Remaking the World: Poetry and Disability

I'm sure these are lovely poems. But does everything in the Times have to be steeped in identity politics? I'm so tired of this era we are living in.

Thank you, Ms. Bartlett. I loved reading these wonderful poems, and looking at these visual works. What a beautiful way to end my day.

What is one life worth? An innocent child in a world they trust. One minute laughing on a bus. The next covered in blood and shrapnel. USA saying “we got this” We’re sending a General to investigate. Investigate our own crime As the bomb was marked “made in USA”

The problem with poetry is that too many people think that they can write. All Art is self expression; all self expression is not Art. Cavafy, yes; a commentator here, no. Let me try again: Auden, yes!Billy Collins, No.

One of the greatest poets was Fannie Crosby. Few know she was blind; many sing her songs on Sunday.

What a welcome sight. I like the idea of a set of poems with commentary being published here in the NYT. I look forward to seeing more of this.

The reality is that these poets can compete one-to-one with the poets of the academic literary establishment who have their lives feather-bedded with tenured sinecures and scratch each others' backs with reviews and reciprocal sabbaticals. Let's make poetry a universal and not a university gate-kept rort or scam.

How eloquent a way to show why poetry is the perfect literary vehicle to use when limning large the realities of our world - those that are hidden in subtexts and the others that aren't hidden but are difficult to describe by anyone but poets, those word-wizards who seem able to find the essence the rest of us somehow miss. I know these poems are showcasing poets with disabilities but, I had to keep reminding myself of that - these are just really good poets.

Ms. Bartlett, your's is a perfectly valid description of the meaning and value of poetry in our worlds, but I do not feel that it is the only one. Viewed at a more fundamental level, poetry and other art forms provide richer deeper ways of expressing our thoughts to others as well as to ourselves. As such, it becomes easy to see how poetry is therapeutic, just as painting, making music or performing math. Thanks goodness for people like yourself whose unique capabilities are there to redefine and mitigate your struggles with the world and to delight the many readers, viewers and listeners. It's very Buddhist.

Am a Hospice Nurse who is retiring (after fifty years!) on 17 August 2018. Have VERY much enjoyed poetry since mother taught me to read (at age three). The poem by Lateef Mcleod "I Am Too Pretty For Some Ugly Laws" brought me to tears, but I LOVED it.

POETRY "For many of us, poetry is a way of 'being in the world, a world that in many ways was not made for us and actively resists our participation. Through poetry, we are able to remake and reinvent that world." -- Jennifer Bartlett THAT in itself is a deeply beautiful poem.

What makes a poem is conveying, without necessarily combining, one’s experience as both participant in and observer of the world.

Thank you!!! Sometimes you forget what is missing. Thank you!!!

Poetry is so esoteric. To appreciate is Divine. Nuance is a gift. It's so sad that an American President cannot understand nuance. Dyslexic, he actually celebrates his handicap. He is truly Disabled. Hooray for all Poets who make life sustainable.

The commentary is closed, so these words: Travelling on sea the wind blows on my face the sparkling waters all around never changed direction you can´t reach on your own ego concentrated not to lose inner bounding and listen the to the words of soul and and be there for those who are listeners while forgetting the melody (lyric-poetry and gift to the man who was, is and will be allways Jew and jewish! --- Mr. Bob Dylan)

Disabled people see the world before the rest of man awakes Truth does not hide under a blanket Some say ignorance is bliss The words of the seer say otherwise My world, is my mind, my strength; the key to my soul's work.

One cannot speak of poetry but with poem I own the language - all of it sublime to ugly beautiful to obscene angel choirs savage filth All words from guttural grunt to the 99 names of god old words short words that forever instant squeak snarl sigh I own, but it owns The dark of night-blinding light The storm beating the roof, hammering the heart It takes me sometimes with unspeakable joy sometimes with exquisite pain sometimes with consuming rage sometimes with peace, such sweet peace I hear it out there - in there - round there - over there Tongue owns life It is voice There is no poem beyond the utterance of this animal. We are noise borne in that vast silence. 18.08.15 32.3790292 -112.859310 EL 1726: 85° 57%

“He who shall train the Horse to War Shall never pass the Polar Bar. The Beggar’s Dog and Widow’s Cat, Feed them and thou wilt grow fat. The Gnat that sings his Summer song Poison gets from Slander’s tongue. The poison of the Snake and Newt Is the sweat of Envy’s Foot. A truth that’s told with bad intent Beats all the Lies you can invent. It is right it should be so; Man was made for Joy and Woe; And when this we rightly know Thro’ the World we safely go.” -William Blake, from ‘Auguries of Innocence’

Absolutely wonderful paintings, drawings, and poems. This column should publish these works of visual and verbal art several times a year. That red and black painting ("Owl") jumped off the screen at me. Do this again, maybe every four months. What a pleasure.

"Remaking the World: Poetry and Disability" has interested me in The Times this week as well because I myself am a poet and what i found within the article has allowed me to change my perspective on the following: The author writes, "For many of us, it is also a way of "being in the world,” a world that in many ways was not made for us and actively resists our participation." In personal experience, I began writing because I couldn’t speak. The amount I had to say, and still have to say, I may add, is unbelievable. I have thought through situations my whole life, pictured outcomes and responses and practiced wording each word that I would say so carefully as not to mess up when it was time to say what I needed to say. And yet even after all of the practice, I still couldn’t bring myself to say what I not only wanted to say, but what needed to be said. And so I was lucky enough to find writing and poetry, in which I have found an outlet as to get my thoughts and words out there that are so hard for me to speak. Everything I can’t say, I write. Whether it’s from political opinion to painting out past experience to falling in love, I write all of it. My perspective after reading this article has changed in that I no longer see poetry as just an escape from the fear of not being able to speak, but I now see it in a new light. A light in which everybody can express themselves, no matter who they are. The disabled as a whole have been silenced for too long—This is their time.

Nothing makes me more hopeful than people making stuff. Poems, visual art, music, pottery, textile arts, any art. As long as we have the ability and the will to contemplate and frame our experience in art, we can only get kinder and more empathetic as a species. I choose to believe that, anyway.

"Poetry Is a Way of Being in the World That Wasn’t Made for Us" That is as powerful a headline as I have ever seen. I am born from a family which lived and resonates "What passing bells for these who die as cattle?" Living up to the name awarded me, and not previously fully used, has been harder than I ever thought possible. Harder as age creeps ahead thrice the length of its origins. I could, I suppose, have just forgotten the original owner of my name; my father's older brother. But that would go against everything that I was taught and hence all that I believe. "If ye break faith with us who die/We shall not sleep." And they are allowed sleep. They earned it more than most. Thank you for this piece. It brings a "silence hung that 'eavy you is 'arf afraid to speak."

Bartlett: "... poetry is the most organic art form; it does not require money or physical labor." The same could be said of plays and novels. Further, poets need some way to record their work, whether it is with paper and pencil, a computer, or a smartphone. Bartlett: "A poem doesn’t need to follow any particular grammar rules;" OK, but it has to follow some "rules" or it wouldn't be poetry: "poetry: 1 Literary work in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm; poems collectively or as a genre of literature." (Oxford) "poetry: 2 : writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm" (Merriam-Webster) Bartlett: "it is the record of one’s own experience of the singular mind and/or body, a singular voice." It's possible to collaborate on poetry. Further, computers can write poetry.

Thank you. This is beautiful, refreshing and multidimensional. I love the mixture of art and word which lends an even extra-textural spirituality to this presentation. You give me a much needed lift today, dear artists.

Thank you to all the poets who shared their work on this piece. I write too and, while I'm not handicapped, I do have a handicapped brother whom I write about. Sometimes the poetry is serious but most often it's humorous. I find that poetry lets me put into words feelings that need to be expressed but cannot be said to too many people.

I wish you had explained why you mixed poems with pictures and on what basis each was chosen and whether they are meant to correlate.

This all kinds of awesome. It warms my heart to see these works out there for all to read. I was privilege to be in "Toward Solomon's Mountain: The Experience of Disability in Poetry" – May 1, 1986 - Below us the link. https://www.amazon.com/Toward-Solomons-Mountain-Experience-Disability/dp...

Many, many thanks for this wonderful digital zine full of poems and art! I live with mast cell disease and am continually trying to find the balance between what I want to do and what I can do, so this work holds extra meaning for me. I am a college instructor and will not easily forget the end of Jennifer Bartlett's poem: "...Timothy walked me up the street/as if I were not a professor, but a child/dragging her feet on the first day of school." I can relate to that feeling. Just recently, I learned that the bumps on my face are a new form of my chronic illness. This week I've been pondering the way it's changed from an invisible illness into a visible illness (the kind that might deem me unsuitable for the streets, as in Lateef McLeod's poem). I've gotten the looks that say, "You're not doing it right"--people assuming things about me without knowing who I am. Very grateful to the NYTimes this morning.

