Dialogue on Disability Poetry

Wordgathering invited four poets to discuss their writing and the ways in which their writing impacts upon the concept of disability poetry. Participating in the discussion are Linda Cronin (Dream Bones), Ona Gritz, (Left Standing ), Patricia Wellingham-Jones (Don’t Turn Away ), and Kathi Wolfe (Helen Keller Takes the Stage: The Helen Keller Poems). Michael Northen, one of Wordgathering’s editors, posed the questions.

Mike: The earliest mention of disability poetry that I know of was in 1983 by J.L. Baird in an ad in Kaleidoscope where he called for poetry that would undo the sentimental, patronizing poems about disability poetry that pervaded anthologies of the time and replace it with grounded and tough-minded writing. It is twenty-six years later, and all of you are successful poets who have had a least one book published. To what extent do you think that your poetry contributes to the Baird’s efforts to rid poetry of stereotypic and patronizing images?

Patricia: Although I do not write specifically with disability poetry and its standards in mind, I do try to dip deeper than stereotypes and describe individuals with their little traits and foibles. As for sentimentality – yuck! If somebody coos over one of my poems and says, ‘How sweet,’ I get squirmy. That’s not where I wish to go – and I revise the cloying out of it. I really really do not want to ever appear patronizing and hope I don’t. Sympathy is OK sometimes, empathy is good usually, looking down on that poor other, whoever/whatever, no. So guess I’ll have to say my work does contribute to Baird’s efforts to get rid of those troubling images, since that’s one of my goals, too.

Ona: I really like what everyone has said so far and I think I approach my writing from a similar place. I strive for certain qualities when I’m crafting a poem regardless of the subject matter: fresh imagery, an economy of language, a perspective that’s both unflinching and emotionally honest. I guess what I'm saying is I think about disability poetry the way I think about all poetry. Good love poems can remind us of our best, most open and vulnerable selves. But if badly written, a love poem can be the equivalent of a hallmark card with nothing real or recognizable for us to latch onto. Similarly, poems about disability can be rich, diverse and authentic or as cloying and predictable as telethon posters. I love that Baird called for “grounded, tough minded writing” about disability because that’s the kind of writing I want to read and that I always hope to write.

Kathi: Your question hits on a problem that, I’d bet anything (if not my last dollar, than my stockpile of M&M’s) that all of us (with a disability consciousness who write and or edit poetry) face:

Since time began, different cultures have placed people with disabilities on “inspirational” pedestals. They’ve viewed us as “seers,” visionaries, oracles, saintly, innocent “holy fools.” That is, if they, on the other side of the coin, haven’t wanted to kill us because we’re so evil or pities us because we’re such “poor helpless creatures.” It’s similar, I think, to how women have been viewed through the “Madonna/whore” prism.

This cultural view of people with disabilities is rampant–like kudzu spreading on the vine–in poetry. Despite the disability rights movement, inclusion of kids with disabilities in schools and the Americans with Disabilities Act–we’re still often seen either as “inspirational,” or helpless objects of pity. Sometimes we’re seen as a combo of the two. Poetry with characters with disabilities way too often mirrors this view.

Sometimes it might even be well-crafted poetry. Just as say, fifty or sixty years ago, there was probably some well-crafted poetry by talented poets that contained sexist images of women. When you read it, you can overlook these images in a way because of the time when the poetry was written. It’s not that the sexism was right, but you can say, well there was no women’s movement then and these poets were a product of their time. But, I find this really hard to do when I read ableist poetry–that contains “inspirational” images of disabled people.

When I step back, I think so much of poetry depicting disability is still ableist because the consciousness of the disability rights movement still hasn’t penetrated very far on the cultural radar screen.

Sometimes, I think, that these ableist–“inspirational” images of disabled people are a kind of (metaphorical) comfort food to poets. I mean by this, that they provide poets with a familiar stash of images–that they can use to describe us. These poets sometimes use these images in original ways–without of course recognizing that we, persons with disability, aren’t “inspirational.” Any more than women are madonna-like or African-Americans are “a credit to their race.”

More often, the poets who use such “inspirational” images of persons with disabilities write bad poems. So, in addition to the yuck factor of the “inspiration,” you have annoying, often cloying, badly crafted poetry.

Having said this, I think things are changing a bit. Non-disabled editors and publishers (of mainstream poetry journals and publishers) have accepted my work. Including some of my work that satirizes and refutes “inspirational” images of disability or that portrays decidedly non “inspirational” characters with disabilities. Other poets like Jim Ferris and Stephen Kuusisto are receiving increased attention from non-disabled poetry editors and audiences.

I’m not overly optimistic here. I’m just a bit hopeful that we can break through (if in small bits) this wall of “inspiration.” But, it’s a tough nut to crack.

For the last few years, I’ve read my poetry to audiences of mostly people without disabilities in the Washington, D.C. area. People have responded really well to my Helen Keller poems. They’ve generously given me readings and published my work. They seem to get that one of the things going on in the Keller poems is the debunking of the “inspirational” images of Keller. Yet, at the same time, they’ll still talk, at times, about Keller or myself as being “inspirational.” Anyone who knows me for a nano-second knows that’s not true.

Of course, there’s “inspirational” and there’s inspirational. By that I mean that I don’t find Keller, for example, to be “inspirational” in the ableist sense. She was a human being with many flaws. Yet, I find Keller to be inspirational in some ways. Because of her stand on some political issues–such as her support of feminism and her opposition to racism.

