Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability

by Sheila Black (Editor), Jennifer Bartlett (Editor), Michael Northen (Editor)

Overview

A ground-breaking anthology that will bring fresh understanding to the American experience of poetry, beauty, the body, and disability.

Beauty is a Verb is a ground-breaking anthology of disability poetry, essays on disability, and writings on the poetics of both.

Crip Poetry.

Disability Poetry.

Poems with Disabilities.

This is where poetry and disability intersect, overlap, collide and make peace.

For the reader of good poetry interested in the diversity of American expression, this anthology provides an understanding of the history and contemporary vitality of the poetry and poetics of the non-normative body.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935955054
Publisher:	Lee & Low Books
Publication date:	10/11/2011
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	677,572
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Sheila Black is the author of over 40 books for children and young adults as well as the author of two poetry collections and two chapbooks. Black was chosen as one of the 2012 Witter Bynner fellowship recipients. She was born with X-Linked Hypophosphatemia (XLH), a rare genetic bone condition, often called Vitamin D Resistant Rickets. Two of her three children also have XLH.

Jennifer Bartlett was a 2005 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow. Her publications include Derivative of the Moving Image (UNM Press 2005), (a) lullaby without any music (Chax 2011), and Anti-Autobiography (Saint Elizabeth Street / Youth-in-Asia Press 2010). Bartlett is a cofounder of Zoeglossia, which is a literary organization that acts as a community for poets with disabilities.

Michael Northen edits Wordgathering, A Journal of Disability and Poetry and coordinates the annual Inglis House Poetry Contest for disability-related poetry. For over 40 years, he has taught adults with physical disabilities, women on public assistance, prisoners, and rural and inner city children.

Read an Excerpt

From "Poems with Disabilities" by Jim Ferris:

I'm sorry—this space is reserved

for poems with disabilities. I know

it's one of the best spaces in the book,

but the Poems with Disabilities Act

requires us to make all reasonable

accommodations for poems that aren't

normal. There is a nice space just

a few pages over—in fact (don't

tell anyone) I think it's better

than this one, I myself prefer it.

Actually I don't see any of those

poems right now myself, but you never know

when one might show up, so we have to keep

this space open. You can't always tell

just from looking at them either. Sometimes

they'll look just like a regular poem

when they roll in—you're reading along

and suddenly everything

changes, the world tilts

a little, angle of vision

jumps, your entrails aren't

where you left them. You

remember your aunt died

of cancer at just your age

and maybe yesterday's twinge means

something after all. Your sloppy, fragile heart beats

a little faster

and then you know.

You just know: the poem

is right

where it

belongs.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This powerful anthology attempts to — and succeeds at — intimately showing … disability through the lenses of poetry … What emerges from the book as a whole is a stunningly diverse array of conceptions of self and other.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review

“[Beauty is a Verb] is going to be one of the defining collections of the 21st century … the discourse between ability, identity & poetry will never be the same." — Ron Silliman, author of In the American Tree

“A groundbreaking collection, bringing together those, like Larry Eigner and Josephine Miles…and powerful new voices, like Amber DiPietra and Rusty Morrison. As the poets and poems speak to — and sometimes argue with — one another, we see a new strain of poetry growing before or eyes. The effect is far more than cumulative: it is astonishing.” — Anne Finger, author of Elegy for a Disease

"This is a sensational, stunning book — one of the best literary collections in a very long time. We are speaking about powerful writing changing us — readers of Beauty is a Verb will be mightily, irrevocably altered and enlarged — in ways we deeply need to be. Thank you authors and editors for a brilliant anthology." — Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Fuel

"Revelatory, provocative, harrowing, and bold, the poems are also accompanied by personal essays that create thresholds into each poet’s whys and wherefores. These voices range from the specific and personal to the abstract and philosophical, sweeping any reader — including the temporarily able — into the profoundest questions of how to live." — Molly Peacock, author of The Paper Garden

"Immerse yourself in muscular poems of tenderness and intensity, intimate poems of eloquence and bluntness, profound poems that present disability's difficulty, challenge, and pride — all the while exploring the triumph of the human condition." — Marie Kane, author of Survivors in the Garden

“[T]his insightful new collection deserves the widest audience possible.” — NewPages Book Review

Editorial Reviews

* "This powerful anthology attempts to—and succeeds at—intimately showing...disability through the lenses of poetry...What emerges from the book as a whole is a stunningly diverse array of conceptions of self and other." — Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A groundbreaking collection, bringing together those, like Larry Eigner and Josephine Miles...and powerful new voices, like Amber DiPietra and Rusty Morrison. As the poets and poems speak to—and sometimes argue with—one another, we see a new strain of poetry growing before or eyes. The effect is far more than cumulative: it is astonishing." — Anne Finger, author of Elegy for a Disease

"This is a sensational, stunning book—one of the best literary collections in a very long time. We are speaking about powerful writing changing us—readers of Beauty Is a Verb will be mightily, irrevocably altered and enlarged—in ways we deeply need to be. Thank you authors and editors for a brilliant anthology." — Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Fuel

"Revelatory, provocative, harrowing, and bold, the poems are also accompanied by personal essays that create thresholds into each poet's whys and wherefores. These voices range from the specific and personal to the abstract and philosophical, sweeping any reader—including the temporarily able—into the profoundest questions of how to live." — Molly Peacock, author of The Paper Garden

"Immerse yourself in muscular poems of tenderness and intensity, intimate poems of eloquence and bluntness, profound poems that present disability's difficulty, challenge, and pride—all the while exploring the triumph of the human condition" — Marie Kane, author of Survivors in the Garden

"[Beauty is a Verb] is going to be one of the defining collections of the 21st century... the discourse between ability, identity & poetry will never be the same." — Ron Silliman, author of In The American Tree

Notable Books for Adults - American Library Association (ALA)

From the Publisher