John Lee Clark

My Alma Mater – Part I of II
John Lee Clark John Lee Clark remembers his time at the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf.
Thu, May 09 2013

ASL Literature On Paper
John Lee Clark ...Patrick Graybill's extended signed summary of Harlan Lane's monumental history "When the Mind Hears" was a flop. Graybill is always a joy to watch, such an exquisite signer, but the product as a whole did not work. Why?
Tue, Jul 10 2012

An Open Letter to American Heritage Dictionary
John Lee Clark Dear Editors: When I learned that you had added an entry for the word “audism” in your esteemed dictionary, I was thrilled. I had been wondering when the word would ever appear in dictionaries. It was coined in 1975 by Tom L. Humphries to name the prevalent attitude and assumption that hearing people are superior [...]
Sat, May 26 2012

Ten Fingers Have I
John Lee Clark I can still remember the first time I read a poem by a deaf poet. I was fourteen, flipping through our family's dog-eared copy of Jack R. Gannon's Deaf Heritage...
Wed, May 23 2012

DeafBlind History Workshop at U of VA
John Lee Clark In this groundbreaking lecture, John Lee Clark will call attention to an overlooked group in North America: deaf-blind people. Clark will show how a few deaf-blind people in the mid-nineteenth century built a network of correspondents, forming a "virtual" place of their own that remains today the community's most vital space.
Wed, Feb 01 2012

ASL and the Star-Spangled Banner
John Lee Clark “The Star-Spangled Banner” holds a peculiar place in the signing community. As deaf Americans, our relationship with it is as complex as our relationship is with our country, a nation where we have been and continue to be oppressed and persecuted. We learn at an early age that all the talk of freedom isn't always [...]
Mon, Dec 19 2011

Cochlear Implants: A Thought Experiment
John Lee Clark Three hundred deaf people, all wearing cochlear implants, are gathered and moved to an island. None of them knows ASL and all of them have excellent speech. There are no hearing people there. What will happen?
Wed, Oct 26 2011

My Daddy
John Lee Clark On being a DeafBlind father, written from a KODA's perspective: "The way Daddy tells it, the tree is deaf and blind. So the lumberjack has to climb up and spell "timber" under a leaf..."
Mon, Oct 24 2011

A Question That’s Harder Than It Should Be
John Lee Clark These past couple of months I have been grappling with a question. Should I stop submitting my poems to magazines I don't have access to? ... Why support something that discriminates against you?
Wed, Oct 19 2011

ASL Poetry As Novelty
John Lee Clark "We in the signing community are also to blame for ASL poetry's being trapped in limbo. There are two things we are doing wrong..."
Sun, Jun 05 2011

Great Expectations
John Lee Clark "Some who performed the Exit Stage Left act have suggested that they were mistreated and disrespected because they've been mainstreamed or because they don't sign ASL fluently." Essay by DeafBlind writer John Lee Clark.
Thu, Jun 02 2011

Unreasonable Effort
John Lee Clark When people learn of my accomplishments, it is not uncommon for them to marvel, since I am deaf and blind. For the people who are able to see past this and appreciate the man I am—one of abundant talents, engaged in the arts and intellectual life—there is something baffling: My lack of a college degree. [...]
Fri, Jan 28 2011

Paul Hostovsky
John Lee Clark Hostovsky has the good glue all over his hands, and interesting things have a way of ending up in them, including deaf people and ASL.
Sat, Dec 11 2010

Why Bobbi Cordano Should Be President of NTID
John Lee Clark I must say at the outset that I have never met the two other finalists for the job. Yet Roberta “Bobbi” Cordano is such a compelling candidate that I cannot think of anyone who would be a better fit for the task of taking the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute [...]
Wed, Sep 22 2010

Skyways
John Lee Clark I'm sure there are many who say they love the city of Saint Paul, Minnesota, but for me to say that would be an understatement. That's because living anywhere outside of downtown Saint Paul would be like being in jail. I live in the heart of the skyway system in downtown (one of the four [...]
Mon, Aug 30 2010

Does Disability Really Need to Be Fixed?
John Lee Clark Every time there is an advance in surgical audiology or genetic engineering, a wave of alarm ripples through the signing community. Doctors are intent on eradicating deafness. They subscribe to the belief that there's something wrong with being deaf. So they make it their business to try and fix it, hoping to ultimately wipe it [...]
Mon, Aug 30 2010