In my poetry, I often have the speaker of the poem use humor to counter “inspirational” images of disability. Sometimes my characters with disabilities play with these images–turn them (metaphorically) on their side or on their heads. Or create their own, non-inspirational images of disability.

One of my Helen Keller poems “If I Drove Drunk” is in the voice of Helen Keller. In the poem, Keller playfully fantasies about what it would be like if she had a few drinks and drove. (I and Keller aren’t advocating drunk driving here. The poem is meant to be in good humor. Keller, who is deaf-blind, is playing with the idea: what if I drove?).

The poem is published in “Helen Takes the Stage: The Helen Keller Poems” (Pudding House Publications):

If I Drove Drunk

I’d sing Gershwin in Greek,
fishtail my way
through a sea of booze,
smile at the cops
and ever-so-politely
rip up their sober tickets.

I’d ride to Fredonia,
eat duck soup, pinch
Margaret Dumont’s bottom,
and look surprised
when she jumps higher
than Bugs Bunny in flight
from Elmer Fudd.

In a Braille parking lot,
I’d jump-start the dots,
stop by Oz, take Dorothy
to Kansas, and sweet-talk
Auntie Em into giving me
a shot of Scotch. How’s
that for a Helen Keller trick?

The last lines of the poem “How’s that for a Helen Keller trick?” shows how Keller is aware of the “inspirational” images that people have about her. She counters these images by playfully turning this image in on itself.

Currently, I’m working on a new character named Uppity Blind Girl. Uppity is a 25-year-old blind woman who does not want to be seen in an “inspirational” light.

In my poem called “Uppity Blind Girl Confesses” (published in Disability Studies Quarterly), Uppity counters this ableist imagery by saying who she thinks she truly is. “You think I’m musical,/I write opera/for the tone-deaf.,” Uppity says, “In fact, the gods/cut off their ears/when they hear me sing./I stare back/as you gaze into my face,/mining crows feet/for some inner vision.”

It wasn’t by accident that Kenny Fries called his groundbreaking anthology of writing by writers with disabilities “Staring Back.” Maybe, that’s what we poets can do to counter “inspirational” images of disability. Maybe we can metaphorically “stare back” at the images..maybe if we keep staring back..we can get ourselves off the pedestal.

Linda: I find the fact that many poets and people in general set people with disabilities on inspirational pedestal or else they pity us. I agree with Kathi that either view can do just as much damage. I feel these images prevent people and poets from seeing the reality of the people that we are and prevents them from looking at our situations from a realistic point of view, including the societal and physical barriers that exist in today's world. I realize that access and such issues as PCA and home care have come a long way since the disabilities rights movement began but they still have a long way to go until the disabled will have full freedom. And part of that is breaking down the inspirational images and the attitude of pity involved in so many people's view of a person with a disability. And I agree with Kathi that these views are rampant in mainstream poetry about people with disabilities - we're either inspirational or to be pitied.

I also agree with Kathi that one thing that can help to do that is to make the work of not just disabled poetry but all writing about disabilities by the disabled part of mainstream literature where it can reach a wider audience and break down preconceived notions. I have had poems accepted and performed by mainstream groups however these opportunities are not always common. These opportunities need to become more common until poems by poets with disabilities can be seen in all journals alongside poetry by other writers, This would increase the exposure and breakdown the stereotypes.. Every time I see an inspirational portrait of disabled that appears in these mainstream magazines it reinforces the stereotypes. If poetry by disabled that breaks down the stereotypes becomes more accepted by journals more people can become aware of the humanity of person with a disability and break down the fear factor that exist as disabled as other, And we can begin to destroy the notion of disabled being inspirational or someone to be pitied.

I try to create full vivid portraits that create a realistic idea of people with disabilities and what my life is like with a disability and what it was like to grow up with a disability. I include feelings and issues not normally dealt with in inspirational poetry. I don't want people to be inspired - I want them to understand what life is like with a disability. If they can see that we deal with issues familiar to everyone - desire, anger , love , fear - they can begin to see us as fully human. In inspirational or pitying attitudes distance others from us and make us seem either sorrowful or unreachable. They don't have to realize that anyone of them could be us -a frightening thought to most able-bodied.

I am going to give two examples of poems that show how I try to create realistic and fully realized pictures of people with disabilities and life with a disability. In "A Split Second" I try to create a woman dealing with all the fears and concerns of someone who is recently paralyzed. She is not inspirational and is simply trying to find hope in what is a scary situation for her. In Shower Night I show what is was like for me to take a shower at a rehab - the steps and thoughts involved to do something as simple as taking a shower - something people do everyday without giving it a second thought. The idea is not to inspire people but to show the reality of living with a disability.

A Split Second

I meet Catherine on my first day
at the rehab. She sits in a wheelchair
dressed in a brace just like mine
that starts immediately under the chin,
holding the head and neck straight and still
like the guards at Buckingham Palace.
The brace then continues down to our waists
wrapping tightly around us, encasing us
in a torpedo-shaped case. She has already
been here several weeks she tells me.
Arrived after she spun out on her motorcycle,
riding on a rain slick street, iridescent
with spilled oil, and crashed into a car.
She woke in intensive care on a respirator,
tubes running in and out of her body,
in traction to stabilize her broken back.
For two days, no one would answer
her questions and admit she might never
walk again. Studying family medicine,
she only needed one more year of working
as a medical resident before receiving her license.
Now she says, she doesn't know.
She isn't sure of anything. Placed
at the same table, we meet at least
three times a day, surrounded by others
like us, all recovering from some place
they wished they never knew. She worries
about returning home to her partner,
her inaccessible apartment, her stalled
career. She knows she needs to clean up
the mess remaining, to grab hold
of the shattered pieces and glue them
into a life she could live. But how?
If she could just answer that question,
then, maybe tomorrow wouldn't look
so much like rain.

