BSL Haiku Events
Past Events
On the 29th and 30th July 2006 the Centre for Deaf Studies (Bristol University) held the UK's first ever BSL-Haiku festival. CDS (This was a two-day event to encourage Deaf people to create "haiku" poems in British Sign Language. Haiku is the traditional Japanese poetry, well known for its brevity in form and richness in meaning. It also emphasises on visual images, which makes a sign language an ideal vehicle for this particular form of poetry.
There already exists many sign language haiku, and this festival will be a good opportunity for poets (and poets-to-be) who are interested to learn more about the haiku in BSL.
This event was supported by the Centre for Deaf Studies (University of Bristol), DMCC (Dorothy Miles Culture Centre), Japan 21, and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.
This was a two day event with haiku workshops on the first day, and the competition by the participants on the second day. Please take a look at the some of the poems on this website.
The event was open to any Deaf person who is fluent in BSL and the panelists/judges were:
- Paul Scott (poet)
- John Wilson
- Richard Carter
- Johanna Mesch (from Sweden)
- Alan Summers (an award-winning haiku poet)
