Reviewed by Kate Champlin
thinking vestibuling truth dancing (6)
Tressing Motions at the Edge of Mistakes is a truth dance in a series dedicated to truth dancing. Milkweed Editions’ Multiverse series explores new and unacknowledged forms of “languaging” based on the practices of neurodivergent, autistic, neuroqueer, mad, nonspeaking, and disabled cultures (102). The hope is to eliminate norms based on standard linguistic structures and expand our ideas of linguistic possibility. Here are our reviews of the three previous works in the Multiverse series: The Kissing of Kissing (Hannah Emerson),The Wanting Way (Adam Wolfond), and Aster of Ceremonies (JJJJJerome Ellis). Other reviews in the series will be forthcoming.
While the other works in the Multiverse series are collections of individual verses, Boukaila’s work is a single epic poem. This epic deals directly with the problems that the Multiverse series was created to address: possible approaches to language and discrimination against thought-patterns labelled abnormal. As Boukaila reminds us, all minds have boundless potential. Unfortunately, normative thinking (which Boukaila aptly calls “troubled-abled” thinking) creates static frames and thought blocks that exclude autistic thinkers. These minds (the trout-containing-galaxies depicted on the cover) are too-often doused by shame. Potential is lost as minds that should be treasured are isolated and ignored instead of celebrated. Only motion will defeat the static thought-frames that lock up disabled minds. Boukaila proposes tressing motions—the motions of disentangling and braiding hair—to protect free-flowing thought. As Boukaila puts it:
Hoping to inspire the thinkers to motion mostly new meanings, reshaping
the truth plaguing autism. Hope having pride restored to mostly save the
potential of isolated minds. Troubled truly thinking that people treated me
mostly like I was rarely paying attention, daring to ignore my potential but
not eager to try striving to treasure my mind. (40)
This quote comes from a long footnote that appears one-third to one-half of the way through the poem. This ten-page section is recognizable as a footnote because all parts appear under a separating line. Boukaila uses this prominent visual division to teach a different approach to reading. Many readers ignore the footnotes in published works. This tendency is especially true of those who are in a hurry: for instance, the academics who read through texts fast so they can move on to writing articles and the editors who rush through the book to write the blurb. Boukaila focuses attention on her footnotes through white space and demonstrates that they are part of the poem by giving each important idea from the footnotes its own page. She makes these apparently optional parts of the text impossible to ignore. It’s a useful lesson in what can and cannot be discarded in the race toward a communication goal.
This orientation (of centering what is often set aside or rushed past) is also the poem’s most prominent example of words creating a visual or multisensory art experience. There are many other examples. First, tressing is the central topic of this epic poem, and many of the poem’s lines feel like tressing. Most of the poem is composed of short and rhythmic lines with repeated word concepts. These lines smooth and braid in readers’ minds. Here’s one example:
Healing rewinds stories smothered searching meaning in splitting truth reshaping (15)
Second, while some parts of the poem tress down the page, others make dramatic displays through word art. I wish I could show you these parts of the poem since in some cases only a visual would share their full effects (with accompanying image descriptions). Sometimes, Boukaila emphasizes a single word or single line by placing it alone on the page. The line/page quoted at the top of the review is an example of this technique. This use of isolation and white space both emphasizes certain concepts and leaves room for the readers’ own thoughts. The space around these words and lines is not blank. It places deliberate emphasis on key parts of the poem.
Other parts of the poem stream like rivers, swirl like galaxies, or unfold like flower blossoms. Boukaila’s seventh page makes a stream of the word “Streaming.” Although the stream starts with a single thin word, it opens wider and wider. The words eventually form a river mouth at the right side of the page and even flow over the margin onto page eight. This part of the poem offers a visual image of the process that Boukaila describes: free motion expands outside its banks and overcomes barriers. Page 21 reminds us that treasures trust truth. The words on this page outline a six-petalled flower. Treasures, truth, and trust form its most important parts: the center and the tips of the petals. Page 37 gives us a swirl of words, some greater and some smaller but all circling around the same center. These words are “resonating,” “conflict,” “hesitating,” “depth echoing,” and “against mad currents.” The word trout is repeated five times in tiny letters. These little words resemble fish in a whirlpool. This page of the poem resembles a whorl in a stream or a galaxy expanding after an explosion. The effect is awe-inspiring, but it is also clear that the trout need protection. They need both the currents they swim in and motions that counteract the currents.
Tressing Motions at the Edge of Mistakes offers readers a unique way of languaging. Boukaila reimagines white space, word art, and academic conventions in order to open up whole new realms of communication. At the same time, Boukaila writes directly to the heart of the matter that the Multiverse series was created to address. Forms of communication outside the “troubled-abled” norm are often devalued. Such devaluing undermines and destroys minds that should be protected and treasured. Our mainstream cultures and their common, at times deadly, mistakes badly need to be tressed.
Title: Tressing Motions at the Edge of Mistakes
Author: Imane Boukaila
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Date: 2024
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About the Reviewer
Kate Champlin (she/her) is a late-deafened adult and a graduate of Ball State University (Indiana). She currently works as a writing tutor and as a contract worker for BK International Education Consultancy, a company whose aim is to normalize the success of underserved students.