Tag: National Poetry Month

Poems of Hope: Poetry Circle

It’s been a tough year! In honor of National Poetry Month, the National Braille Press is offering a poetry circle by Zoom with the theme of “Poems of Hope” on April 22, 2021 at 7pm EST. Come, read a poem you wrote, or a favorite poem that gives you hope. Or come and listen; all are welcome. Let us know if you want to share a poem and we’ll be in touch. All who register will be given a Braille copy of “The Hill We Climb” by Amanda Gorman and some resources for more wonderful poetry. 

Register here.

Celebrating Poetry Month with Theodocia Pearce

We continue to celebrate blind and DeafBlind poets during National Poetry Month! John Lee Clark, a generous contributor to this blog, shares this piece on the DeafBlind poet, Theodocia Pearce. This piece is being published at Blind Academy for the first time.

Theodocia Pearce, DeafBlind Modernist

Introduction

Her exquisite little songs bear witness to the distantism that we still experience today. Relationships are elusive, physical contact is fleeting, and crumbs from the corporeal world are too cherished. Her speaker is conflicted between longing for a sighted past—”And I would break the bars of years asunder / To bring you back to me”—and a more proactive attitude that renders her “cross a crutch.” Although she realizes that the world rewards those who ask “no more sympathy,” for her it doesn’t yet mean building a corporeal community. Instead, following her friend Helen Keller’s cue, the highest aim is to be an example and an inspiration to others. Yet there is something else deeper and inexpressibly beautiful, “Something akin to rapture and to pain,” that speaks to us through her poems and that promises “Strange potential power . . .”

Emily Theodocia Pearce was born on December 8, 1894, in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Her father, a grocer, was a British immigrant, and her mother was a native of Canada. A childhood bout with spinal meningitis made Pearce “partially blind and lame.” She attended and graduated from the Collegiate Institute of Brantford; by then, she was totally deaf as well. After striking up a correspondence with Helen Keller, she decided to pursue a writing career. Pearce studied drama and writing at the Toronto Conservatory School of Expression before moving to New York City in 1918. Eight years later her short stories and poems were appearing in such major magazines as Ladies’ Home Journal and Good Housekeeping when she died suddenly on March 6, 1926. She was thirty-one. A novel, The Everlasting Beauty, first serialized in Red Cross Magazine, and a collection of poems, Lights from Little Lanterns, were published the same year.

When they began their correspondence, Keller found that Pearce’s story “was similar in many ways to my own” and that she wanted to know all about her DeafBlind friend. “How did she fare in an environment of silence and darkness?” she wondered. “Had she been crushed and forced to bite the dust by her irreparable deprivations?” Warming to her wonted rhetoric, Keller went on to say that “there was such resolute courage in her letters, such a steadfast determination to break through the imprisoning walls of circumstance.” 

Recalling their first meeting, though, Keller spoke more movingly and sincerely:

“I had read some of her poems, sketches and stories. They made me want to know her personally. Well, one day, all unexpected, Theodocia stood before me, a joyous reality! Instantly I recognized a congenial spirit. My new friend was no Job’s-comforter, no wailer in the dark. … I loved Theodocia from the first clasp of our hands.”

To . . .

You only touch my hand with yours in passing,
And Lo . . . my day is bright;
You only give a smile to me at leaving
And stars glow through my night.

You only speak a word to me in kindness,
I bow before my cross;
My broken prayer is pity for your blindness,
My grief is for your loss.

Vision

To-night the silent world teems with the wonder
Of days which used to be;
And I would break the bars of years asunder
To bring you back to me.

To-night my every thought is outward drifting
To your abiding place;
As here alone a prayer is upward lifting,
I seek to find your face.

To-night my voice across the world is calling,
Waiting for you to hear;
And you perchance may see a shadow falling,
And pause to think me near.

To-night my great desire is wayward winging,
I seek you, Love, afar;
And you may give your voice to some sweet singing,
And yearn to touch . . . a star.

To-night the silent world teems with the wonder
Of days which used to be;
Ah . . . I would break the bars of years asunder
To bring you back to me.

Compensation

Touch me with your hand.
I am alone . . .
See I need you now
Dear heart . . . my own . . .
Touch me with your hand.

Touch me with your thoughts;
Many the miles between,
Ah but the soul hath found
More than the eye hath seen . . .
Touch me with your thoughts.

Touch me with your love;
I am afraid.
Long is the way I go,
Dear one, lend your aid . . .
Touch me with your Love.

Rapture and Pain

Something akin to rapture and to pain
Closely companions me,
An unsought mystery . . .
Something akin to deep loss and to gain.

Some vague far vision that I seek to capture,
The haunting call of years,
A touch when God appears,
Perchance may be the meaning of this rapture.

Some hidden fettered chains that bind . . . restrain,
A look to the Beyond,
This flesh robe I have donned,
Perchance may be the meaning of this rapture.

Something akin to rapture and to pain
Folds me about this hour,
Strange potential power . . .
Something akin to deep loss . . . and to gain.

Sympathy

I asked the world for sympathy,
My cross was much to bear,
The days were long and weary,
I lived for my despair;
I asked the world for sympathy . . .
And the world did not care.

I ask no more for sympathy,
I made my cross a crutch,
I heard the call of laughter
And answered at her touch;
I ask no more for sympathy . . .
And the world gives me much.

A Wish

I’d like to make my life a bridge,
Betwixt to-day and the to-morrow,
For some worn hearts to find through me
A span across their vale of sorrow.

I’d like to make my soul a gleam
A far flung glow of tender laughter,
That I might light some wearied one
From here out to the dim Hereafter.

