August 2023
Zoeglossia Poem of the Week Series: On Navigating Love & Disability Across North America
Curated By Kimberly Jae
"We are all the best versions of ourselves when we have love and acceptance in our lives."
~ Dianna Agron
Whether one has lived with disability since birth, or as I did, woke up one morning to find yourself suddenly disabled, we have quickly learned that the able-bodied world views us through a different lens. There is a hierarchy to the disability identity. Visibly disabled people deemed to have suffered more than invisibly disabled people. Physically disabled people to have more value than a person with a mental health disability. In all of this, many abled bodied people do not think of us as loveable, rather we are thought as victims. We are thought of in terms of pity. This month’s Poem of the Week series, On Navigating Love & Disability Across North America, attempts to challenge and push back on those stereotypes.
In my travels across poetry slam scenes around the world, both abled bodied and not, I have met many styles of slam poet. Beginning my Slam Poetry career in Baltimore, I was accustomed to a specific sound of poetry, the Baltimore Style of Slam Poetry. Competing in international competitions, in Canada, virtually in the UK and New Zealand, meeting poets from around the word, I have been blessed to hear so many different styles of poetry and of performance. I have slammed against someone in New Zealand (who I would end up slamming against in the UK as well) who did a poem about a dying roach. And it was phenomenal. I heard a poem performed in Canada in the voice of a Cookie Monster-esque character. And it was phenomenal. I have seen a poet use their body to personify the way their medication turned them into a bot. And it too was phenomenal. So, for this month, I not only want to tackle the stereotypes about love and acceptance within the disabled community, but to also bring poets with disabilities I have met in my world poetry travels to the Zoeglossia audience.
I am beyond honored to feature the work of Lisa Shen (Canada) (Aug. 6), Merrick Soleil (USA) (Aug. 13), and Charlie Petch (Canada) (Aug. 20). These accomplished, published writers, a mix of award winning, performance artists, slam poets, and visual artists, have crafted poems of their take on love and acceptance through the lens of their life and disability. They bring their voices and their styles. Their experiences. They explore these motifs not in the box we are often placed in, a lens of pity, but through their authentic experiences. It is the goal of this month’s series to convey that we love. That everyone yearns for acceptance, including us. That we find acceptance within ourselves first. And you, dear reader, I strive for you to finish this series and see us not as a structured box of victimhood, full of stereotypes but as living, breathing humans who live, love, experience, hurt, grow, heal regardless of any brokenness our bodies may have.