Shower Night

When I return to my room from dinner,
Veronica, the attendant on duty tonight,
transfers me into my bed, lifting and pivoting me
in a move not out of place on the dance floor.
Veronica reminds me tonight is shower night,
a lengthy process, three nights a week, far removed
from the way I once jumped into the shower
at the last minute, raced off to work with
my hair dripping in the frozen winter air,
despite my mother’s predictions I would catch
a death of a cold. Veronica undoes the straps
on the brace like a shell encasing my healing spine
before she rolls me from side to side, slipping
the brace from my body, reversing the morning’s routine,
then slides a mat under me. With the Hoyer lift in place,
she attaches the belts and turns the crank
until my body rises, levitates over the bed
so she can swing me onto the stretcher.
In the shower room down the hall, I wait my turn
with the other women on stretchers and in chairs.
The room is freezing, and we shiver as we complain
about the PT sessions, the psychologist, the food.
No one wants to come right out and say it,
but all we want is to go home, to get our old lives back,
to forget we were ever here. Immerse ourselves
in our own showers, the hot water rushing over us
until we can’t even remember these nights
unable to shower on our own. Once we return
home, the shadows of yesterday will haunt us
until we understand what our tomorrows will be.

Ona: It’s been really interesting hearing everyone’s responses to this question on the “inspirational disabled” and great to read everyone’s poems!

I first became aware of this issue when, in grad school, I came upon a poem by Diane Wakoski in which she said of an acquaintance with cerebral palsy something along the lines of "he exemplifies the human condition." Though I was years away from true disability consciousness, I felt appalled. I have CP and I knew it didn't make me into a symbol for anything, nor would I want it to. Sure, I had struggles but I found them no more daunting than my able-bodied friends seemed to find theirs. If I remember correctly, I threw the book across the room.

Like Patricia’s, my disability is slight enough that it often goes under the radar so I don’t have a lot of experience here. The closest I came to being seen as “inspirational” was when my son’s karate teacher told me I was very brave for going up, along with the other parents, to spar with my kid in class. By day, this man is a firefighter. A man trained to run into burning buildings considered it an act of bravery for me to move my awkward body in public!

What this tells me is that the twin or flipside of being labeled as inspirational is people having low expectations of us. If someone defines us primarily through our limitations, they’re likely to assume we’re more limited than we are. Thus when we surpass their expectations, often by doing something quite ordinary, they see it as a great feat.

I'm echoing Linda here, but I feel the best way to counter this view in our writing is to reveal our lives with candor—our flawed, awkward, beautiful, brave, ordinary and completely recognizable lives. When readers see something of themselves in our work, we’re no longer viewed as “other.” You can’t make a symbol out of someone you understand from the inside out. I'll share a poem here that describes a familiar moment of motherhood that's looked at through a lens of disability, but is universal in the sense that all new mothers feel less than able at times and, almost always, far from perfect:

At Fifteen Months

My son works his way
from the far end of the kitchen.
New to walking, his halting
steps, mostly on tip-toe,
resemble my own palsied gait.
Soon, I know, he'll steady
himself, easily outrace me.
But just now, his face, flushed
with effort, seems backlit.
Mama, he chimes, tilting
precariously toward me.
Crouched against the wall,
I brace myself for his weight
and, I admit, savor it, this flicker
of time when he's a little less
perfect, a little more mine.

Mike: Linda and Kathi have both mentioned reading their poetry publicly and some of the reactions they have received. I find this quite interesting and would like to hear all of you comment on it further. Do you feel the reaction to your work is different when you read it publicly aloud than when it appears in print? How so? In your experience does one medium seem to work better than the other?

Patricia: I adore reading my poetry publicly and, because my disabilities seldom ‘show’, and I’m not specifically addressing the subject of disability, I can’t respond on that level. However, reading the work aloud and feeling and seeing the audience respond feels much richer to me than seeing the same poems in print (although I enjoy that too). A room full of people listening hard and connecting with the poems with all their senses just bursts with their energy; I leave feeling quite high. When you hear a sigh or impromptu laughter, you know the poems reached hearts, whatever the subject. Of course, I’ve also had people write and say certain poems in a collection or a journal helped them through a hard patch and that produces its own glow of satisfaction—that the work had a healing aspect, was useful, not mere playing with words on paper (which, by the way, is perfectly OK to do too, for the sheer pleasure of it).

Linda: I have read my work publicly and have had it appear in print and I do think the reactions are somewhat different. When you read poetry aloud whether it is poetry concerned with disability or not, the reader can gauge the reaction of the audience as one is reading, it is a more immediate reaction then when poetry is read on the page. Like Patricia said you know when you make a connection. This is with poetry about disability or other topics. Often times when people read poetry there is a delay between the time they read it and the time they speak to the poet. Of course, this time is negated when the poet hands a poem on a page to someone to read. However I feel reading a poem and hearing a poem are slightly different experiences. When a poem is heard aloud a listener may be more conscious of the music and words and less conscious of such things as line breaks, white space and the shape on the page. All these can influence a person's reaction to a poem. My poetry on disability has been well received both on the page and in a reading. People tell me they have gained a better perspective or idea of what it is like to live with a disability. I have had positive reactions and I think this is partially because of the way I write my poems - like I said in the answer to the last question - I try to give the reader an understanding of what it is like to live and grow up with a disability - I am not asking or looking for pity. I don't want people to feel sorry for me and if some people are made uncomfortable by my honesty that is their issue to deal with, not mine.

