Wordgathering

A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature
 

Volume 11     Issue 3     September 2017

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Essays in this Issue

This issue of Wordgathering offers one of the most unique essays that readers are likely to encounter for a while. From his standpoint as a Deaf/Blind write John Lee Clark’s "Distantism" challenges the position of vision as normative starting point for personal interaction, charging able-bodied readers and some disabled ones, to re-examine the implications of their default assumptions. Two other loosely related essay’s are Tasha Chemel’s examinations how ableism creeps in even in fundraising for the Perkins School for the Blind and Sean Toner’s more personal essay on the the feeling of isolation being blind brings even within a family. Timothy Allen and Lorna McGinnis both contribute narrative essays on a childhood experience that helped to shape them as adults. Finally, Victoria Lee Khatoon follows up with part two of her essay from the June issue of Wordgathering on the ways that writing formal poetry are useful to her in helping to deal with issues of violence.

• Timothy Allen, Debating in Quicksand
• Tasha Chemel, Fundraising Without the Freak Show
• John Lee Clark, Distantism
• Victoria Lee Khatoon, Go Gentle: Engaging Poetic Forms to Access What Cannot Be Contained, in Conversation with Dylan Thomas - Part 2
• Lorna McGinnis, Arms Open
• Sean Toner, Immaterial

Most of the essayists in this issue have published work previously in this journal. To read more of their work simply click on the "Authors Index" and search under essays. Wordgathering invites the submissions of literary essays, particularly those that help establish disability literature as a field of study. Essays on the work of other writers with disabilities are especially desirable. Queries can be addressed to comments@wordgathering.com.

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