Reviewed by Diane R. Wiener
Content Warning: Interpersonal and social violence, audism, ableism
One of the most prolific writers and editors of his generation, in these two works, Raymond Luczak continues his stalwart, capacious attention to locality, family dynamism, and the complicated meanings of heritage and legacy, while maintaining his unique combination of cultural critique, humor, and steadfastness. Luczak likewise continues to educate, validate, join with, and playfully while seriously surprise readers in distinct and overlapping ways in these texts.
The use of “survivors” in the subtitle of I’ll Tell You Later makes clear immediately that “Dinner Table Syndrome” (DTS) is unfortunately seemingly “here” to stay—at least in predominantly hearing and/or audist spaces and places. In this collection, Nineteen Deaf and hard of hearing (HoH) authors share their DTS experiences in a combination of tragicomedic and refusal-tinged storying. Predominantly creative nonfiction and short memoir pieces, there are some essays and poems in the mix, as well as an unironic play (in American Sign Language [ASL]), aptly titled “The Deaf Table” (by Garrett Zuercher).
Those familiar with local and global Deaf cultures will likely recognize Zuercher’s title as referencing the ways in which a “Deaf Table” is often purposefully arranged so that sighted Deaf and DeafBlind people can interact without objects interrupting conversational and interactional flow, as table items are typically pushed gently (or, more animatedly) to the table’s sides, thus supporting and encouraging vaster and more intimate spatial, cultural, and emotive access, in a shared, decidedly interpersonal way. In “The Deaf Table: A Short Play,” the two co-protagonists discover their shared Deafness while in an outside urban setting and embark upon a spontaneous ASL conversation after creating a makeshift “Deaf Table” for themselves. This “Deaf Table” stands in stark contrast to their respective family meal experiences. The topics vary as they get to know one another; their supportive interaction at their unique “table” includes vivid and concerning experiences of DTS, and how they face and negotiate these incidents during the winter holiday season and beyond. A friendship seems to have been born.
As Luczak asserts in the edited volume’s introduction, “The four words that no hearing family member should ever tell a Deaf child are: ‘I’ll tell you later.’” (iii, emphasis in original). Luczak and the contributors offer this book in the hope of minimizing future harms and mitigating past injuries, with a vivid understanding that some distress, particularly repeated social and interpersonal violence, is surely not quick to heal. Luczak notes,
It is my hope that future Deaf children will not have to go through the same psychological trauma of feeling so belittled among one’s own hearing family. If hearing people expect Deaf people to change through the use of hearing assistance devices and speech therapy lessons, Deaf people must expect hearing people to change too. Hearing people can change; they just don’t want to. (Selfish, selfish.) (iv, emphasis in original)
I read “Selfish, selfish,” here, as a bilingual assertion and validation. Understood in ASL, its emphatic repetition is deliberate, as doubly adjectival, signed glosses make meaning differently than single ones. This doubling is surely also meaningful in texted or voiced English, yes; however, it arguably digs deeper, and reaches insiders more deeply, in ASL. The short phrase may initially seem funny on the surface, perhaps, while being dead serious.
“What’s so funny?” is indeed a very big question that is asked and answered by the book, and, at times, by individual authors, including André Pellerin, in “Not Important,” the volume’s first installment. DTS is no laughing matter. Luczak discusses how “truly striking” it is that hearing people do not tend to notice or consider why so often Deaf people are not joining the hearing in laughing during meal interactions.
Pellerin, among other contributors, shares examples of how friends made a difference, demonstrating their efforts to engage in accessible communication. Several of the authors discuss how ASL made a huge difference in opening previously shut doors within and for families—most significantly, for Deaf offspring in predominantly hearing families. Writing about her “teaching years,” Rachel Zemach shares “one gorgeous occurrence” in the conclusion to “A Swiss Cheese Way of Life,” the story of a parent who “has done the right thing”: “In ASL, she has found the key and unlocked the door to magnificent, limitless and life-long communication” (21).
Being left out of a meal—whether deprived of the food, the interactions, or both—is a huge subject that many if not most hearing people do not consider or take seriously as often as would certainly be both ethical and kind. Hearing people are often selfish, indeed; it is a hearing world and hearing privilege is no joke. The audist presumption that Deaf people can or should be expected to lipread (perfectly—or at all) is a relentless and problematic perspective addressed by several of the contributors, including Joan David Walker, in “That Question Again.” Prior to the contributors’ third-person biographies, the book ends with its own full-page ad, of sorts. Following a final “I’ll tell you later,” a reply reads (without quotation marks, in-text): “No. Tell me NOW.” This is surely the book’s Deaf and HoH silent while loud chorale refrain, as the white printed message in serif font on a black background makes evident. The capitalized NOW is, I think, being fingerspelled emphatically (though it does not say or read as N-O-W). This language, an insistence and not a plea, is, after all, the last word and the last sign(s).