And there are also probably other people who are uncomfortable with the disability poems I write and read, but these are not the people who are going to approach you after a poem appears in a magazine or is read in a reading. They wouldn't approach a person with a disability to comment after a reading.

Kathi: Your responses have been fabulous...really interesting to both of these questions! I’ll probably echo much of what you all have said. There are some poets who dislike performing their work, who feel shy about reading their work in public. This isn’t the case with me. I’ll admit it! I’m a ham! I love reading my work to audiences. Sometimes, I think that I don’t have ‘mike fright,” I have “life fright.”

I think that audience at poetry readings react not only to the poetry itself, but to the poet–so they’re reacting to both the words of the poetry but to the poet’s personality, presentation as well as performance.

If you have a disability, audiences are also reacting in part to that. Because, usually, (especially if, as is the case with me, the disability is visible) hearing/seeing a poet with a disability read his or her work is a new experience for an audience, and that, will make some people uncomfortable.

So I think a poet (at least at this point in time) has to make an audience comfortable with his or her disability–in order for people to listen to–take in–the poetry and the performance. If this doesn’t happen, audience members will be stuck at the point of being discomforted by the disability and won’t advance to hearing the poems.

Every poet has to find his or her own way to do this. I usually do it with humor and by making the way that I print out my poetry in large bold type (so that it fills many pages of paper)–part of my performance. Once, at the end of a reading when I was doing a poetry residency in Vermont, I gave some visual artists my pages with large type. They incorporated them into their conceptual art. They made the papers into little mouse and bear like figures. The next morning at breakfast, when I was barely awake, they put one of the paper mice into my coat pocket. “Don’t worry,” one of the artists joked, “it’s not a mouse, it’s just your poetry!”

When I read my poetry, I usually say something before I read a poem (or sometimes before I read a clump of several poems). So the audience gets the chance to learn more about the subject of the poems, the form/aesthetic of the poetry or myself–than they would if they read the poems in print.

There’s always the issue of how much to say or reveal. I don’t want to say so much that people feel overwhelmed by information; and I don’t wish for the reading to become too self-referential. The poetry itself should be the heart of the matter.

On the other hand, when you’re reading poetry aloud, readers aren’t seeing the poems, there’s no white space and people aren’t near Google. Then, it’s important to give the audience some information about the poems – maybe about the subject of the poetry (as is the case when I read my Helen Keller poems) or a hint about why I wrote the poems or where the poems are set (as is the case with some of my poems on topics like grief or love). Sometimes pausing for a few seconds, or saying something–can give the audience the equivalent of the pause offered by white space, or an opportunity to laugh (to get a break maybe from intense poems).

I believe that people in the audience (or at least some) want to read my poems in print after they hear me read. (That’s what they tell me.) Sometimes, as some of you have said, some audience members seem more comfortable with my disability after they hear me read. Whether this transfers into their being more comfortable with other people with disabilities–I can’t say.

Sometimes when I read my poems, the audiences are a mixture of people with and without disabilities. Sometimes, with some of my poems, I’ve noticed, people with disabilities are more comfortable with the poetry–more responsive –that the able-bodied people in the audience. This is particularly, true with poems like my Helen Keller poem “If I Drove Drunk.” Whenever I read that, either some of the people without disabilities don’t seem to get the humor or they won’t laugh until they look around the audience and see someone who’s blind or in a wheelchair laughing.

It’s hard to precisely gage audiences reaction to my poetry in print and at readings. In general, I’d say that I’ve been fairly successful–at least in the Washington, D.C. area. I’ve been asked to read at several reading series where you have to apply to read (including the Library of Congress Poetry at Noon series), and I’ve been invited back to several series after I’ve read once.

I’ve had some beginner’s luck at getting into mainstream poetry publications. I’m not sure what we poets with disabilities need to do to break into mainstream poetry publications–both in print and on-line. For one thing–it’s not fair–but I think we’re kind of where women and African Americans, or maybe gay people were in the 1960's or 1970's. We’re not really on the radar screen. So, since poetry is super competitive for everyone, poets with disabilities have to submit work that’s better than everyone else’s.

One problem that we have is, how do we get a fair critique of our work? How do we get poetry editors to fairly assess our work, especially, if the poems are about disability-related themes–if these editors most likely have ableist attitudes? Do you have any ideas about this?

Linda: I think Kathi is right and part of what the poet's job at a reading is to make the audience comfortable so they can focus on the poems - however I also think some of the role of disability poetry is to make people uncomfortable with their preconceived notions about disability and what it is like to live with a disability so they can realize what the truth is and we can break down the barriers. That is not what I think about when I write a poem though - it is simply a side effect of being honest and expressing my thoughts and opinions. Writing that deals honestly and openly about disability by a person with a disability is going to conflict with some people's preconceived ableist views and if they are made uncomfortable with my reading or my poems in print and begin to rethink their ideas that is a benefit to me - as long as I have made them comfortable enough to listen - which is not always easy. I agree with Kathi that humor can work as well as giving a little background to break some of the barriers down.

Kathi: I agree with Ona. As much as I enjoy reading my poetry aloud, I mainly write my poems to be read in print (whether on-line or in print publications or in regular print format, large print, Braille, screen reader or other alternative formats). Poetry that's read aloud is in a way a different form..or maybe it's poetry, plus performance (or poetry intergrated with performance).

