Michael Northen

LINDA A. CRONIN: A BACKWARDS GLANCE AT HER WORK

It is no secret that until recently in American literature, poets did not write about their disabilities. A few pioneering poets like Josephine Miles, Larry Eigner and Vasser Miller approached the subject obliquely or in a few poems, but it was not really until the passage of the ADA, that poets felt the freedom to put their experiences as writers with a disability front and center in their poems. Linda Cronin was one of these poets.

Linda's work first came to my attention during the annual Inglis House Poetry Contest run to solicit disability-related writing, particularly by poets who had disabilities themselves. Linda's work was precisely what those in the Inglis House Poetry Workshop were looking for – accessible poetry in which they could find their own experiences mirrored. Typical of her work was "In the Beginning."

For weeks, I try to conceal
the limp distorting my stride,
making it difficult to run during a recess,
to skip during lunchtime. Each doctor
my parents drag me to, specialist after
specialist demands to know when
I fell and twisted my foot. Did I jump
off my bed? Or down the stairs?
Not until my fingers start to swell,
inflating like tiny balloons,
does anyone suspect the truth.

The pediatrician, my doctor since
birth, first says the words,
rheumatoid arthritis, as a possibility.
Only seven, I hear their rhythm and sound,
awkward and unusual. I laugh at them
repeating them until my mother tells me
to stop. Those two words adhere to me.
A label lasting for years after the sound
of the voice fades, like a price sticker on glass
the residue remaining long after
the original disappears.

That day, perched like a bird ready to fly away,
I sit on the examining table in the tissue-thin paper gown,
too young to understand what's happening to me.
I imagine old people, white-haired and wrinkled,
smelling of peppermints and dust, stiff and cranky,
hobbling from place to place,
clutching their canes. Not seeing myself, my future,
the stiffness of my joints, the trouble
walking, running, the doctors' visits,
The needles. Not realizing
how my body would change,
ignoring me as I begged my legs
to work, my hands to bend and grip
my body betraying me,
turning on itself, attacking my bones
and joints until they disintegrate
into ashes and dust.

Each day presenting new challenges,
different battles than the day before:
climbing stairs of the school bus,
zipping me coat, brushing my hair.
As time passes, the memory of that
first day in the doctor's office fades,
erased by all the visits that follow.
Until years later, sitting in the park,
watching leaves fly through the air
like confetti, I recall those beginning days
And how lost I felt, tumbling
through space, uncertain where
I would land, and if I could find my way
through the crooked currents to come.

Linda did not simply write poetry but became involved in trying to help disability poetry become part of the literary map. I met her in April 2006 when she trekked down to Philadelphia at "Disability and Poetry: Unleashing the Art," the first ever daylong conference on disability and poetry. At that time, she had already become part of the editorial staff of Breath and Shadow, one of the country's two literary disability journals. She continued to be a regular participant in the annual poetry contest; her poem "Alone" even provided the title for the workshops 2009 poetry chapbook She Asks for Slippers While Pointing at the Salt:

Words slip from her mind
like raindrops tumbling from
storm clouds. Letters crumble
to the dirt. Signals misfire, nerves
tangle like pile-ups on the highway.
Plaque coats the fibers of her mind
like oil on the road. At first I laugh
as she asks for slippers while pointing
at the salt. Our conversations become
games of charades. I find her keys
in the freezer, and her milk on the porch
in ninety degree weather. Roads she drives
everyday become mazes with no answer
The day she calls me from the store
and doesn't know where home is, I take
her to my house. I call her Mother,
she asks, are you my sister? I
stop saying, Maria and your parents
are dead, after the day she cries herself
to sleep, whispering I am alone,
over and over.

During this time Linda continued to put all of her efforts into writing the kind of poetry that gave voice to her experiences as a disabled woman. While many other talented women writers with disabilities, tended to keep the poems that they wrote about that aspect of their lives to a minimum and concentrate on a wide variety of subjects for fear that they would be pegged as one-dimensional, Linda was unflinching in her desire to shine the light on that subject which she felt particularly qualified to address. The poems that resulted were eventually collected into her book Dream Bones.

In Dream Bones, Linda gave expression to the vacillating feelings that she experienced as a child and young adult growing up in the pre-ADA era, when having a disability relegated a girl to the margins of society. They reflect the conflict between wanting to be "normal" in a society that did not value her, and an attempt to accept her body and find her own kind of beauty,

In 2012, Linda joined the Wordgathering staff as one of its poetry editors where she was often an advocate for beginning writers and those whose work shorn of cliches about disability reflected much of what she was trying to achieve. It was a position that she continued in until her unexpected death in March of this year. Below is a selection of her work. The final poem, "Because It's Mine" was one of her last, one that lends her recent death an eerily predictive feel.

