Disability Aesthetics and Poetic Practice

doi:10.1017/9781108699518.009

7 - Disability Aesthetics and Poetic Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2021

Declan Gould

Edited by

Timothy Yu

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Timothy Yu: Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin

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Summary

American poets increasingly began to bring disability into their poetry in a more direct way in the 1980s and 1990s. Along with their embodied experiences living with disability, the work of many of these poets represents their involvement in the disability rights movement and disability culture and puts disability at the center of the poetry by writing primarily for disabled (rather than nondisabled) readers. I call the twenty-first-century poets who continue this tradition of disability culture poetry “crip poetry.” Examples discussed include Meg Day, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Amber DiPietra, Denise Leto, Petra Kuppers, Neil Marcus, Constance Merritt, and Molly McCully Brown. In contrast, I call the twenty-first-century poets who develop disability poetics that are not written primarily for disabled audiences, and that are often based in other aesthetic movements and/or identities, “disability poetry.” Examples discussed include Bettina Judd, Airea Matthews, David Wolach, and Brian Teare.

Keywords

poetry disability contemporary American literature crip deaf

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First-Century American Poetry , pp. 106 - 119

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108699518.009 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2021

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