Patricia: I realized, as I listened to your responses, that another reason I do like my poems in print (or online) is because they LAST that way. People can find them later. They may get archived. People sometimes write to me years after a poem was published that they stumbled across it and just had to let me know it touched something inside them. A reading, no matter how fabulous at the moment, is an ephemeral thing and gone as soon as it was heard.

Ona: True. But that's changing with wav files and youtube. I love journals that include an audio option, especially since my partner (also a poet and lover of poems) is blind. What a gift when he can hear a poem in the author's voice rather than the mechanical voice of a screen reader.

Kathi: I agree. I'll take hearing a poem in an author's voice over a synthesized voice anytime! Though, as someone with low vision, I'm happy to hear poetry read with any kind of voice when I can't read print. I think hearing a poem in an author's voice is a gift for everyone. And it's true media like You Tube can make poetry readings last.

Patricia: Now, see, you're way ahead of me. I wasn't thinking (did I even know?) about the new net possibilities and can certainly agree that hearing the poet's voice must be such a pleasure.

Ona: Here is a link to poems of mine in The Barefoot Muse, a journal of formal poetry that includes audio: http://www.barefootmuse.com/archives/issue5/gritz.htm

Patricia: How wonderful, Ona. I'll listen shortly, but wanted to ask, as you seem really up on this, how one goes about getting to read your poems in the places you mention. Such a great idea! … What I mean, Ona, is using the new internet family or whatever to read poems so others can hear them, even if they can't see them. The virtual reality I keep reading/hearing about. And seeing, mildly. I've done a couple of podcasts but think I'm way behind times. The dragon lurking at the lip of the cave... You seem up to date on this, smart woman!

Linda: I didn’t mean to imply that I deliberately set out to make people uncomfortable by my writing - what I meant is it is sometimes a natural by-product of poems about disability by disabled poets because we are challenging conventional views. And I agree with Kathi views people are comfortable with.

Mike: One of the first and most important anthologies of disability literature was With Wings: An Anthology of Literature By and About Women with Disabilities edited in 1987 by Saxton & Howe. That volume strong focused on disability writing by women as an outgrowth of feminist writing. In fact, the book was published by feminist press. To what extent do you think issues of women and disability converge and, more specifically, in your own writing do you consciously pursue what you would consider to be feminist issues? Can you give an example?

Patricia: I haven’t read With Wings but I’d agree yes, issues of women and disability converge and, particularly, the upsurge of feminism stimulated their writings. The goal, at least one of them, is to empower women. Disabled women (and men, of course) need all the power they can find, and putting pen to paper to tell their true stories is an important way to gain a feeling of strength. I’ve been a feminist since I started shaking off my ‘good-girl’ upbringing in my early twenties and, except rarely, don’t consciously pursue feminist issues in my writing, though my beliefs inform everything I write and say. Here’s an example, one of my favorite poems (and I used this voice deliberately).

Crone

Done with the business
of being women
the mess of blood and babies
and bowing to men’s desires
we live by no man’s rules
Invisible we move
through the shadows of day
We say what we think
and don’t try to please
anyone
You only see us
when you gaze past
the corners of your eyes
We tell whispered stories
beyond fairy tales
of things that happen
the warty frog
handsome prince who imprisons
warriors slaughtered
in kings’ foolish schemes
children lost in dark forests
forever
We unseen ones could
rule the world

*First published in The People’s Press, 2006

Kathi: I think that there are many issues in which the feminist and disability movements converge. The disability movement’s models have been the African-American civil rights movement, the gay rights movement and the feminist movement.

Sometimes, feminism doesn’t appear overtly in my poems. But, as is the case with disability, it’s always part of the back story.

Ona: One place I see the convergence is in our culture's fixation with physical beauty. As girls, we're taught that attractiveness is what makes us valuable. Yet we're offered such a narrow view of what it means to be beautiful, that most everyone, disabled or not, sees herself as lacking. (Industries like cosmetic surgery thrive on this and diseases like anorexia are born from it.) Those of us with disabilities are that much further from the ideal with our different looking and different functioning bodies. The harmful messages regarding a woman's worth are delivered to us in multiples. There's a feminine ideal and we're not it. In fact, we're the antithesis of it. I've written about this most directly in an essay, Love, Beauty and Disability or How I Became a Heartbreaker, forthcoming in the memoir section of More Magazine. It is also an undercurrent in this poem in which a woman with a disability seeks to understand how she is viewed from the outside :

Those Like You

The one you follow past small lit shops
on Bleeker has a rigid leg
that traces half moons as she moves.
The next, spotted in Brooklyn, uses
crutches to swing her whole self forward,
a leap for each of her boyfriend's strides.
The Wall Street woman's limp
is so subtle, you shadow her
six blocks before you're sure.
We Are Everywhere, you think,
recalling buttons your lesbian friends
once wore. Today, someone
with auburn hair and a gypsy skirt
waits for the light in a motorized chair.
The walk sign flashes green and, magnetized,
you trail her. You do this, as always,
hoping to see how you're seen.

Kathi: Ona, I agree I think we're converging around the whole question of beauty and disability and our culture's view of it (beauty and disability). When does your essay in More come out?

Patricia: In Don’t Turn Away I do deal some with the issue of how the woman looks and feels after mastectomy. The book wasn’t written with anything specific in mind; I wrote as I went through the process and dealt with my own traumas, and added stories from other people which wound up in the poems. I addressed this tough subject as I try to address everything I write about—looking straight on and describing what I see/think/feel with as little fluffing about as possible. In the title poem one line says, “Now you want to undress me.” Further down comes, “Then, / when you step back and run your eyes / over my one nipple, across the dented / healing slash, up to my face, / will I see on your skin / the ripple of revulsion, a strained smile, / the cooling of heat?”

