AW: [sw-l] TRANSCRIBE POEM: One Harbor in ASL

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
November 6, 2004

Stefan Woehrmann wrote:
> Well in the beginning I always got a broken Quicktime - image - but
> finally
> I could view the video. The second video is still a broken image - Hm
> - I am
> afraid that due to the small picture I have trouble to identify all the
> details - so your stills are most wellcome.
> I was surprised to see the speed of the performance ....

Dear SW List, and Stefan -
Thanks for informing me. I know we experience different things with our
computers, so keep me informed. I am glad you told me about the second
video. It is of higher quality and it looks so great on my machine, but
it doesn't surprise me that you could not read it. And the first one is
a small screen size because the length of the poem is so long, and it
is the whole poem in one QuickTime movie...so that was a lot for you to
download with only a dial-up-modem connection to the internet...So I
will cut it up into one sign at a time....but keep what you have
already downloaded...it will be interesting to refer to later...even
though it is fast.

Yes...Kevin Clark, as you know, is Deaf from a Deaf family and is
wonderful to work with...We worked together for years, in the
mid-1990's. Kevin was the one that recently encouraged me to get a
videophone and because of Kevin and Stuart Thiessen, I have had several
wonderful sign language conversations over the internet...it is so good
now, that there are no jerks or hard-to-read signs...Signing speeds are
the same as if we were sitting in the living room together, having a
relaxed conversation...and all this is possible because we all have
very fast connections and download speeds to the internet...the cable
modems and the DSL modems have made easy-to-understand sign language
over the internet possible...So for those who have the possibilities of
getting faster connections to the internet, I think you should consider
it, because it will make video work, and sign language conferencing
more accessible for you.

Regarding the poem...Kevin did a great job with that poem, which is a
re-telling of a poem that was originally written in English, but Kevin
did not translate it word for word...he instead re-told the idea behind
the poem in ASL, so it became a real ASL story-telling, based on the
original English poem...I will post the English poem too. There is a
subtle meaning behind it, and that was why Kevin talked with me at
length about it, and we went over the meaning several times together.
Then Kevin went home and re-told it to his Deaf family and friends
until he felt comfortable, and then the next day he came into a tv
studio and we shot the video of it...there were Deaf people as an
audience in the video studio, so I believe he was signing for Deaf
people and not for hearing people. That is why it seems so fast. The
only reason I understand the ASL is because I know the English poem so
well, which was written by one of my family members...take a look...
;-)

Poem in English: One Harbor
http://www.soulsite.com/soul002.html

OK. One sign at a time now...I promise! Please see next message...

Val ;-)