“W-i-l-d” is fingerspelled in Animals Out-There W-i-l-d in ways I find comforting and inviting. I will out myself as a sucker for bestiaries across the ages, and this book might be one of the best yet. Having read and reviewed much of Luczak’s poetry, including Lunafly, I look forward to the ways in which Luczak engages with the natural world, mythographies, and symbolisms writ large.
How to read and engage with heteroglossic and, specifically, ASL glosses offered in bilingual and English typesetting is a question that some readers may need to negotiate. In “Wild Animals Out There,” we are told, “Do not speak. // Finger to the lips. // A voice / is noise. // Watch these—my hands—and ask nothing. / Eloquence will come to you soon enough.” (4) The animals are in the middle of the book, resplendent and aplenty, bracketed by the first poem and the final work, “Wild Animals, Again.” Animals will “outlive” and “overtake” as they “watch-watch-us,” the poet advises (128-129). They can and will continue to “connect” in ways that we “fail” to do because our language(s) fail.
There is nothing really anthropocentric about the poems; rather, the animals are the main characters. While many bestiaries are decidedly privileging of the magics animals might offer the people, through wish fulfillment or even horrendous exploitation, this bestiary puts the cockroaches and fireflies center stage, as well as on par with the weasels and beavers and cougars, the skunks and sparrows, the owls and tardigrades. Even the ticks, fleas, and leeches have a place and need to be considered respectfully.
More than merely ecclesiastical or mystical, however, these poems are commenting on climate change, world-building, and harm reduction, using Luczak’s well-established lyricism, metaphors, and wit. Crucially, relationships and points-of-view are twinned leitmotifs. The perspective of the mosquito considering the person’s view of the mosquito (wait, is that what’s happening? no…it turns out that the human is pining reflectively with some seeming envy about the mosquito and how misunderstood it feels…but, wait, is that what’s happening?) is a great example among many: “to them we are / walking wet / dreams of blood / pumping warm / like the sex / we ache to have / but don’t get / often enough” (52). In “Goose | goose,” the poet “long[s] / to feel such wind on my face / but my feet / aren’t feathered” (70). The timing of birds’ and other beasts’ arrival, particularly in the face of dismay and pain, is a major theme as well. In “Cardinal | c-a-r-d-i-n-a-l,” the poet is greeted by a bird during a particularly low human moment, and everything shifts: “a cardinal flew suddenly / out of a swow-laced evergreen / its redness startled my heart / until I melted into spring” (92).
How much so many of us rely on animals, wild and not-so-wild, for protection and solace is surely a big reason to read these poems, and to seek actively to protect them—and their right to solace—in bidirectional return. Simultaneously, Luczak’s vivid visual imagery and his multi-linguistic musics, with examples such as “its redness startled my heart,” are a different encouragement to dive into this poetic wildness. I encourage you to do so, at your earliest convenience, with willful abundance and concomitant secular grace.
Title: I’ll Tell You Later: Deaf Survivors of Dinner Table Syndrome
Editor: Raymond Luczak
Publisher: Modern History Press
Year: 2024
Title: Animals Out-There W-i-l-d: A Bestiary in English and ASL Gloss
Author: Raymond Luczak
Publisher: Gnashing Teeth Publishing
Year: 2024
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About the Reviewer
Diane R. Wiener (she/they) became Editor-in-Chief of Wordgathering in January 2020. The author of The Golem Verses (Nine Mile Press, 2018), Flashes & Specks (Finishing Line Press, 2021), and The Golem Returns (swallow::tale press, 2022), Diane’s poems also appear in Nine Mile Magazine, Wordgathering, Tammy, Queerly, The South Carolina Review, Welcome to the Resistance: Poetry as Protest, Diagrams Sketched on the Wind, Jason’s Connection, the Kalonopia Collective’s 2021 Disability Pride Anthology, eMerge, For The Birds Arts & Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. Diane’s creative nonfiction appears in Stone Canoe, Mollyhouse, The Abstract Elephant Magazine, Pop the Culture Pill, eMerge, and Beyond Words. Her flash fiction appears in Ordinary Madness; short fiction is published in A Coup of Owls. Diane served as Nine Mile Literary Magazine’s Assistant Editor after being Guest Editor for the Fall 2019 Special Double Issue on Neurodivergent, Disability, Deaf, Mad, and Crip poetics. She has published widely on Disability, education, accessibility, equity, and empowerment, among other subjects. A proud Neuroqueer, Mad, Crip, Genderqueer, Ashkenazi Jewish Hylozoist Nerd, Diane is honored to serve in the nonprofit sector. You can visit Diane online at: https://dianerwiener.com.