Another poem, “Put a sock in it,” uses humor when looking at the thought of a prosthesis: “Yesterday I joined the big time, / had a fitting, got introduced / to the marvels of science / and good engineering.” And yet another, “Rosy Nipples” mulls over the question of reconstructive surgery, again with humor. (Humor helps me survive everything!)

As a woman with resolved issues about myself and femininity, this surgery wasn’t as hard to take as it is for young women and those whose self-image is wrapped tightly around physical beauty and attracting/keeping a partner. We probably all know of devastating things happening—husbands leaving, boy friends saying cruel things, families shunning the subject of cancer and “mutilation” altogether. I find it interesting that, while the book was being written and for a couple of years after, I played the prosthetic game along with everybody else. Then one summer day that all changed, as you can see in the poem here (which came too late for the collection).

Flat-Chested and Free*

My sister used to tell me—
in that lovely way of siblings—
that if I stood sideways
she couldn’t tell
if I were girl or boy.

This young nurse learned
not to envy Marilyn Monroe:
those huge dugs on old women
flopped side to side, hid
rashes and sores.

Now, after a lifetime
of hating the harness
strapping of bras,
I come to a new meaning
of flat-chested.

One gone, one drooping,
I wore mastectomy bras
until one glorious summer
day was too hot
to bother.

I rediscovered
my boy’s silhouette.
Flung instruments
of lace-edged torture
deep into the giveaway box.

My sister howled with laughter
at the plan: one paper tissue
stuffed in the breast pocket.
For the rest of my natural life
I’ll go bra-less and free.

*Published in Atlantic Breast Cancer Net, Canada, 2005

I also address the issue of how we look in “Walk of the One-Breasted Women” which you published in Wordgathering in March, 2008 [if you want to provide the link here, great!], also written long after the original surgery but quite pertinent to this question, I think. Every woman must find her own most comfortable solution to this highly noticeable change in her body and, sadly, some do feel disabled for the rest of their lives.

Kathi: I think Audre Lorde's work is really powerful, and Patricia, I think your poem "Flat-Chested and Free" is really strong and moving.

I think disability is as much a social construct as physical reality for masculine attractiveness as well as feminine beauty. What I mean by this is that the able-bodied, dominant culture perceives people with disabilities--both male and female-as being outside the realm of beauty. Even when, as is the case for example with deaf people, we don't perceive ourselves as having a disability. Or I'm thinking of, say, a man or a female, who has had his or her legs amputated and doesn't chose to use prosthetic legs. Or who uses prosthetic legs. In either case, non-disabled people are apt not to think of that person as being beautiful.

Having said this, I think disability is as much a social construct as physical reality more often with women. Because our sexist, ableist, dominant culture more often associates a particular "feminine" type of beauty with women--and if a woman has a disability--to not see her as being "beautiful." I'm thinking here, too, of say, a woman who has Down Syndrome. Because she has facial features associated with Down Syndrome, she is not considered "beautiful."

This is true, too, I think of women who are blind or have low vision. If our eyes look "blind" (that is not like "normal" eyes)--if we don't maintain eye contact--we're not considered to be "beautiful." If we use a white cane (rather than trying to pass), we're considered to be not "beautiful"-to be impaired--"infirm." Even if, ironically having a white cane, makes us feel free "non-disabled"--because the cane gives us the freedom to get around.

Some of us who are blind, low vision or have other visible disabilities have addressed this issue--this perception of us as not being beautiful or sexual--by developing an aesthetic--a poetics--that emphasizes pride in who we are-or that plays with our canes, wheelchairs etc. as a means to freedom. Sometimes in my poems, I (or my characters) are deliberately ironic about the visual aspects of beauty. Sometimes, the disability aethetic is just there in my poetry, sometimes it's something that I strive for --or consciously work with.

An example of this is an unpublished Uppity Blind Girl poem that I'm working on. In this poem, tentatively titled "Uppity's Happy Hour Nightmare," Uppity, sitting at a bar, is suddenly able to see. Unfortunately, she's only able to see decidely unbeautiful things like a roach and the bartender's hideously Pepto-Bismal coloroed Polo shirt. "Am I getting chubby?" Uppity asks, averting her eyes from the green mold on the tavern's walls, "Am I going gray at 25?/Will I kiss anyone with zits?/Or less than perfect abs?" Munching on pistachios, Uppity ironically says, "I'm ready for my close-up."

I think we all have to find a way to be comfortable with and proud of are bodies in a culture that still devalues people with disabilities. Disability culture poetry plays an important role in this task.

Kathi: This response is really powerful. I agree. I think one thing we can do in disability culture poetry is to discourage myths about people with disabilities...and to celebrate non-traditional beauty and diffference. The Flash Essay is really moving and powerful.

Linda: I have published in a number of places both print magazines and online. One place Mike didn't mention that also deals with health issues and disability is The Healing Muse. It is out of upstate NY and connected to a university. I have placed several poems there. It publishes poems, essays, and stories that have some connection to health and disability. Also I have published in mainstream publications - It helps to know what you write and what market fits your work by that I mean do you write narrative, lyric, experimental, - you need a literary magazine that is looking for the type of poetry you write. You need to know the magazine which is much easier today with the number of magazines that have online sites which demonstrate the work they publish. Start out with some more approachable magazines rather than the most well-known. I have published in some smaller magazines and some larger, more well-known. Approach both. Also look and see if the magazine publishes the same people all the time or seems open to new voices. Develop your writing so your poems are the best they can be before you send them out for submission. And only send poems you think are your best - one bad one may turn the reader off and color their reading of the other poems or they may not bother to read the others at all. Readers receive a lot of submissions - you want yours to stand out. Go to readings of literary magazines that you like that are near you. Listen to what the editors say they are looking for and what people read. If your poetry fits, send it in and mention if you talked to an editor or a poem read stood out to you. And if you can afford it, subscribe to journals you like and hope to publish in - it is important to support the places that publish poetry especially the poetry you like to write and read. And read a lot of poetry so you can see what other poets are doing and develop your own writing. You have to know the tradition and environment you are working in.

