National Technical Institute for the Deaf

Honoring slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. took on a special meaning this year at RIT’s 30th annual Expressions of King’s Legacy Celebration.

Noted poet Joshua Bennett, who wrote “Tamara’s Opus,” apologizing to his sister for not learming sign language, was a guest for the celebration along with his sister, Tamara, who became deaf at age 2.

“Tamara has taught me a lot about what it takes to be a teacher: profound patience and a profound love,” Bennett said.

The evening before the Legacy Celebration in RIT’s Field House, hundreds of students, staff and community members filled NTID’s Student Development Center to hear Bennett talk about his work as a poet, and his life experience growing up with his sister.

“I’m definitely proud of my brother,” Tamara Bennett said, using sign language. “His work is like beautiful music to me.”

Bennett performed a poem he wrote about his younger brother, Levi, who was diagnosed as autistic.

“He sees things I don’t see,” Bennett said. “Levi is short for Levitate  … a genius destined for the sky.”

Student performance groups Mental Graffiti, from RIT, and Dangerous Signs, from NTID, also performed poetry – in spoken voice and in sign language. At the conclusion of the event, the two groups combined to perform “Tamara’s Opus.” Bennett was obviously moved.

“It was a tremendous surprise, one that touched my heart,” he said. “This world is for the deaf and hearing to meet. And sometimes, beautiful things can happen. There’s a real cultural mix, of ages, ethnicity and communication here, and this is an example of what we can do. Diversity is hard, but not impossible.”

Bennett, 23, a Ph.D. student at Princeton University, studying English, says he was shy and nerdy when growing up. When a student asked why he started writing poetry, Bennett said he wasn’t tough enough to become a rapper.

“That’s so much work, to be tough all the time,” he said. “You can’t be tough when you eat an apple.”

Bennett said he discovered an outlet for his creativity after attending a theatrical performance.

“The stage is where I saw people like me,” he said, “people who have had pain or hunger to tell a story, like me. We were all just equal in that space.”

He has considered becoming a minister, and plans to become more fluent in American Sign Language when he takes courses this summer.

“It’s never too late to learn something that can change your life, and hopefully others’,” he said.

He called his visit to RIT/NTID, made possible by NTID, the RIT Office of Diversity & Inclusion and the AALANA Collegiate Association at RIT, “mind blowing” and “humbling. It was really touching in a deep way.”

Bennett said is he grateful his audiences have enjoyed his work. “But I hope they also will remember the commitment to love people even when it’s difficult,” he said. 

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