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So many of the metaphors we use that come from the body and bodily experience are ableist and predicated upon a notion of “normal.” In educational systems, that idea of “normal” has led to serious accessibility issues, to separate and unequal classrooms.
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The term “invisible disability” is commonly used to describe disabilities that are not readily apparent to the eye, but I want to push back on this term. When you pay close attention, most disabilities become visible. Poems are not encoded messages that we’re meant to decipher, I frequently remind my students, they are language organized in ways that demand a different kind of attention. And so it is with invisible disabilities . . .
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Education is perhaps the most vulnerable and intimate experience people can have with each other that is not familial or romantic. It’s so easy for the classroom to be either harmful—consider the destruction of a person’s curiosity and confidence in learning is muddled by shame or helplessness— or transformative when done well—empowering a student to […]
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It’s always been ground glass, scraping against my insides. I imagine a light held to the place where I open would illuminate a mess of torn flesh, throbbing red-wet.
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James Tate Hill discusses his new memoir, BLIND MAN’S BLUFF.
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Dr. M. Leona Godin discusses her new book, THERE PLANT EYES.
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“We wanted to give voice to people who are often spoken for.”
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My hands grow cold and rigid. In those blue-tinged palms, I can see my future.
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Gina Frangello discusses her debut memoir, BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN.
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torrin a. greathouse discusses her debut collection, WOUND FROM THE MOUTH OF A WOUND.
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What Taussig does, then, is ground these ideas in reality through her own lived experiences.
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The realm of sound yields to me, sits at my feet. I can switch on. Or not.
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Amy Long discusses her debut book, CODEPENDENCE.
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“I like to tell my secrets.”
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Abi Palmer discusses her new book, SANATORIUM.
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Molly McCully Brown and Susannah Nevison discuss their work.
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Sejal Shah discusses her debut essay collection, THIS IS ONE WAY TO DANCE.
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The rage and frustration overwhelmed all rational thought.
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This may be a reclamation story.
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“What does disabled look like?”
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Keah Brown discusses her debut essay collection, THE PRETTY ONE.
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This is how to be sick, or hurt: give up on fast time.
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Lisa Lenzo discusses her new story collection, UNBLINKING.
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Franny Choi discusses her second collection, SOFT SCIENCE.
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The child is born of them, yet is other to them; they work on behalf, and yet despite, and also against her.
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“All in all, it took six years—one year of preparing and marinating, two years of drafting, then three years of revising!”
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Ilya Kaminsky discusses his new collection, DEAF REPUBLIC.
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“Stories have a power science doesn’t.”
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Sarah Fawn Montgomery discusses her debut memoir, QUITE MAD.
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