This year, our library hosted an amazing event I’d like to share – American Sign Language Poetry. It was inspired and coordinated by Princeton University freshman Serena Alagappan.
Serena, who is very involved in ASL initiatives both on and off campus, was planning a workshop for Cotsen Critix, our children’s literary society. During one of our development meetings, she mentioned ASL poetry and how she wanted to share some poems with the kids in the group. I immediately proposed a standalone community event, and she eagerly rose to the challenge of coordinating it.
Serena invited 4 incredibly gifted artists and teachers to campus to share their poetry and answer audience questions about their compositions and experiences. They were beyond fantastic. I’ll start by sharing their bios.
J.W. Guido has been teaching at the Sign Language Center in New York City since 2014. In addition to teaching ASL, he is a professional actor. J.W. is also the Artistic Director for the non-profit organization, New York Deaf Theatre. In addition to working as an actor/director, J.W. is the ASL consultant for productions, using his studies and experience to oversee and assist all ASL translations. He graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology and New York University with degrees in Theatre and Educational Theatre.
Shelly Guy is originally from Haifa, Israel and is fluent is Israeli Sign Language, Hebrew, ASL and English. She has a bachelors degree in Social Work and a Masters degree in Deaf Education from the University Of Northern Colorado. Shelly’s passion for teaching ASL began at the University of Anchorage in Alaska. After numerous jobs throughout Alaska and Colorado she decided it was time to pursue her passion in New York. Her goal here is to expand and enrich her approach to teaching ASL and to spread awareness within the hearing community.
She currently is a full time ASL teacher at Cathedral high school. Shelly has worked as an ASL consultant/ producer for numerous companies and productions. She serves on staff for New York Deaf Theater as their outreach community coordinator. She has worked as an actor in collaboration with Hamilton on Broadway, The Public-Shakespeare in the Park and New York Deaf Theater. She is a creative artist, painter and very proud Aunt.
Siena Rafter is a recent graduate of LaGuardia High School’s drama program in New York City, where she played various roles, her favorite being Sylvia in Sylvia. Ms. Rafter can be seen as Irena in the upcoming primarily-signed web series Don’t Shoot the Messenger. Fluent in ASL, Siena was the ASL production assistant on Deaf West’s production of Spring Awakening on Broadway. At Brown University, Ms. Rafter is double majoring in Theatre and Deaf Studies, as well as teaching theatre at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf.
Emmanuel von Schack is the Coordinator of Access Programs at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York. He works closely with, and provides guidance to, cross-departmental senior-level staff to ensure that the 9/11 Memorial Museum is an accessible, inclusive, and welcoming space for visitors and employees with disabilities and other underrepresented communities. In addition, Emmanuel is a consultant, professional development trainer, and contractual educator at various museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Jewish Heritage. For his work, Emmanuel received the 2016 Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability Award for Emerging Leaders from The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The ASL Poetry event was extraordinary.The artists performed pieces both alone and together. They presented skits, shared original pieces, translated existing poems, and took breaks in between to share their thoughts. At the conclusion of the event they answered questions from the audience, and then stayed afterward to sign one-on-one with people. Mara Eva, an extremely engaging and talented ASL interpreter, was present for the benefit of hearing audience members.
About a quarter of the way through the event, I realized I should be recording it. Doh! It was one of those totally-caught-up-in-the-magic-and-just-wanting-to-absorb-it versus this-is-so-beautiful-it-should-be-shared-with-absolutely-everyone dilemmas. Out came the camera phone, and below are the 3 videos I captured.
First, we have Shelly sharing a number story. All of her beautiful, fluid movements incorporate the numbers 1-10. One thing to note towards the end of the first video – raising your hands by your head and fluttering them is the ASL sign for applause.
The next video is Emmanuel sharing a touching personal poem about coming to terms with the different facets of his identity.
In the final video, we have J.W. sharing his hilarious translation of “The True Man I’m Meant To Be” by Kai Cofer. I’ll start with the poem:
THE TRUE MAN I’M MEANT TO BE
I am not the man today
That I was yesterday.
I keep getting better looking
Each and every day.
I grow my beard. I grow it long,
I grow it endlessly,
Because I want to be the man
That I was meant to be.
I refuse to live my life
Looking like a clone,
Walking down the pavement like
Another mindless drone.
Cookie cutter people,
No sir, that is not for me.
‘Cause I am really into
Individuality.
Just because I’m bearded
Doesn’t mean that I’m a joke.
Doesn’t mean I’m dirty
And it doesn’t mean I’m broke.
I’m an individual.
I’m rugged wild and free.
I am just expressing
The true man I’m meant to be.
