin Anthology of Poetry.

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There is photography, video and audio documentation of this performance, available below.

The video is captioned in English and features live American Sign Language interpretation, which begins 6 minutes into the performance.

There is no audio described version of this event.

All documentation is released under Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND).