Month: February 2013

 

 

In nine days I will pack up my dirty laundry and go home, after a glorious five weeks at the oldest residential arts colony in the United States. I have spent my time writing both poetry and prose–mostly prose, parts of a new book about guide dogs. Tomorrow night I’ll even read some of this work in downtown Peterborough, New Hampshire. It’s important to have time alone to create art but its also extremely good to have a community and I think that’s one of the most remarkable things about MacDowell. You leave your studio after hours and hours of solo flight, hard thought, wrestling with ideas and music and architecture and film and language rhythms, with sculpture, with myth–and then, Lo! You’re in a room with people who have worked assiduously alongside you, fighting and glorying in the same rough and powerful mysterious ways of art. I don’t know about you, but I seldom have this sense of almost mystical solidarity in proximity to other human beings when, say, I go to the shopping mall or the dry cleaner. I am grateful to this nurturing place, not merely for what they’ve done for me but for what they give to so many. Art comes from here. It goes on and out, like birds rising, circling over northern Finland. By this I mean, beauty stirs in the world, surprises us, even in lunar places.

 

I remember the snow was waist high in Iowa City. I had influenza. I had an apartment that always smelled of cooking gas but the gas company couldn’t find anything wrong.

I had a headache that wouldn’t go away. I didn’t even own a radio. I got dressed, badly, the way you do when you’re ill, and went out into the slanted gray winter streets, walking the unshoveled sidewalks, all in search of a radio. There was still a “mom and pop” television repair shop on Linn Street, a quarter of a mile from my place. The kind of store with a bell on the door; with a yellowed flag in the window: “Zenith, the quality goes in before the name goes on.” I had the chills. I was pretty sure I was walking straight, though I felt like I was tilting sideways. My hair appeared electrified. The man behind the counter looked askance, a pawnbroker’s stare–I’m sure he thought I wanted to pawn some silver. But all I wanted was a radio. He told me the hard truth: “We don’t have no radios. Only TVs.” His televisions were displayed like second hand furniture, they even looked like second hand furniture–old cabinet jobs, big as “family style” electric organs. I was sweating. I thought about having a TV that doubled as a musical instrument. I was staring at a murky lakebottom. I had the flu. I was legally blind and on the verge of fainting among boxy television sets. I asked for a chair. The proprietor hastily produced a metal folding chair. I was feeling like Typhoid Mary. I sat down. Told the man I would take a portable TV. He brought out a weird Bakelite black and white job with a leather strap on top and a pair of bent “rabbit ears” and I gave him $30 and staggered out the door. The thing was heavier than it looked. It weighed as much as a bushel basket of apples. I staggered, stopped, wheezed, clutched the thing with all my strength–there was nowhere to put it down in a world of snow. Walked achingly, nauseous, step by step through drifting snow with the TV in my shaking arms. And home again in my gassy atelier, I plugged it in, adjusted the bent antennae, and “saw” the way blind people do, a report from Tehran, the Ayatollah triumphant in a sea of people, an ocean of the black garbed in the mid-day sun. There was a stubborn humming from the TV that obscured any words the announcer may have spoken.

Three cheers to Randy Earle who has written a terrific post over at We Will Find a Way entitled “You Are Cordially Invited to Pave the Way”. Among other things he says:

“I have grown accustomed to getting a blank stare upon requesting accommodations, most would be deal-breakers for any other patron or customer, like safe passage or functioning elevators or even workable chairs. I tend to use my doggedness and dead-pan humor to negotiate life’s challenges and opportunities. Someone once described me as equal parts determination and pragmatism. It’s a mix that works for most situations. I smile often. I nod. I empathize. I work to diffuse tense situations, but I do get tired of being the exception to the rule.”

Three cheers for his exhortation to the temporarily non-disabled:

“Be my advocate, readers, and the advocate of millions of others like me. Locate the wheelchair accessible seats at  the next concert you attend. Pay attention to how many venues block out a few seats in the last row only. Try to follow the handicap signs to negotiate a step-less entry into a building. Note if you get lost. Clock the time it takes to navigate. Make a reservation at a restaurant and inquire about accessible seating and large print menus. Believe me, someone you know will need these accommodations, maybe even you.”

 

 

(Kings College London)
February 27, 2013

LONDON, ENGLAND– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] People with disabilities are at a greater risk of being the victims of violence and of suffering mental ill health when victimized, according to new research published in the open access journal PLOS ONE by researchers from King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry and UCL (University College London).

A recent World Report on Disability highlighted violence as a leading cause of morbidity among disabled people. The research published today is the first to assess the extent to which people with disabilities experience different kinds of violence and the associated health and economic costs.

The authors analyzed data from the 2009-2010 British Crime Survey to estimate the odds of a person with physical or mental disabilities experiencing physical, sexual, domestic or non-domestic violence. The survey did not include individuals with disabilities living in institutions.

Dr. Paul Moran, from King’s Institute of Psychiatry and co-author of the study, says: “Our study highlights that, contrary to popular opinion, people with mental health problems are much more likely to be victims of violence as opposed to perpetrators of violence. Moreover, the psychological impact of violent victimisation is likely to be more severe for those with pre-existing disability. Unsurprisingly, this is associated with a huge amount of suffering and a substantial economic burden.”

Entire article:
People with disabilities at greater risk of violence and mental illness
http://tinyurl.com/ide0227132a
Related report:
Violence against People with Disability in England and Wales: Findings from a National Cross-Sectional Survey
http://tinyurl.com/ide0227132b

(Office Of Councilman Vincent Gentile)
February 27, 2013

NEW YORK, NEW YORK– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] In light of recent developments, Councilman Vincent J. Gentile, a long-time advocate for New York’s most vulnerable, is calling on New York City Department of Education Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott to remove all New York children from the infamous Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts once and for all.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) sent a letter to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services saying it would no longer allow federal Medicaid money to be used by anyone who lives at a facility that employs electric shock intervention, even if that person is not receiving the treatment themselves. Massachusetts has begun notifying the families of its students that they must either move to a new facility or unenroll from state benefits immediately.

“CMS made the right decision — no federal tax dollars should be going to an institution that uses these electric shock techniques on children. It’s time New York State and New York City to do the same — no city or state money should go to support an institution which subjects its students to these cruel and unusual forms of ‘behavior modification’. The Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts where 120 NYC developmentally disabled students currently attend, is in gross violation of the most fundamental standards of humane treatment of people with disabilities”, Councilman Gentile said.

“With CMS pulling its funding, we are one step closer to shutting down Rotenberg once and for all.”

Entire press statement:
Another Blow to the Judge Rotenberg Center (Autistic Hoya)
http://tinyurl.com/ide02271301
Related:
Judge Rotenberg Center — Facility Uses Electric Skin Shocks To Change Behavior (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/institutions/ma/jrc.htm

I was down today, and therefore not an appealing fellow. I snarled on Facebook, or, as a friend from Texas has been known to put it: “I pissed in the shrimp dip.” 

 

The pending Supreme Court defenestration of the Civil Rights Voting Act of 1964 seems unassailable if you want to pretend you’re a psychic. The rightward justices hate government intervention in the affairs of the states and they spent the entire 2000’s winnowing the Americans with Disabilities Act until it was almost “a goner”–only the concerted and bi-partisan reaction of Congress through the adoption of the ADA Restoration Act has saved the day. And perhaps after 7 years of exhausting political retrenchment we will again reaffirm the power of the national government to enforce voting rights on the red states–but forgive me as tonight I see the whole rotten trajectory of disenfranchisement and the long, slow, agonized legislative effort to reaffirm one of the finest federal laws ever to grace our fair land. 

 

So I was gloomy about this today. And angry about the pending cuts to special education and disability services that will accompany the sequestration. 

 

Finally, I’m in the woods writing a book and feeling the internal scars of disability, for even though I’m writing about guide dogs and how marvelous they are, I am also by turns writing about the provisional and hard world of the visually impaired. 

 

Tonight I had to ask a fellow artist to stop petting my guide dog “in harness” and she gave me a look that said, “You’re a schmuck.” So I skipped dinner. 

 

Yep. I’m not an appealing fellow. But in my wild dream of the future, no one has to beg to vote, or explain their difference in order to be in the village square. 

