In the films of Ayesha Chouglay's poems inspired by the Lincolnshire Wolds, her poetry is read by Ayesha and her friend, Joseph Rizzo Naudi, an actor. Ayesha identifies as deaf and is interested in voices. She has asked various writers to describe her and Joseph's voices as they read the poems and written this blog for us.
I don’t know what my voice sounds like. I have an idea, and I know it goes very loud sometimes, especially when it isn’t meant to, and then very quiet, I think when I’m mostly lip reading. But I don’t really know how it sounds, which is a strange feeling. When listening to myself speak, I sound one way with my hearing aids in, and another without. I prefer without.
As a deaf person I’m fascinated by voices, and can work out accents by a combination of listening and lip reading. But, for example, I was sure a Scottish man was American not too long ago, so I’m really not very good!
Subtitles never describe the sound of voices as fully as I would personally like them to, so I’ve started working on creative voice descriptions as a new writing project to make my audio works more accessible. And more fun for deaf audiences. This isn’t something I’ve seen anywhere before, and I’d love to work into this idea and incorporate it within all my future audio work. I feel each description sits as a piece in itself. As my work often takes the form of poems, I love the creative collaboration this form can take. The poems form a dialogue with one another.
I asked several wonderful writers to describe the sound of my voice, and the voice of Joseph Rizzo Naudi, to sit alongside the audio version we recorded of my two voice poem, ‘listen to them cows beeling’. I wrote one description of Joseph’s voice with my hearing aids in, and another without. It felt important to include the perspective of a deaf person. Here are the descriptions:
Ayesha’s voice
I hear an open tone : gentle on the drum : it’s up there but not piping : think balsa wood : glasspaper : fine grain : no grit to speak of : phrasing, bevelled : I detect a tongue tip in the sibilants : difficult to imagine this voice ever sounding cold.
Joseph Rizzo Naudi
Ayesha's voice is soft and meandering, a wandering flow that turns words round and gentle like the stones on a riverbed. Never too rough or too fast. She treats each syllable as important, pronouncing every one delicately in her lilting accent that proudly betrays a heritage in northern England. Hers is a voice you could fall asleep to as it settles in your ears; a dozy sheep from a children's story that makes its bed in the clouds and becomes one of them by the time the words have left the air.
Amy Tibbles
A voice gentle, like a wing, not the dark, direct power of a Raven's wing, more the light, soft restraint of a kestrel’s wing, gently sculpting the air, weightlessly observing, tenderly purposeful and consistent in its timing. In colour, the kind pale green light that plays on the marram grass, moved by a temperate westerly in a falling half autumn sun. To the touch, the delicate flow and ripple of the micro hills and valleys across a carpet of moss, velveteen, alive and filled with understated significance.
INSTAR
There is a small brush of light here,
beginning like a strike of a match,
unassuming in quiet purpose.
A glint of warm eyes—
pleasant in the feeling of hidden tenderness.
Perhaps the hum of small wings,
a message hidden in the pulse
of a bird’s beginning flight.
You must be still to understand,
to see where this tale of delicacy
might gather momentum.
Movement is unnecessary—
only a distraction.
For shimmering here is uniquely its own,
a palette of quiet, unboisterous stories.
Fabric beneath the palm
licks and flutters,
whispering like lips in conversation.
Pastel excitements pop,
while quailed warmths sustain themselves.
The stance of a long gaze
sneaks upon you,
a considered loneliness
rich in its elusiveness.
It is like the fleeting scent of smoke on the wind,
far into a landscape of some calling wood.
There are ghosts here—
a permeating innocence in flux,
gentle in their gestures.
Stillness is their flourishing.
Nyran Loomcal
Joseph’s voice
Without aids
it roots, gesticulates, taps certain areas of the phrasing. Edges of words severed as they reach me. Wool softened in lanolin. It’s deep, resonant, a bit throaty, but no, higher than that, hovering, gentle, kestrel above the crops. Warm air, mouth elegant around the words, very still around them, a little trickier to read with a recent shave; the familiarity lies in the lower lip, white of teeth, gesture of the tongue, movements halved, stereoscope with a picture missing. Accent a little RP, close to London, something of someone who appreciates words in the way he holds them. Adagio, a slowness, pace considered, mezzo piano, a soft fullness. Hard to separate a person from their voice. Associations abound; warmth is prevalent, phrases come to mind, asking, a general feeling of safety woven through, reading voice a little more stood up than his usual casual, or joking, facilitator, ordering at the pub; we each go by several names.
With aids
it shifts lower, fricative sounds more full, waxing crescent, voice itself pitched down, still the same phrasing, rhythmic, pushing into the ends of words, the same throatiness a string, oscillating. Low voices settle more solidly in my ears. The sound warm, holding. Something electric running through it. His mouth far away. Ma non troppo.
Ayesha Chouglay
Spoken with the comforting scent of pages from a favourite book, direct and with a tone consistent with the reassured and content vibrations of a purring cat, fluid and peaceful. In colour, the pale, yet warming orange of early summer Rose hips, with undertones of pink, the same hue as when bramble leaves start to turn. To the touch, the bark of a yew tree, stoic and experienced, furrowed and fibrous.
INSTAR
Joe's voice is warm and broad, but not overbearing, leading you through the verses with an almost familiar comfort. His words are like warm fire on a cold evening. They draw you in, filling the air and lingering until the next comes to take their place just as softly and with purpose.
Amy Tibbles
Plowing through rough textures, steady, considered
Carving steps through dusty syllables,
Raw words, textured memories, deep,
Resonating onto themselves a slow hum,
Etching truth in articulation’s heat,
Hesitant whispers, rough yet real,
Carving echoes that linger,
Admiration of the crafted utter,
In the stammer, dug deep a hiss on the end of lingered truths.
Stepped pockets left and embraced hovered in movement
To yet express depths of lived feeling.
Communal practice and measured patience are here
As gallantry’s measure.
A want of song, a wait of grace to pull wind slowly,
Preparing in art of rounded consideration
Of its true place that it must depart.
Nyran Loomcal