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Overview
Through public judgments, detouring dreams and unspoken prayers, Tell Them It Was Mozart, Angeline Schellenberg's debut collection, traces both a slow bonding and the emergence of a defiant humour. This is a book that keens and cherishes, a work full of the earthiness and transcendence of mother-love. One of the pleasures of this collection is its playful range of forms: there are erasure poems, prose poems, lists, found poems, laments, odes, monologues and dialogues in the voices of the children, even an oulipo that deconstructs the DSM definition of autism. From a newborn "glossed and quivering" to a child conquering the fear of strange toilets, Tell Them It Was Mozart is bracing in its honesty, healing in its jubilance.
Michelangelo slept in his clothes and seldom ate Newton lectured to empty rooms at scheduled times if no one showed up to hear himOnly staying where room numbers were divisible by three, Tesla tested turbines in his mind, would not touch round objectsCharles Darwin formulated the theory of natural selection, the foundation for our understanding of the diversity of life on earth: advantageous traits survive Mozart meowed on tables — from "Posthumously diagnosed"
Praise for Tell Them It Was Mozart: "By turns, Angeline Schellenberg's words are blunt, musical, unflinching, transcendent. Her speaker raises two children on the autism spectrum, but she is never a martyr, never a victim, never a saint. Schellenberg has drawn a woman who turns the experience inside out — finding its humour, its turbulence, and ultimately, its joy." — Kimmy Beach
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781771314428 |
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Publisher: | Brick Books |
Publication date: | 09/01/2016 |
Pages: | 128 |
Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
I Rhythmically, in the Dark
1980 El Camino 3
X 4
The Hopes and Fears of All the Years 6
Our Garden of Thorns 7
The Test 9
Clue 10
Freshman Reading 11
Family Ties 12
Rail coach 13
Ultrasound 14
Labour 16
It's a Boy 17
While You Churned 18
I was never diagnosed 19
The Nature of Nurture 20
My Undoing 21
Watching Him Sleep 1 22
The Runaway Housewife at One a.m. 23
When I Knew I Loved You 24
Interior Lighting 25
Your First Year 26
Crossing that Bridge 27
The Diminutive Professor Takes Off 28
Purple Squirrel! 29
The Runaway Housewife at Two p.m. 30
Your greatest fear 31
Vaccination 32
Watching Him Sleep 2 33
Echolalia (the Monologue) 34
The Imaginative Child Takes a Bath 36
The Diminutive Professor Visits the Duck Pond 37
Saints 38
Pain Threshold 39
II It's Not What They Say
The Diminutive Professor Takes a Walk 43
Cycle-ogy 1 44
The Little Hand Is at the One 45
Why I Am Honest with the Therapist about My Part-Time Job, Waffle Makers, and Bon Jovi 46
You Must Believe in Life after Yesterday 47
Certainty 48
Cycle-ogy 2 49
I Am a Refrigerator Mother 50
Clone 51
Beyond Words 52
We Leave with a Label 53
Absorbed 54
Autism for Dummies 1 55
The Other You 57
Drug Trial 58
Cycle-ogy 3 59
What Doctors Took Seven Years to Discover 60
DSM-5: Aphorism Speculum Disorder (ASD) 61
Waving 63
We Leave with a Sticker Chart 64
Support Group 1 65
The Diminutive Professor Takes Summer Vacation 66
Autism for Dummies 2 67
The "Building Blocks of Attachment" Program 68
It's Not What They Say 69
The Imaginative Child Contemplates a Drug Bust 70
What I Told the School Division Bigwig in My Head after the Meeting 71
High 72
Echolalia (the Sibling Dialogue) 73
New Year's Eve Fireworks at the Forks 75
Vasectomy 76
(Sic) 77
To Make an Aspie 78
The Imaginative Child Gets a Dog 79
Zoo 80
Parents' Weekend Off 81
Delayed 82
Unable to Show Grief 83
What Happened after He Coloured Outside the Line 84
The Imaginative Child Breaks a Leg 85
For Us 86
Support Group 2 87
III For Good
This morning you feel a crackle 91
The Diminutive Professor Has a Party 92
Autism for Dummies 3 93
The Imaginative Child Aces Grade Three Math 94
Butterflies 95
Support Group 3 96
Pillow Talk 97
Campground Shower 98
Camping 99
The Imaginative Child Storms the Beach 100
Corporophobia: the Fear of Strange Toilets 101
Taste and See 102
Faith 104
The Diminutive Professor Stays Close 105
Posthumously Diagnosed 106
Fortune Cookies 107
My Front Row Seat 108
Echolalia (the Sibling Rivalry) 109
I Choose You 110
Support Group 4 111
To Make a More Imperfect Person 112
Anything Besides 113
The Imaginative Child Goes to Bed 114
Confession 115
Notes 119
Thank You 122