Disability Poems - Poetry Relating to Disabilities and Health
The Disabled World Disability Poems section is an area where non-disabled writers as well as writers with disabilities can submit their poems for publishing and exchanges of ideas. Poems in this category focus on disability and health issues.
When dealing with a disability, you look for things to hold onto. Sometimes words are all we have, and the words contained within poetry often help those with health issues and/or disabilities through hard times.
Disabled World seeks to help develop the field of disability literature by publishing and promoting poetry by poets with disabilities and poems that counteract stereotypes about disability. In addition Disabled World invites work that discusses poetry from a disability perspective or further addresses themes related to disability and contributes to the development of the field of disability literature and poetry.
Jim Ferris - A Poet with Disability:
Jim Ferris is an award-winning poet and disability studies scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ferris is cited as saying that he was a “defective child” who found himself in a “system intent on ‘fixing’ him.” This included surgery and rehabilitation meant to correct his disability. Ferris has written multiple books and essays, including “Hospital Poems” and “The Enjambed Body.” Some of his writings have received awards, including fellowship awards from the Wisconsin Arts Board.
His book The Hospital Poems is about his boyhood experiences at a charity hospital for children with disabilities. He has been a musician, performance artist, director, playwright, and actor, performing from the West Coast to the East, from Texas to Canada. Ferris, who has a congenital leg impairment, is past president of the Society for Disability Studies, the leading international scholarly organization in disability studies. At the University of Wisconsin, he supervises the instructional staff in speech composition. A winner of multiple teaching awards, Ferris teaches courses in communication arts and disability studies.
A short poem by Jimmy Burns
wounded and disabled
asleep in dusty anthology
slumber until awoken by
reader.
From a recent article on the Wordgathering website:
"Disability poetry can be recognized by several characteristics: a challenge to stereotypes and an insistence on self-definition; foregrounding of the perspective of people with disabilities; an emphasis on embodiment, especially atypical embodiment; and alternative techniques and poetics."
For the unitiated or those who just want to try get a basic grasp of what disability poetry is and what it seeks to offer, the poems listed below are a good place to start. If you would like to have your poem(s) included in this category please contact us
Articles
| Pub. Date | Topic | Author |
|---|---|---|
| 2011-12-20 | Did Elizabeth Barrett Browning Have Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis | Penn State |
| 2011-06-10 | Please Don't Stare - Poem | ebb |
| 2011-05-19 | I'll Try Anything Once - Poem | Liz Whiteacre |
| 2011-05-19 | It's for My Own Good - Poem | Liz Whiteacre |
| 2011-03-28 | Poetry Book Guides Readers on Journey of Self-Discovery | Ramona Harvey |
| 2011-02-26 | I Am Not - A Poem by Sheila Radziewicz | Sheila Radziewicz |
| 2011-01-21 | Singing in the Shower - Poem | Kenneth Nye |
| 2011-01-20 | If I Live to be an Old Man - Poem | Kenneth Nye |
| 2011-01-20 | In Sickness and in Health | Kenneth Nye |
| 2010-12-30 | I Will Win - A Poem About Parkinson’s Disease Diagnosis | Kenneth Nye |
| 2010-07-18 | The Boy Who Was Seen, Not His Wheels - Disability Poem | Michele Sutphin |
| 2010-05-06 | Let Me Try, God Does - Disability Poem - Disabled World | Michele Sutphin |
| 2010-04-19 | National Poetry Contest Winners - Disability in the Workplace | Fedcap |
| 2010-03-17 | My Father's Blind Son - Ron Graham - Disability Poetry | Ron Graham |
| 2009-09-28 | Autism and Journey - Someday Soon | Thomas C. Weiss |
- Jim Ferris Poetry Speaks - Video clip of Jim Ferris reading at Poetry Speaks at the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library on October 19, 2010.
- Women With Disabilities Australia - Poetry - Carolyn Frohmader for Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA) provides a collection of poems by women with disabilities.
