Cheré M. SmithTHE FRAMES OF CREATIVE CONSTRAINT IN THE POETRY OF LARRY EIGNER AND JENNIFER BARTLETTThe editors' choice of a title for Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability, is an intriguing one, for "verb" implies action and agency while "disability" seems to imply a lack of mobility, action, or power. With this new anthology, however, poets who live with disabilities are given an opportunity to speak for themselves, providing a new and very different view on how action – both physical and political – plays into their lives. We find this specifically by looking into poets such as Larry Eigner and Jennifer Bartlett. While these poets might seem to be 'confined' due to cerebral palsy, they are both able to invert what the world sees as 'confinement' into a creative constraint that allows them freedom of mobility in their art. Larry Eigner's poem, "If the earth were an eye," and Jennifer Bartlett's poem, "To Be Crippled," use imagery of windows and frames, as well as poetic form, in order to give movement to their particular confinement. Their respective frames of mind help them break free of the social and physical frames of disability that bind them, hedging them in, denying them access, and allow them a unique expression of mobility on the page. Larry Eigner lived with cerebral palsy. Since typing was difficult for him, the movement in his poetry became the way he found a creative mobility in accordance with his disability. His poetry describes the movement of things: nature, objects, and ideas. He accomplishes this movement in the form of his poetry which often glides back and forth across the page. However, even within the seemingly free movement of his poetry on the page, his images and the movement he perceives often appear within the reoccurring frame of the window. In "If the earth were an eye," Eigner's first line explains that the frame of the 'window' is inescapable: "If the earth were an eye / disembodied or not / there would still be frames" (33). The significance of these first lines is twofold. In linking the words "eye" and "frames" together in the first lines, Eigner emphasizes that sight occurs through a lens – a specific frame that limits what can be taken in at one time; furthermore, in placing frames around the eye, he creates that first image of the window that manipulates or constrains his unique and personal creativity. The eye is often referred to as the window to the soul; framing it also gives it the appearance of a window. Within the context of a window, a small space for movement, Eigner implies that "frames," or constraint, exist in every aspect of life, not only in sight, or what we perceive, but in movement as well; the Earth moves, our eyes move, and he suggests that nature and ideas also move and all of this movement is continually and necessarily, it seems, framed by sight or understanding. He goes on to explain this sort of universal framing of movement throughout the rest of his poem. For example, he uses the imagery of "the hedges / bringing the sea to life", "the trees sharpening windows", "the / glass / reflecting the sky" (33), and finally in his last lines he says that "the far-away gets dimmer" (34). Each implies a movement; a specific action that is being taken that would be impossible without some sense of framing; indeed the framing itself, seems to create or enable mobility. The movement of his lines on the page, which also does the work of framing his words, does much to enhance this sense of movement: this is all The back and forth motion of the lines and the spacing between them, allow for a sense of movement as we take in the sight of the poem itself. This connection of sight and motion seems to be a constant coupling for Eigner, who connects the language of sight with the language of movement. Especially with the examples above, we see connections in words like "reflecting," "dimmer," "sharpening," which all have to do with the process of sight. Things are reflected when light moves a certain way, sight becomes dimmer with distance and sharper with nearness. These connections to sight and movement imply that the two are somewhat inseparable. While the mobility of sight might seem to be a "small" thing in a world of great things in motion, in actuality, it is one of the most important things. He explains that they are so intertwined that one could not exist without the other; they are too "relative" to be separated. We naturally associate movement with things such as the "air," "trees," "sky," and "sea," and he connects their movement to the mobility of vision with words like "views," "transparent," "visible," and "reflecting." However, even within the rich environment of sight and movement that he creates, the images of "windows," "frames," "hedges," even a "hard surface" imply that this richness is not a completely free richness. It is confined in an indefinite way that is so universal that not even the Earth can escape these confinements, but is rather moved by them. For Eigner, movement is confined, due to his experience of living in a wheelchair within the space of a room. His sight is also controlled by what he can see through this room's window. As Michael Davidson points out in "Missing Larry: The Poetics of Disability in Larry Eigner," "the vantage from which he creates his page and watches the world is his room" (30). For him, movement and sight are always framed in some way. While the images of movement and the form of his lines create a type of release from frames, the paper still acts as frame to his writing and works as a another constraint. However, amidst all the frames, he points out that he is not the only one framed. By making the frame universal in his poetry, he equalizes himself. Everyone and everything is framed, but that constraint creates vision and mobility. Jennifer Bartlett finds a similar sense of creativity enabled by the constraint of her cerebral palsy in her poem "To be Crippled;" however, while Eigner accomplishes this by equalizing everyone, Bartlett accomplishes this by looking at the particular constraint of mobility through political framing. In a very similar form to Eigner, Bartlett uses the style of her lines to convey a sense of movement, as well as the imagery of looking through a window. She discusses her lack of movement and the supposed lack of power that implies. Where Eigner does not directly discuss the constraints of his mobility, Bartlett uses that constraint as a jumping off point for her poetry. In fact, she says in her poetics statement, "Exit through the Gift Shop," that her work "challenges" the negative "stereotypes and asks society to look at the misnomers they have applied to disability" (300). Her goal is to bring awareness of the particular mobility that is available to and the power that is held by people with disabilities. In "To be Crippled," Bartlett also begins with the framing image of the window: "to be crippled means to have a window / into the insanity of the able-bodied" (303). For her, the window acts as a lens to something more emotional. As if this was not power enough, she takes the perceived power of the socially and emotionally sane when she calls able-bodied people insane. Being "crippled" then, means being empowered. She is able to stand back and "see the world slowly and manically" (303) and judge it according to the power she holds. The word "manically" is an interesting word choice in contrast to the word "slow." "Manically" relates to the word "manic" which implies a sense of insanity, or an emotional frenzy, creating a feeling of emotionally hurried action. That action allows her to view the world from many different perspectives and not just one – she can be sane and insane – she has control and the power to create perception. This control gives her the power to do something with her perspectives. She has the ability to judge the world according to how she sees it, and the ability to see from different positions implies a kind of movement. This becomes apparent as she uses active verbs and line formation to create movement in relation to what she intends to do with her varying perspectives: to translate Like Eigner, Bartlett uses the form of her lines to give the reader a feeling of movement in direct relation to the sight of the words on the paper. Again, the sight she has into peoples' minds through the window (the frames of her disability), and the movement it takes to gain that sight become inseparable. As these things combine, Bartlett says that she gains an "access to people's fears" (303). The word "access" encapsulates not only the movement and power that Bartlett says is inherent to people with disabilities, but also incorporates the political pressures of whether "crippled" people are being given equal access. Through this, we come to the conclusion that the insanity of people's fears about disability are within the control of the person with the disability – she has direct access to how her disability is perceived. She is able to reach inside the minds of others and understand something they might not, (an access perhaps a little more 'fearsome' than people with disabilities having access to public places). Bartlett not only has access to that part of the mind that holds the window through which she is perceived, but she can manipulate that perception through her poem. Access to psychological sight is the mobility that Bartlett uses, and this mobility gives her a certain sight that empowers, rather than equalizes, something that seems to be more Eigner's goal. In the same way, these two poets use frames not only for their own creative constraint, but also as a means of explaining or understanding others. In her book, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disabilities in American Culture and Literature, Rosemary Garland Thomson incorporates this same word "frame" to describe the way our culture tends to view disability. She states that we need to "alter the terms and expand our understanding of the cultural construction of bodies and identity by reframing 'disability'" (5). In doing so, she claims that we can "unravel the complexities of identity production within social narratives of bodily differences" (5). The idea that we need to "reframe" stems, necessarily, from the notion that an original framing has already occurred. Garland asserts here, much like Eigner and Bartlett, that there is not a way to escape framing, only to resituate it – to mobilize it. Movement only occurs through framing – through a certain type of constraint that allows creativity to negotiate re-situation. Through this confinement we are able to grasp the complexity of the social narrative – the story – the poetry. Moreover, Thomson suggests that there is a particular way to accomplish this "reframing": "In accordance with postmodernism's premise that the margin constitutes the center, I probe the peripheral so as to view the whole in a fresh way" (5-6). Her constant use of words associated with sight in relation to position, such as "margin," "view," and "peripheral" connects sight and mobility once again. Through the constant association of sight and mobility within a frame, these poets succeed in creating a type of mobile vision in their poetry. By doing so, they initiate a new idea and a new way of the thinking – reframing the world's views of people with disabilities. For Eigner and Bartlett, framing or constraint provides them with a unique focus to their poetry and consequently their position outside of their poetry. Thomson says, "if we accept the convention that fiction has some mimetic relation to life, we grant it power to further shape our perceptions of the world" (10). Our perception, or sight, is shaped by the movement fiction has in relation to our world and our life around us. If fiction mirrors or mimics our own life, than we are giving that fiction a certain amount of control in framing our sight. In the case of poetry, the mimetic nature is even more potent and framed as it is physically constrained by the line structure and it ultimately relates back to something emotional: an interior rather than exterior point of reference. The process of writing about our life or our perceptions becomes a process of framing and reframing. Bartlett says, "To be crippled means to have a window" (303), and within this conversation Eigner seems to reply, "If the earth were an eye / disembodied or not / there would still be frames" (33). Perhaps, then, the synthesis of meaning in this poetry that tends to get lost in the margins is that constraint exists, regardless of our perceptions, or how we see it, but what is important is how we use that constraint. For Eigner and Bartlett the use of constraint or framing is creative and complex: they use it to equalize and empower; yet, somehow, the message seems clear that this verb, this action could not occur without the existence of frames.
Works Cited Bartlett, Jennifer. "Exit through the Gift Shop." Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability.
Ed. Jennifer Bartlett, Sheila Black, and Michael Northen. El Paso: Cinco Puntos Press, 2011. Print. 299-300.
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