December 2023
Zoeglossia Poem of the Week Series: Finding the Body on the Page
Curated by Stephen Lightbown
In his essential book from 2014, The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk examines how individuals are affected by traumatic stress, and its effects on the mind and body. He states that; “One of the clearest lessons from contemporary neuroscience is that our sense of ourselves is anchored in a vital connection with our bodies.” He continues; “We do not truly know ourselves unless we can feel and interpret our physical sensations; we need to act on these sensations to navigate safely through life…if you are not aware of what your body needs, you can’t take care of it.”
Where to start. As someone who has been a wheelchair user for almost 28 years following a life-threatening accident, I am all too aware of trauma. Not just the trauma caused by the accident and the memory of it that has tattooed itself into my very being, but the day-to-day trauma that has been inflicted on my body since. Sometimes by myself, often by the disabling society in which I live. A society, that seems intent on casting me as an outsider and the subsequent mental and physical trauma of fighting every day to simply exist. To be.
I know this is not limited to just myself. It is a battle that every disabled person faces. How to exist. How to accept the body that we live in. A body that we are told, does not conform, does not function, is not worthy. That discovery towards existence takes many forms, some in private, in other ways much more publicly.
Australian dancer and activist Dan Daw, uses dance to explore what it means for his queer, Crip body to occupy, and be unapologetic in non-disabled spaces. In a 2021 interview with The Guardian he says; “I grew up being told my body was wrong, and being told by medical professionals that my body had to be fixed. I was told I wouldn’t be able to be a dancer. But that wasn’t true at all. I’ve had to pull apart and rebuild the relationship I had with my body.” He continues in the article; “And I’m only in the past couple of years starting to really find the joy in my body, because I still felt an immense amount of shame.” His latest show, The Dan Daw Show, is about him finding a way to own what he calls his “messy” body, “and finding my crip joy inside that”.
Personally, I have used poetry as a way of interrogating much of what I have just written. For many years I could not process the trauma that I was absorbing. It sat within me, generating anger and resentment. It made me push others away, it made me abusive towards my own body. A body that had fought, scrapped and clambered to survive. Poetry has allowed me to realise that my body is the innocent party in my accident, it is not the reason I am disabled. A society that actively excludes me is more culpable than my body. And my body just wants to reconnect with my mind, to be a part of me. But how do I do that?
In his memoir, Waking, yoga teacher and paraplegic Matthew Sanford explains; “Often, as we age and can no longer do what we once could, we say our bodies are failing us. That is misguided. In fact, our bodies continue to carry out the process of life with unwavering devotion. They will always move toward living for as long as they possibly can…I am still returning to my body and will do so for the rest of my life.”
Matthew is the reason I am also a qualified yoga teacher, and yoga is the reason I have been able to take my awakening from poetry and start to rebuild the relationship with my body. How best can I help my body to, as Matthew says, continue that unwavering devotion to living? I want to live, in whatever form that takes, and I can only do that if mind and body are connected.
I knew that when taking on this project I wanted to include one of my own poems that brings together this duality of poetry and yoga. The interrogation, and subsequent action. I also knew the poets I wanted to feature in December ber’s Poem of the Week, would offer their own perspective beautifully on what it means to reconnect with their own bodies, often in a journey that is never completed. I am in awe of the poems that Kyla Jamieson (Dec. 3), Jamie Hale (Dec. 10), and Rick Dove (Dec. 17) have allowed me to use.
Canadian poet Kyla Jamieson (Nov. 5), reimagines time, embodiment, care, and intimacy in the aftermath of a brain injury. In her wonderful single verse poem, Bad Novelty, Kyla, describes trying to get better at staying in her body long enough to witness the worst of it. In her own words it is a poem partly about trying to reclaim embodiment but also about some of the obstacles to that reclamation.
In their poem Fisher King – Frensham – 2120, Jamie Hale (Nov. 12), UK poet curator, director, theatremaker, screenwriter, and otherwise indecisively multidisciplinary creative reimagines the body as a boat, choosing to stay afloat and at sea until it heals, a process shown to be lengthy by the fabulous imagery of oars green with algae.
And finally, I leave the last word to another Rick Dove (Nov. 19), progressive poet and activist, also from the UK, who speaks so directly about society and its purpose in his poem, The Order of Chaos. There is a section is his elegantly crafted poem that needs repeating here in full. He says; ‘The purpose of society is to support and uplift its most vulnerable members. So, if a society fails to do this, it is not fit for purpose.” He then continues, “A fit society should find a way to lift every butterfly, find a way to weigh each breath the same.”
It is my great pleasure to share this curation with you. Please seek out more of the featured poet’s work, they are all magnificent. And remember to breathe, the breath is the power.