An overview of sign language poetry

Sign language poetry is the ultimate form of aesthetic signing, in which the form of language used is as important as or even more important than the message. Like so much poetry in any language, sign language poetry is a means of expressing ideas unusually succinctly, through means of heightened "art" language. It uses specific language devices to maximise the significance of the poem, just as in the poetry of spoken languages, although the language devices are rather different from the rhymes and alliteration that are familiar to most hearing audiences. The metaphors and images used in sign language poems may also be different from those in spoken language poems. In general, though, the basic idea of maximising the message through specially heightened language is the same in poetry in all languages, whether signed or spoken.