Saturday, December 09, 2006

The problems of a Disabled Poet

I have been doing a little research on poets with disabilities. I found a blog called Dispoet that's pretty good. But, really, there's just not much out there. I would argue that poets with disabilities are marginalized as much as people with disablities are in general society. The only poet I have on my shelve with a disability is the great Larry Eigner. To my knowledge, Eigner never wrote about having cerebral palsy -- but his poems are so much like I assume his body and breath to be - short and disjointed and labored. I have thought from time to that God would throw me a poetic bone because I'm a minority. Let's be real, as an artist you have to use all your chips. It seems grants exist for women, gays, and people of color who are artists. No such luck. Comprehensive research over the years has taught me that the only stuff for artists with disabilites is scary fluffy pat-on-the-head stuff. Oh, this makes me sad! I've even had poems rejected from magazines that highlight people with disablitities. Huh!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I agree. especially since i am a disabled woman in her mid 30s. When i walk out into the world, i know i will be treated like a leper.
Why do we allow these attitudes? you know we wouldn't allow them, if they were about african americans. when did we become 3/5's of a person?

Unknown said...

I don't know if you still check comments here, but I hope you do. I think there are tons of poets with disabilities out there. I'm one of them, and like me, there are many. Please check out my work at www.myspace.com/goddessonwheels

Love and Blessings,

The Goddess on Wheels
Maria R. Palacios