Patricia: Well, Linda and Kathi have thoroughly covered the getting-published aspects of this question. I have only a few things to add. One is that I have a series called "Getting Published" archived in Long Story Short (www.longstoryshort.us/ ) that might prove helpful. Another is, don’t forget anthologies. They are wonderful places for themed poems and often take pre-published work, so your poems, essays and stories get double exposure. And last, I’ve found some writers’ email lists very helpful in finding venues; CRWROPPS-B http://groups.yahoo.com/crwropps is my favorite, though you must delete many listings that just don’t fit your needs. What an interesting time you folks are giving me! So glad to be part of this discussion.

Ona: You've all given wonderful advice to writers wishing to get published and I agree with all of it. The only thing I'd add is that online journals tend to be more open to new writers than their print counterparts. Also, their response time is often much quicker. There's a wonderful article in a recnt issue of Poets & Writers that talks about the benefits of online publishing, the most significant being that they attract more readers than even the most well known print literary journals. From my own experience having published in both formats, while it's lovely to hold a physical journal in your hand, I've yet to get any responses from readers based on publication in print journals while I've gotten a number of "fan-emails" from people who have read my work online. Some have led to invitations to read and one has lead to a deep friendship.

Kathi: This has been such a fabulous discussion! One other newsletter that offers good listings of and information about poetry markets is Duotrope's Digest. It's an newsletter that goes out weekly. For information about the newsletter and on how to subscribe, go to http://www.duotrope.comnewsletter.aspx.

Mike: This has been a great discussion, one that I really wish I did not have to bring to a close, but since I do, I’ll throw out one last question that I hope might be of interest to beginning writers. I think all of us who have written a while can look back at some of those poems that we wrote long ago and would like to disown. With respect to poetry, how would say that you have grown the most as a writer? How is your poetry different now?

Patricia: Since I had no training as a poet, or in creative writing at all (having done academic and scientific writing for 20 years) my first poems were pretty darned awkward, but such a lot of fun! I took classes and workshops and the craft improved. I discovered, as we all do, that no matter how you write, eventually your own voice appears and that’s to be celebrated. The hardest thing for me at the beginning was to stop skirting around the hard topics and just plunge in, go deep, let the pain surface in the words and images. Playing it safe just doesn’t grab the reader or do service to the poem. I’ve learned the joy of revision, plucking out excess words, sharpening images. Critique groups have helped immensely, and still do, as we don’t always see ourselves what our poems need.

How my poems have changed? As I said in my essay in the previous issue of Wordgathering, I’m in a new cycle of my life and the poems reflect that. The poems don’t seem as strong to me now, but the pleasure in writing them remains, and on the occasion that I feel passionate about something, the words ring, too.

Thanks, Mike, for inviting me to participate in this fascinating discussion. I’ve enjoyed every word of it, and have huge admiration (no, that’s not pedestal-making, dear women, merely fact) for my colleagues in the dialogue.

Linda: I have been writing for awhile now and like Patricia many of my first poems were awkward. My writing has improved as I have read and studied the craft, working with various writers and taking workshops and through individual work. I have learned that revision is a carefully crafted practice that refines a poem to the best that it can be. I find reading other poets and reading widely has helped improve my own writing. As has working in critique groups or exchanging work with individual poets. Sometimes other writers can point out something you missed - particularly when you have been working on a poem intensively. I find working with a voice dictation program has helped enhance my attention to the sound of the words and the music of the poem. Again I agree with Patricia that it took me some time to realize what I wanted to say and to dive into the meaty issues like disability. I found there were things I was consciously avoiding and those were things that most needed to be written.

How has my writing changed? I would say my poems have more developed metaphors and images and a greater awareness of language and sound. Much of what I write is a combination of narrative and lyric - taking qualities from both. I am in the process of writing new poems (after finishing the final version of my manuscript and sent it to the publisher) and am working on individual poems but trying to keep in mind a general focus or shape, I find it difficult to shape the focus of what I write - my topics and themes find me. I just hope at the end of it I will have the shape of a book. Many of the poems in my first book dealt with growing up and living with a disability and chronic illness ( For those of you who don't know I developed rheumatoid arthritis at eight) The new poems I am writing are dealing with disability as an adult woman and all that means and entails. Plus other things.

Kathi: I've been writing journalism--news stories, essays and humor pieces for a number of years. And, I've read poetry most of my life. In the late 1970's in graduate school, I took a course from a famous poet. He told me that I had ":little, if any, talent.". Being young and having no emotional skin then, I dropped the course and stopped writing poetry.

I wrote a few poems during the late 1980s, but didn't start seriously writing poetry again until after my partner of 12 years died two weeks before Sept. 11 in 2001. While we were together, Anne would tell me I should write poetry, take poetry workshops, etc. But who listens to their sweetie? I started writing poetry because there was no way that I couldn't write poetry. I began taking poetry workshops. Within a couple of years, I was performing at open mikes and submitting work-doing residencies--entering competitions. I'm telling you this as a way of saying that I still feel like a newbie, even though I know that I'm a step or two above being a "baby" poet.

