A tree falls in the forest and I am/ there to make sure no one hears it./ Beloved: It’s not that I am/ unwilling to be seized by sound,/ everyday I am undone by it. – Khando Langri
Poems, short fiction and scripts from UK Deaf, deaf and Hard of Hearing writers.
Our poets and authors were given the theme of Movement. They have interpreted this in many ways: movement as communication and connection, mobility, and stillness, being moved emotionally, movement within and after Lockdown, freedom of movement, and being part of a political movement, and even getting lost!
Edited by Lisa Kelly co-editor of Magma 69, The Deaf Issue; co-Chair of Magma Poetry, and Sophie Stone (RADA trained actor, Writer: Paine’s Plough, The Bunker, BBC Radio 3 and Co-founder of DH Ensemble theatre Co) and with a preface from Raymond Antrobus.
Includes work from:
Alison Campbell, Ayesha B Gavin, Bryony Parkes, Charlie Swinbourne, Clare-Louise English, Colly Metcalfe, David Callin, Dee Cooke, Diane Dobson, DL Williams, Elizabeth Ward, Emma Lee, Hala Hashem, Janet Hatherley, Jay Caldwell, John Kefala Kerr, John Wilson, Josephine Dickinson, Julie Boden, Khando Langri, Ksenia Balabina, Liam O’Dell, Lianne Herbert, Lynn Buckle, Marilyn Longstaff, Maryam Ebrahim, Mary-Jayne Russell de Clifford, Melanie Ashford, Rodney Wood, Sahera Khan, Samantha Baines, Sarah Clarke, Sarah O Adedeji, Sophie Woolley, Terri Donovan.
Reviews:
“The variety of work published in What Meets the Eye? is exceptionally good, with a great selection of differing takes on what it means to be deaf.” – The Limping Chicken
“Hearing is remapped, communication envisioned in different, more accommodating ways, tied to a longing for life without labels and respect without conditions.” – Everybody’s Reviewing
“This is a world that sidelines its deaf and disabled citizens too quickly in a pandemic. (A prime example, of course, being the Prime Minister’s own flagrant breach of formal court judgement: his briefing on the new COVID-19 variant omitted BSL interpretation altogether.) In such circumstances each new triumph becomes more potent. As a Deaf writer, What Meets The Eye? was a book I badly needed to see.” – Disability Arts Online
“I hope that this publication opens the doorway for more pathways to publication for deaf and HOH writers… It shows how language can be used in creative ways, both through the written word and in translation to BSL.” – Cats and Chocolate Blog
