Beauty is a Verb: Publisher's Weekly Review!

 Beauty Is A Verb: 
The New Poetry of Disability

Edited by Jennifer Bartlett, Sheila Black and Michael Northen. Cinco Puntos (Consortium, dist.), $19.95 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-935955-05-4

This powerful anthology attempts to—and succeeds at—intimately showing (meaning, at various times and among many other aims, sharing the experience of, defining the self in terms of, refusing to define the self in terms of, trying to define, exploring the indefiniteness of) disability through the lenses of poetry. According to the editors’ preface, “we include not only poets who created and embrace the disability/ crip poetics movement but also those who might resist such a classification and have never been considered in that exact context.” Indeed, some readers and writers may strongly resist the idea of disability as a context for gathering poems, though what emerges from the book as a whole is a stunningly diverse array of conceptions of self and other. There are no simple truths here. Jim Ferris insists readers “Look with care, look deep./ You know you are a cripple too. / I sing for cripples; I sing for you.” The poet and novelist Jillian Weise bucks at the “disability poetics” banner in an essay in which she says “I…find it discouraging that these first efforts are essentializing, seeking to brand a common disabled experience.” Coming from across the aesthetic spectrum, these poets and poems demonstrate the deep truth of what Vassar Millar writes in a poem anthologized here: “No man’s sickness has a synonym.” (Sept.)

Beauty is a Verb

For the past year, I have been working on a project that I haven't been entirely forthcoming on. The internet turns my mind to mush, so I haven't been blogging for about two years. I weaned myself off facebook, and, now, although I technically exist there - I made a password that I don't have written down or memorized - and my email (from facebook) goes to an account that no longer exists.

Well, what have I been doing for two years - other that raising children and animals, talking on the phone, yoga, and reading Duncan? I just returned from 'the best summer ever' in Portland, Oregon. After that I got prepared for a hurricane. Now, I have an exciting backyard full of sand!

But, primarily, I've been doing THIS. Beauty is a Verb is the new anthology of poets with physical disabilities that Sheila Black, Michael Northen & I spent the latter portion of the last year compiling. As I write this, the anthology (published by Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso) is at the printer. While not comprehensive, the idea behind the anthology is a complex one dealing with disability from many angles. Poets included are Norma Cole, Jim Ferris, Rusty Morrison, Bernadette Mayer, Petra Kuppers, Denise Leto, Larry Eigner, and many others. Shortly, I'll be posting the Preface from the collection which explains (more or less) what we had in mind. We have readings coming up in Albuquerque, Los Cruces, Berkley, New York, and Philidelphia. We will also be representing at next year's AWP.

I've been doing a couple of other things too - I quit teaching (for good). I have a collection forthcoming from Chax in October! And I've been making drawing books of an addition of one which tell the story of a life. Right now, I working on Andrea's book & Jeff's book.

Meanwhile I have poems in Sam Lohmann's Peaches and Bats, James Yeary's ever name changing newsletter, and Michael Northen's Wordgathering.