Many thanks to Serena Alagappan for inspiring and coordinating this event, and to Mara Eva for interpreting ASL for our hearing audience members. To our artists, J.W. Guido, Shelly Guy, Siena Rafter, and Emmanuel von Schack, I send my love, respect, and deep appreciation. Thank you for sharing your poetry and experiences with us. You are amazing.
From left to right: Emmanuel von Schack, Shelly Guy, Serena Alagappan, Dr. Dana, Siena Rafter, J.W. Guido
The giraffe has a toilet paper tube body, and a 2″ long toilet paper tube head. Both of the tubes are wrapped with yellow construction paper. We used extra yellow construction paper to create the ears, antlers, and tail. Then we used markers to add the giraffe’s spots, mouth, and nostrils. We used 
The second hole is positioned underneath the first, on the opposite side of the tube.
If my description seems a little confusing, this next image should clear things up. Here’s the finished marionette head with the string running through the 2 holes you punched in the head tube.
Next, punch a hole at each end of the top of the body tube:
Then turn the tube over and punch 4 holes in the bottom. As you have probably guessed, these 4 holes are where the marionette’s legs attach in the next step.
To make the giraffe’s legs, thread a piece of string through a foam bead. Secure the string to the bottom of the foam bead with tape. Cut a drinking straw in half, then slide the 2 pieces down the string towards the foam bead. Thread the loose end of the string into the leg hole you punched in the body tube. Secure the string inside the tube with tape. Repeat these steps with the 3 remaining legs.
The lower part of the your puppet is done, now for the upper part! The puppet is attached to its drinking straw control stick by two strings. The first string runs from the control stick to the giraffe’s rear end, where it is secured inside the tube with tape. The second string runs through the head, the neck, and then attaches to the body tube with tape. The neck is a drinking straw cut into 3 pieces. We used black masking tape to secure the string to the control stick too.
Your marionette is done! We put on some tunes and invited kids to dance their giraffe friends. This resulted in some bouncy, twisty, bendy, jumpy dance moves, as well as a few bars of an original song we’re calling “Dancing, Dancing, Dance-a-lee-Dance!”
A monkey on a unicycle rolls down a ramp towards a snake. The bar holding the snake drops, which causes a bag of peanuts to fall into a container that sends a cart down a ramp into a tennis racket rigged to a mechanism that touches a match to a cannon fuse and fires an acrobat through a ring of fire!
Intended for ages 8 and up, Wonderology offers 6 different kits that cost between $10 – $20. Each kit contains a plethora of parts and a fully illustrated set of instructions. I purchased the Acrobat Challenge, the Garden Challenge, and the Speeding Car Challenge, then invited 3 kid testers (ages 6, 8, and 10) to try them out.
The kids were very excited as they unpacked the kits. The parts are fun, bright, and nice quality plastic. Here, for example, are the various pieces of the Acrobat Challenge:
Here are the kit’s illustrated instructions. They’re presented in classic Rube Goldberg format (they even use his special font!):
But as soon as construction started on the kits, well…that’s when things started to go wrong. Take the Acrobat Challenge, for example. In one part of the instructions, it clearly shows the yellow “monkey release” flag facing right. In two other sections of the instructions, it’s facing to the left! Also, either way I turned the flag, I never could get the monkey to work quite right.
There was a lot more of this I’m afraid – mechanisms not working like the instructions suggested, confusion with where to place the various pieces, the whole schbang toppling over when you tried to adjust it. Soon, there were shouts of frustration, explosive sounds of exasperation, creative G-rated cursing, and a box kicked across the floor (and it wasn’t just the kids doing all that).
But…see that chicken? It’s supposed to get a feather “plucked” from its tail, which causes it to lay an egg, which triggers the tennis racket, etc. But the egg just wouldn’t stay under the chicken. It just kept dropping and triggering the rest of the mechanism. So you had to skip the chicken all together, which is rather disappointing.
So that just leaves the Garden Challenge. This kit was particularly intriguing to me because it involves real water! Our 10 year-old tester managed to assemble it just fine.
But we soon discovered a fatal manufacturing flaw. See the orange gutter at the top of the mechanism? It’s supposed to tilt downward and let the 8 ball roll down and hit the watering can. But there was a little plastic piece that wouldn’t allow the gutter to tip down far enough! Katie had to saw the piece off with a box cutter in order to get it to finally work.
Then it was test, adjust, retest, adjust, curse quietly under one’s breath, test, adjust, and retest. It took dozens and dozens of attempts, close to an hour of concentration, and Katie’s sheer determination to get it to work. And yes, I did say work. Katie and the kid tester got it to work! Drumroll please…