POETRY AND DISASBILITY BLOGS

It is difficult to do a Google search, check the day's Twitters, update a Facebook page or just plain old surf the net without running into blogs. The democratization of publication made possible the Internet has made blogging a national past time. Yet it is amazing how few blogs deal with subject dearest to Wordgathering, disability and poetry. Since trying Trying to find blogs that address the topics or poetry and disability can be a bit daunting, the Wordgathering editors have sent out an invitation to writers who do share this combined interest to let us know about the blogs they are keeping.

For each of the writers who responded we posted the name of the blog, the writer, its main concerns and a paragraph from a sample post.

Laura Hershey: Writer, Poet, Activist, Consultant… News, Views, Musings, and Issues

http://www.laurahershey.com/

The title of Laura Hershey's website says it all. Her blogs are embedded in the site and deal with a variety of subjects but principally disability rights and poetry.

More Thoughts About Public Space

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post about intolerance toward the presence of certain bodies and behaviors in public space. I probed the experiences of those of us who enter public space with non-conforming bodies, bringing along a distinct and, to some, disturbing set of sounds, images, and ways of moving.

Recently, I've been thinking about the flip side of encounters in public space. Rather than thinking about the impact on public space of people with marginalized bodies and behaviors, I'm noticing how people with privileged bodies use and affect public spaces. By privileged bodies, I mean those that are considered normal, acceptable, powerful. Examples include bodies which move easily without any mobility aid or device; bodies which need no personal assistance to navigate or inhabit public space; bodies which pay full admission or are otherwise "invited in"; bodies whose lived experiences up to that point have included comfort, security, education, financial success, health, and the esteem of others; bodies of standard size, shape, attire, gender presentation, age, and mannerisms; and bodies without any visible illnesses, injuries, disabilities, or other deviations. Most public spaces are designed for these privileged bodies, and so they "fit" easily in those spaces.

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Planet of the Blind

http://www.planet-of-the-blind.com/

Poet Stephen Kuusisto's blog takes the name of his best selling autobiography. His blog discusses a wide range of poetry, includes new poems of his own and comments on disability issues.

Rain and Disability

It's no secret that the late autumn rain is harder on people with disabilities just as it's harder on the poor and homeless. In Heaven there will be no rain though the fruit trees will magically produce all the apples you want--with or without knowledge. Meantime it's raining in Iowa and I must go out and stand a long time waiting for the bus, dog at my side, the two of us sagging like hanging laundry.

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The disabled body is a political body. The rain is apolitical. The bus and its infrequency is political rain. The anthropology of political rain is nigh. Or the rain, a co-determinate of global warming is thoroughly political. Oh how helpless we are before these forces! Look at Obama stumbling around on the issue of climate change. Meantime we hunch into our coats.

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This morning I'm thinking of the world's poorest people, all of them in the rain and its not a rain of their own making.

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Queer3

http://queerx3.blogspot.com/

Playwrite John's Pixley's intro his blog says, "Hi. I'm John Pixley, and this is my blog, Queer3. I call it Queer3, because I'm queer in three ways: 1. I'm gay. 2. I'm severely disabled with Cerebral Palsy; hence, my physique, including my speech, is queer. 3. I'm a quaker (unprogrammed). Quakers have been called "a peculiar people." Stretch this a bit, and you get queer. I think this give me a pretty unique perspective on things. Hence, this blog. Some posts will feature one of these aspects; others will feature two or all three."

A Prayer for Johnny

It riles me up enough when I hear about parents who kick out a child when they learn that the child is gay. As a friend once said, how can a parent love a child one day and then not love the child the next day? I don't get it.

I also don't get parents who are so into drugs that they neglect their children. I have seen this up close and personal more than I care to admit, unfortunately with people I have hired as attendants in the past, and it is disturbing and ugly to see. While I understand about addiction and its power, I still, perhaps naively, don't understand how anything can be more important than one's children.