 

I should say something funny. Students at the University of London once stole Jeremy Bentham’s head. 

Out in the cold I start to fly.

My father is buried not far from here.

I visit him with my newfound mega-theric, lighter than air mobility.

He’s in his snow covered grave, reading Trotsky.

“Come on up,” I say.  “The revolution will wait a few hours!” 

 

 

(National Council on Independent Living)
February 26, 2013

WASHINGTON, DC– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] In collaboration with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and Not Dead Yet, the National Council on Independent Living will be hosting vigils this Friday, March 1, 2013 in cities across the country in memory of people with disabilities murdered by family members or caregivers.

A complete list of all cities with specific times and locations has been posted to the ASAN website, along with contact information for each of the vigil coordinators.

We encourage you to join us on Friday, March 1st, to honor the lives of people with disabilities who were victims of domestic violence.

Vigils are being held in Sacramento (CA), San Francisco (CA), Washington DC, Chicago (IL), Lincoln (NE), Woodbridge (NJ), New York (NY), Rochester (NY), Portland (OR), and Seattle (WA).

Our voices and the presence of our community are needed now more than ever.

Entire article:
Information Alert: Complete Details on Day of Mourning Vigils Nationwide
http://tinyurl.com/ide02261303
Related:
Disability Day of Mourning — Remember Lives Taken (Autistic Self-Advocacy Network)
http://tinyurl.com/ide02261303b
Action Alert: Day of Mourning: March 1, 2013
http://tinyurl.com/ide02261303c

  

I dreamt last night of a friend who I insulted almost twenty years ago. We haven’t spoken since. He was trying to sell me a shirt. That’s how the unconscious works. There’s plenty of suppressed rage in the haberdashery. Other things happened and other people appeared. At one point I was wearing a turtle shell, preparing to advertise something on a Manhattan street. I was worried about my guide dog. Who would look after her while I wandered, disguised as a turtle? A charming policeman of the unconscious said he’d look after my dog. I began crying because he led my dog away. I thought of my friend Simi, who is a disability rights activist in New York, and a wheel chair user–thought she’d know what to do. I mean, how do you get out of a turtle suit and get your dog back in the city of the Id? 

 

**

 

I had dinner last night with Syrian film maker Nabil Maleh. We talked about the torrential deaths in his homeland. We discussed the strange, introverted smugness of many American artists–hipster culture is essentially apolitical, ironic, drugged on its own fashion statements. When you’ve been in the middle of genocide, arriving in the salon of easy post-MFA satisfactions is hard. We talked about it. I spoke of Poets Against War, about the 10% of artists in the US who think about human rights. It’s a small percentage. We drank some wine from Argentina. We both hate Ronald Reagan. We both have the hope that John Kerry will stir international outrage over Syria. “My country has been destroyed,” he said.   

 

**

 

I gave a reading a few nights ago from my new collection of poems Letters to Borges. Later a composer said to me, “I like how simple you make the hard things sound.” That is the difficult thing. Simplicity. And the other hard thing is the politics. As Tomas Transtromer says of his own poetry: “And the people who buy and sell others, and who believe that everyone can be bought, don’t find themselves here.” 

 

**

 

The shirt in my dream was from my childhood. It had dreadful stripes. I wore it in the hospital, blind child, alone in a ward. The damned thing came back last night. You can count on the Id. 

 

  

All this innocence in America! No blood on anyone’s hands! How perfect: a state that refines acculturated hostility, injecting memory loss in every happy moment! And its young poets, fresh out of Yale, arguing for indeterminacy–nowadays “politics” is having irony all the time, no real marching required. No blood! No marching! God, no earnestness, please! Oh America! Your swimming grows weaker and weaker, and the whale, just as Melville predicted…

 

And thank you Carol Muske-Dukes for your Huffpost essay defending both the poet Adrienne Rich and the art of reviewing against “hipster” know-nothing-ism. How easy it is to know nothing, never been easier! There’s so much freedom going around! Who needs to know Trotsky from Triffids? You bet your fine-tuned sub-Cartesian MFA you don’t! Hey, since everything is an intersection, let’s just stop at Starbucks shall we?