Thank you for writing about and reminding us what is important.

It's awesome that poetry is a pure form of expression and creativity of the human soul or spirit. But we should only focus on excellence regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, social status, or disability.

Wonderful to read poems in a daily newspaper, and these are alert and moving. Thank you to the poets, and thank you to the NY Times. Not sure why the artwork needs to be explained, however. Why not let readers bring what they can to the seeing and perceiving? Would you do the same with the poems, explain what they say, what they're about? I'm glad you did not.

An incredible way to start the day. I have gone on to read the Disability essays as well. As the father of an amazing son on the autism spectrum I say thank you.

Thank you for collecting and printing these beautiful poems and pictures. Thanks to the writers and artists for creating. You all have touched my heart.

This is wonderful and we need much more of this. It is not escapism but a journey into the lives of people trying to make the most of their lives. I especially appreciated the descriptions of the art appearing here as for me it is difficult to see them with my eyes. My heroes are Monet who created some of his greatest art while almost blind and Beethoven who in much of his life could not actually hear his work. There is such a wide range of what is called 'disability' and if we could get beyond this word we would see that everyone has their life path challenges of pain, suffering and loss. Loss actually only appears as a counterpoint to no longer possessing what we thought was permanent. I hunger for more of this NYT. Thank you.

It's so rare to see poetry in the news like this … loved the range of style & experience. The juxtaposition of art was a great approach.

Thank you for a wonderful potpourri of art and poetry, collected lovingly for the rest of us...in the hopes of being appreciated for their worth. Humanity is not made of the wonders of technological prowess, nor the rapacious need of some to elevate Greed to celestial heights....but of poetry, as simple as it sounds, redeeming us from our own failings and flaws galore. One more thing: disability may be in the eyes of the beholder. And there is no worse disability than the one that doesn't want to see, or hear, nor feel, the beauty of truth, and nature, the one arrogant enough to disregard our imagination to visualize art, and social justice, 'a la Trump'. So, while the world is "upside-down", we depend on your shared creativity to keep our sanity, even joy, in this extraordinary gift, and luck, of being alive in spite of the odds.

A better birthday gift I could not imagine. No apologies for existing here. Poems, paintings and collages of re-creation and re-possession. of self, spaces, languages and worlds. As devastating and complete a refutation of the Newtonian physics of the ableist worldview one could imagine. A dizzying quantum of beauty. Beauty is, indeed, a verb. Shook foil.

Simply smashing! Thank you!

I am Gail. Once I started reading at 5:30 am, I could not stop, though Melba is waiting for her walk. You breathe meaning into life, you brave, pure poets. Your art, you fine creators, leaves me longing to leap to a drawing table and just get started. Gracias.

Wonderful! More! More!

Isn’t all poetry about love, and loss? Thank you to these artists, who, like so many other poets and painters, give us such profound images of the experiences of love, and loss, that we all share, together.

Poetry is a gift. Too often underappreciated. Powerful. Read poetry every day and your life will be better for it. Thank you to these talented poets and to the New York Times for providing a platform for poetry and people with disabilities.

I love poetry - I am a writer and Poet also like many others. The wholy poetry is a secret of discover a world behind you can see. It´s the expression of inner world. Don´t relate too much wich high-rational analyzes .. about the words you are reading. Feel with, emphatize and search for the sence between the lines. It would be my pleasure to give over this way a few examples... soon! CONGRATULTAION for Sheila Black! ... and waiting on contact to create a network for poetry who have not this exclusive place in publicity!

Powerful and profound. With gratitude to all contributors.

A noble cause and uplifting in many ways. Congratulations. In particular Sheila Black's "Vivisection" hit something that prompted me to read more by this author (her "The Red Shoes" also struck a chord). Just one comment: in order to be able to fully appreciate the artwork in the illustrations, you should include measurements for scale. It matters.

Some terrific art and some terrific poems. I enjoyed this.

What extraordinarily powerful, beautiful, frightening, hopeful and brilliant poems, the lot of them. And the illustrations are wonderful. Thank you to all you talented people; I'm jealous.

Poetry in all directions. As diverse as the authors. Wonderful presentation. Thank you.

A wonderful addition to the morning paper. More meaningful than the hue and cry of many others.

Poetry always lifts me, and these gifts this morning from such talented artists and poets, are no exception. Thank you.

Thank you for this dose of beauty, wonder and meaning this morning. The art and words are most appreciated.