Then I read the article in the Los Angeles Times last week about Johnny. Johnny is a 6-year-old boy rescued last year from his drug-addicted mother and her gang-leader boyfriend, "Bullet," and their "associates" who continued to abuse and torture him after the L.A County Department of Children and Family Services declared that he was "not at risk."

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Literary Mama

http://www.literarymama.com/columns/different/archives/2010/guardian_angels_of_the_stairca.html

Ona Gritz ongoing column in Literary Mama is not technically a blog, but it is so appros to this list that it has to be included. Her pieces revolve around the continuing joys and trials of being a poet and mother with a disability.

Guardian Angels of the Staircase

"Do you need help?" the woman asked. My first instinct was to refuse politely and struggle up the stairs. After all, they'd just come down five flights and were on their way out. But then I thought about all the times Dan answered that same question with an enthusiastic, That would be great! Being blind, he'd never be able to live his rich, busy life as both a poet and an access technology consultant without accepting help now and then. As a physically disabled woman living with an elevator that's been out of service until further notice for the past six weeks, I've come to realize the same is true of me.

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Dispoet

This blog by Wordgathering editor Michael Northen focuses on the poetry and poetry books of writers with disabilities. Though its entries go back five years, many are still useful.

http//:dispoet.blogspot.com

A Map of This World

Occasionally it is useful to look back at how far we've come – or haven't come. When A. J. Baird placed the first call for poetry by writers with disabilities in an issue of Kaleidoscope in 1983, his intent was to replace the pity-filled and patronizing poetry that turned people with disabilities into poster children with "Tough-mind poetry grounded in physical fact." Now in 2010, when poets like Sheila Black or Laurie Clements Lambeth write nuanced poetry that is not only artful but explodes the older patronizing images of disability, it is easy to forget that their work rests on some intermediary writers whose poetry may not have been quite as sophisticated but which was never the less barrier-breaking. One of the most impressive of these was Dara McLaughlin, whose book A Map of This World, now almost out of print, should probably be required reading for any poet who thinks she has something new to say about disability.

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Deaf Echo

http://deafecho.com/

Edited by poet Chris Heuer this is a website rather than a blog, but deals with all types of topics related to deafness (or about any topic by deaf writers or writers involved with the deaf community). They also include poetry.

Not only are deaf people not the same, they also aren't all equally informed on issues relating to other groups of deaf people. Thus saying "We're all deaf " doesn't necessarily mean all that much. My grandfather, now deceased, was hard of hearing and wore a hearing aid for as long as I can remember. But he was alive for a lot longer than I have been alive, and not only was he born hearing… he was hearing for most of his life. So why would he have suddenly identified with deaf people who attended residential institutions, or have known anything about American Sign Language or have had any interest in learning it or any huge need for it? He could turn his hearing aid up and hear and he was fine. At the same time, though, did his hearing loss or level of deafness or whatever you want to call it give him some sort of magical understanding into what it was like to be born deaf, or to not have full language access during the early years of one's life (years crucial to language acquisition)? No.

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http://deafwoofbarks.blogspot.com/.

Raymond Luczak's blog tends to help alert people to what's going on with his books and appearances, rather han going into depth about poetry or disability.

My Twelfth Book Just Came out Today

This essay holds a very special place in my heart. As I've said elsewhere before, the piece was written during a very difficult summer of my life—added job responsibilities and stress, lousy love life, doubts about my abilities as a writer, and uncertainties about staying on in New York. I managed to piece together a string of short observations about being a deaf gay writer. After whittling down some 60 pages to a manageable 28 pages, I sent "Notes of a Deaf Gay Writer" off to the magazine CHRISTOPHER STREET. The rest, as one might say, is history, and it eventually inspired my eighth book ASSEMBLY REQUIRED: NOTES FROM A DEAF GAY LIFE some nineteen years later. This time I revisit the original essay with a 20-year hindsight and offer a running commentary on whether things have changed since its initial publication in December 1990.

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We hope that you will help continue the dialogue on disability and poetry by checking out these blogs and perhaps responding to them. If you know of any blogs that should be considered, let us know at at comments@wordgathering.com.

The Editors