HEART OF THE HYDROGEN JUKEBOX Documentary Presentation TEXAS PREMIERE Saturday, November 14, 2009 12-2pm CT Admission $7 Palace Theatre 314 South Austin Street, Seguin, Texas Deaf and hearing performers and academic professionals provide an overview of poetry's evolution through the centuries, from Sappho, rhapsods, troubadours, and the written word being valorized as better than the poetry of the people. The story is told by Deaf and Hearing poets and includes archival footage which travels back from current day studio interviews to lectures delivered 22 years ago at the first American Sign Language Poetry conference held in Rochester, NY. Old styles of slow, controlled signing slowly give way to newer 'beat' poetic expressions of younger deaf poets. Rochester proved to be the only city in the country with a culture of Hearing and Deaf poetry happening side by side as interpreters became involved for equal access to both audiences. Just as a museum visitor can tell the difference in style and content by comparing a Renaissance painting to a Picasso, the viewer of this film will witness how ASL poetry has evolved since its first videotaped evidence. Featured poets are Bernard Bragg, Robert Panara, Ella Mae Lentz, Eric Malzkuhn, Patrick Graybill, Dorothy "Dot" Miles, Clayton Valli, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Cook, and Debbie Rennie. Produced by Miriam Nathan Lerner of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. Sign Language Open Captions