Fifth Grade Division

In the photo, I am only eleven
and so thin, like a translucent sheet of paper,
the light burning through so it nearly
disappears. My bones close to the surface,
like marble under the skin. My veins narrow,
blue rivers running throughout my body,
feeding the blood my heart pumps
to each finger and toe. My cheekbones
prominent, and my eyes huge in my gaunt face.
This was 1981, anorexia rarely mentioned,
but if it had been ten years later, the rumors
would be rampant. No one believing I wasn't
trying to be thin. I possessed no desire
for food, not even the sweets other children
craved. I became different in many ways.
A disease raged through my body
and destroyed the bones and joints.
I sat stuck on the sidelines during gym
and recess.

That year my class moved downstairs
because I couldn't climb the stairs. The year
of the "talk" when the teacher divided
the kids, each group following
its leader like the pied piper. We learned
about development and our monthly visitor,
as we whispered behind our hands, turned
our eyes from the nurse, and broke into giggles,
embarrassed to talk about our bodies.
Questions ran wild in our heads. We became
afraid we weren't normal, but no one dared
to raise their hand, to stand out
like the north star in the night sky. The nurse
never approached our biggest questions
about sex.

We all sat quietly as the boys filed in
and found their seats, never looking us
in the eye. Their faces bright red
as if they'd been playing soccer.
As soon as the lunch bell rang, we ran
for the lunchroom. The girls made a beeline
for a table by the windows while the boys
sat by the door. No longer united.
No more chatting about classes, friends,
sports, movies. The talk divided us
by our sexes, bonded us to our bodies,
and marked us by our differences.
I sat quietly, watching the other girls,
trying to fit in, afraid they would realize
I was different.

* * *

Flash Essay on: Beauty and the Beholder

The Spanish Romeo tries to flirt, although he cannot look at me as he tells me my name means pretty. His eyes rome above my head, search for somewhere safe to land, away from my twisted body. He does not want to see the curled and knotted joints rebelling against my name.

I want to reassure him, to say its all right. I have learned to accept this body that betrayed me, that continues to betray me each time another part fails. I want to tell him not to worry there is more to life than being pretty, being desired. I know the thoughts of touching my deformed joints repels him, but that's all right because I have come to love who I am, with my curves and bends in unexpected places.

I want him to know my body is not my prison, my soul soars through life free as an águila finding more love and beauty in the faces of strangers and the eyes of loved ones than he'll every know.

* * *

Dream Bones

In my dreams, I still see my bones
as they once were – long and lean,
stronger than the steel that now supports them.
They formed my body, graceful and slender,
racing across the blacktop
like a gazelle.
They shine like white marble
with a hint of icy blue,
the blue that appears
when some thing is too white,
so pure, it makes your teeth ache.
Now, my bones sway in the darkness
like wind branches in the wind,
without the strength to stand tall.
My limbs like rivers wander
this way and that,
without direction or purpose.
My bones crumble
under the daily stress and strain,
pressure chipping away at the surface
leaving a trail of crumbs behind.
Braces appear overnight,
like ivy clinging to the fence, thriving in spring.
And, like a scaffold on a decaying building,
they shore up bones too weak
to stand alone or support the body
dependent on them.
When the doctor compares x-rays and scans,
my bones seem to have vanished,
melted like vapor until only
a shadow remains.

* * *

Because It's Mine

There are days when I look in the mirror
and I hate what I see,
this clunker, this misshapen body that fails me time and again.
My face with its chipmunk cheeks and moon shape looms
over a neck that refuses to hold my head up high,
arms and legs that lack the muscle strength to get out of bed,
to dress myself and brush my hair, to climb the stairs.
Joints twisted and knotted,
the hollow bones crumbling
beneath the pressure of gravity, beneath my gaze.

I remember my fear when I woke from the last spine surgery,
unable to move, the respirator swallowing my pleas. You held my hand
and coaxed me through the terror. I fear there will come a day
when my body won't be strong enough
to keep fighting. When I won't wake up.

But you tell me, you see something I don't,
love this body I hate,
love my skin soft as feathers, my eyes the warm brown of chestnuts.
You tell me you see a woman with courage,
a body that fights its way through each day.
You tell me you love this body because it is mine.

There are days when I need
to believe I am
beautiful as my hands weaken and drop forkfuls of spaghetti on my lap,
as my legs stumble transferring me to a chair.
On those days I need to learn
to love my body just because it tries,
just because you do.

Michael Northen is the editor-in-chief of Wordgathering.