On Wednesday, @haymarketbooks announced a new anthology titled AGAINST ABLEISM. Yesterday, I co-wrote an open letter to Haymarket, the editors, and the broader poetry community with several other brilliant disabled writers. Posting here to reach pals here on Insta—this post is public and shareable! There is a Google Form embedded in the Medium article if you want to add your signature—even anonymous signees are important! If for any reason you cannot add a signature using the form, DM me and I will add you manually! Anyone is welcome to sign, but especially happy to see other sick and disabled, neurodivergent and autistic folks sign on! Non-disabled publishing and poetry supporters are also welcome. Please share widely!
There are big parts of my life I don’t share with anyone. A lot of my time is spent not doing anything. It’s boring to talk about—something other sick and disabled people know about, but otherwise this time is invisibilized: the 2-3-4 days per week I spend totally horizontal, endless hours piled into bed with pillows, meds, and heating pads, braces on everything. When your whole cultural sphere is about always-be-doing, a contest for who is the busiest, I don’t get to talk about this time I spend alone.
