To celebrate the release of Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability,
we will be joined by editors Sheila Black and Jennifer Bartlett
who will be performing poetry from the anthology
alongside a host of guest contributors.
Readers:
Jennifer Bartlett
Sheila Black
Norma Cole
Amber DiPietra
Cecil Giscombe
Laurie Clements Lambeth
Rusty Morrison
Susan Schweik
Date: Tuesday, September 27th, 7:30pm
Location: Pegasus Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley
Contact: (510) 649-1320 or events@pegasusbookstore.com
Admission: Free
Wheelchair Accessible
Beauty is a Verb
The New Disability Poets
Jennifer Bartlett, Sheila Black, Michael Northen
Beauty is a Verb is the first of its kind: a high-quality anthology of poetry by American poets with physical disabilities. Poems and essays alike consider how poetry, coupled with the experience of disability, speaks to the poetics of each poet included. The collection explores first the foremothers and forefathers whose poems had a complex (and sometimes absent) relationship with disability, such as Vassar Miller, Larry Eigner, and Josephine Miles. It continues with poets who have generated the Crip Poetics Movement, such as Petra Kuppers, Kenny Fries, and Jim Ferris. Finally, the collection explores the work of poets who don't necessarily subscribe to the identity of 'crip-poetics' and have never before been published in this exact context. These poets include Bernadette Mayer, Rusty Morrison, Cynthia Hogue, and C. S. Giscombe. The book crosses poetry movements-from narrative to language poetry-and speaks to and about a number of disabilities including cerebral palsy, deafness, blindness, Multiple Scoliosis, and aphasia due to stroke, among others.
Sheila Black is the author of over 40 books for children and young adults as well as the author of two poetry collections and two chapbooks. She was born with X-Linked Hypophosphotema (XLH), a rare genetic bone condition, often called Vitamin D Resistent Rickets. Two of her three children also have XLH.
Jennifer Bartlett was a 2005 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow. Her publications include Derivative of the Moving Image (UNM Press 2005), (a) lullaby without any music (Chax 2011), and Anti-Autobiography (Saint Elizabeth Street/Youth-in-Asia Press 2010).
Michael Northen edits Wordgathering, A Journal of Disability and Poetry and coordinates the annual Inglis House Poetry Contest for disability-related poetry. For over 40 years, he has taught adults with physical disabilities, women on public assistance, prisoners, and rural and inner city children.
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Marlon Rigel
Events Coordinator
Pegasus Books Downtown
2349 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 649-1320
events@pegasusbookstore.com
http://pegasusbookstore.com