Thinking back over my work since 2001, I do know though that I've grown as a poet. When I started writing (as is often the case with beginning poets), I wrote only about myself and the personal-emotional events of my own life. Not surprisingly, many of my first poems dealt with grief and loss. Then when I first began going to peer and teacher-led poetry workshop, I had a very thin skin. I wanted to explain everything about every poem--to make sure that all readers and listeners would "get" it. I took every critical comment personally and defended each poem as if I were defending my life.

When I was a beginning poet, I rarely challenged myself. I seldom tried to write in new forms or styles or about different subjects. Though I was telling stories and my poems had "speakers" and characters, I had little sense of how character or narrative worked in poetry. From the get-go I wrote some (at least a few) good poems. Yet, my poetry lacked emotional range. I didn't read enough poetry. I read poetry of poets I liked; but I didn't try to stretch myself by reading poets whose style and voice are way different from my work. When I did read poetry, I didn't read for craft as well as for pleasure (as I do now). I had no sense of what it takes to read poetry aloud well--of the performance aspects of reading one's poetry at a poetry reading. At open mikes, I mumbled or talked way too loud; read with the speed of an auctioner or way too slowly; and my voice was as expressive as a robot reading a sonnet.

I'm still very much of a growing poet. But I'm a better poet than I was when I started. I've developed a reasonably thick hide (a necesary piece of equipment if you're in the "po biz"). When my poetry is being critiqued (by my peers in my poetry group, by teachers, by reviewers), I no longer take it personally (as long as the criticism is leveled at my work--my poetry--and not me--my personal self). Now, once I've written a poem and bring it out in public, the poem has become a being separate from me. So I no longer defend poems as if my life were at stake. I find much criticism to be helpful and am now actually eager for feedback on my work (as opposed to being terrified of feedback when I first started writing poems). I've learned to use criticism that I find useful and not to be weighed down by the rest.

Now, my poetry is driven by character and story. Some of my poetry comes out of my life experiences (how could it not?). But now I love to write poems featuring other characters--characters that are and aren't like me. Characters that have many different lives and points of view.

Today, my poetry has a fairly wide emotional range. My poems are, by turns, poignant, political, humorous, grief-driven, about love, angry, sad, whimsical, etc. I enjoy writing on different subjects. I don't see myself becoming a neo-formalist. Yet, I find it interesting to write in different forms. Unlike in the beginning, when I didn't think much about craft, I now work with sound, voice, diction, tone, point of view etc when I write. And, I think, this is apparent in my poetry.

To echo Patricia, I go deeper now in my poetry. I've learned to write without fear and to go deep. Poets give the characters in their poems an inner life. That's what I do now in mine.

To use food metaphors (my fave kind): In the beginning, my poems were simple meals. Sometimes comfort food like P&J sandwiches. Sometimes undercooked spaghetti. Sometimes greasy French Fries that you wouldn't want as a steady diet. Or bland cheese--Velvetta. Today, my poems aren't yet the great feast I'd like them to be. You know, the perfect dinner party with fabulous guests and a wonderful varitey of dishes --from sweet to sour-to sultry--savory--serious but also deep and sweet.

But, they're getting there.

Kathi: A big thank you to you, Mike, for inviting me to be a part of this discussion. And wow, to all of my sister women, who I've been lucky enough to talk with. I'm not putting any of you on a pedestal (I don't even know if I can spell pedestal)..but it's been way cool to talk with you! You have been, by turns, wise, provacative, thoughtful, gentle--you've made me listen and think. I can't wait to read your work and I hope I get to talk to you again! Mike, I know you have to shut this discussion down. But could we have this dialogue again sometimes...maybe in a year or so--with different questions?

Linda A. Cronin, a poet and writer of fiction, recently completed her first poetry collection Dream Bones. The poems above all appear from that collection. Diagnosed as a child with rheumatoid arthritis, she expresses herself and explores the issues she faces through writing. Cronin's work has appeared in The Patterson Literary Review , Kaleidoscope, The Journal of New Jersey Poets, Rattle and Lips.

Ona Gritz's poems appear in numerous online and print literary journals. Her poetry chapbook, Left Standing, was published by Finishing Line Press as part of their New Women's Voices series. In 2007, she won the Inglis House poetry contest, the Late Blooms Poetry Postcard competition, and was nominated for two Pushcart prizes. In 2009, she place second in Lilith Magazine's Charlotte Newberger Poetry Competition. Ona is also a children's author and columnist for the online journal,Literary Mama.

Patricia Wellingham-Jones, PhD, RN, has written Don't Turn Away: Poems About Breast Cancer and End-Cycle: Poems about Caregiving, among others. Her work is published in numerous anthologies, journals and Internet magazines. A cancer survivor, she also lives with neurological dysfunction in arms and hands (as well as chronic pain). She has a longtime interest in 'healing writing' and the benefits people gain from writing and reading their work together.

Kathi Wolfe was a finalist in the 2007 Pudding House Press Chapbook Competition. Her chapbook Helen Takes the Stage: The Helen Keller Poems is just out from Pudding House Press. Wolfe's work has appeared in Beltway Poetry Quarterly (www.beltwaypoetry.com), Gargoyle, Harrington Lesbian Fiction Quarterly and other publications. A recipient of a Puffin Foundation Grant, Wolfe has read at the Library of Congress Poetry at Noon series and appeared on the public radio show "The Poet and the Poem."