Celebrating Poetry Month with Nick Racheotes

We continue our poetry celebrations with the work of Nicholas Racheotes, a history scholar and writer. Nick offers these three poems, which are making their public debut here at Blind Academy:

gephyrophilia

 I love the bridges, Sagamore and Bourne,
Their superstructures
Against even a winter sky,
Two lovers holding hands
As they walk;
I listen for the music of bridges:
The soft drone of tires rolling over their surface,
The phone call that ends,
“love you!”
I breathe so deeply, the scent of bridges:
The wind-carried fragrance of ocean,
The freshly washed hair of a child,
The signature of a mother’s hand cream,
That unmistakable perfume of the someone
Whose company relieves the tedium
Of a crowded room;
I pass from here to there on bridges:
The tension of their suspension cables,
The stress of departure
And the consolation of arrival.

Mood Ultramarine

Because the clocks have turned forward and saved the evening sun,
He’s hanging in the kitchen window until after dinner dishes time.
Because The light has fled the east-facing side of the house,
St. Nicholas is deeply shadowed in his icon to my right.
The well wishes have been crackling through the internet,
Sweetening the voice mail,
Flowing from beyond the social spaces recommended.
And this is somehow our time,
To be humbled by the times,
To be heartened by sharing,
To be piling up the heavy stones of care,
Until the wall is built
That brings the calm of prayerful silence.
So we can inch up to the edges,
And claim the future as we always have.

Vernal

If there were a year without a New England winter,
When the first day of spring came with a rain
That turned each window into grey wool.
If we awoke so distracted by ourselves
That we missed the span of weeks from crocus to forsythia.
If we were so lost in bulletins
That the shedding of coats, the annual ballet of revealing arms and legs,
The coursing of Christmas new bicycles along deserted streets,
The children making rules to govern their reestablished communities,
Open faced in the open air,
Were all lost,
Would the foregoing lead us into the tempting thought
That God was self-quarantine?
If we were to stretch the yellow tape of a crime scene
Around the spring and summer
So that we could stage an inquest into the uniqueness of these times,
Would we come away strengthened by having survived the latest pestilence
Or poised, once again as before, to escape its lessons?
I append the most hollow phrase that troubled those college years:
“The rest of the solution is left as an exercise to the student.”

Meet the Poet

Photo of Nick Raccheotes
Photo of Nick Racheotes

Nicholas (Nick) S. Racheotes, Ph.D. is Emeritus Professor of History from Framingham State University and a Research Associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard. With his wife, Pat, he divides his time between Boston and Cape Cod. Aside from his scholarly works, the most recent of which is The Life and Thought of Filaret Drozdov, 1782-1867: The Thorny Path to Sainthood, Racheotes is a regular contributor to Vie Magazine, where his humorous articles on a variety of subjects may be read online.

Celebrating Poetry Month with John Lee Clark

Next in our lineup of extraordinary artists is DeafBlind poet John Lee Clark. When our blog first began, John contributed his essay, “Tactile Art,” which is linked below. He offers three prose poems, which appeared in Poetry, Shenandoah, and American Poetry Review respectively.

A DeafBlind Poet

A DeafBlind poet doesn’t like to read sitting up. A DeafBlind poet likes to read Braille magazines on the john. A DeafBlind poet is in the habit of composing nineteenth-century letters and pressing Alt+S. A DeafBlind poet is a terrible student. A DeafBlind poet does a lot of groundbreaking research. A DeafBlind poet is always in demand. A DeafBlind poet has yet to be gainfully employed. A DeafBlind poet shares all his trade secrets with his children. A DeafBlind poet will not stop if police order him to. A DeafBlind poet used to like dogs but now prefers cats. A DeafBlind poet listens to his wife. A DeafBlind poet knits beautiful soft things for his dear friends. A DeafBlind poet doesn’t believe in “contributing to society.”

Oralism

Samuel Gridley Howe started with the ribbons. He tied them around our heads to cover what he called our malignant eyes. Next he made us forget our words. He made us write letters we could not feel. He made us read tiny raised squiggles. He slapped our hands away. We tried to slap his hands away. He made us do needlework with our tongues in front of smelly crowds. He made us make vibrations in our throats. We made bigger and bigger vibrations. He tried to stop us. He said it was repulsive. He said it was repugnant. He said it was revolting. He swore that we would never cease making this awful racket.

Treasure

Our treasure is to be together. We used to be filthy rich. We had it as good as a ball of worms. We squirmed happily together in caves. We had it so good. We had our old curved nails tearing into pommelos. It was almost too much. One day a cluster wandered off and found something in the forest. It was too much. It splintered their souls into a million toothpicks. Some of them tried to come back. They stabbed us. They tried again and again until it was too many toothpicks to hold together against. We have never forgotten. Every time we snuggle against a wall we feel it. Every time we dig into a pommelo we feel it. Every time we wrap our legs around each other to talk we feel it. Our lost wealth. We want it back. We want it all back. The best way to get rid of a million toothpicks is by fire.

Meet the Poet

In lieu of a photo, which has limited appeal to blind and DeafBlind authors, we asked John to provide a sensory compilation. So here is what he submits as his author photo:

Short hair of incredible softness, stubbled square chin, hands too slender for his build, a scent of patchouli.

John Lee Clark

John Lee Clark is the author of the essay collection Where I Stand. His essay “Tactile Art” is a finalist for the 2020 National Magazine Award in criticism and is the recipient of the 2019 Frederick Bock Prize from Poetry magazine. He teaches Protactile and DeafBlind Studies through Western Oregon University and his private school. He makes his home in Hopkins, Minnesota, with the artist Adrean Clark, their three sons, and an angel of a Deaf cat.

More to Read

Celebrating Poetry Month with Jill Khoury

April is the start of National Poetry Month! During these 30 days, we’ll be sharing the work of blind and DeafBlind poets. Our first poet is Jill Khoury, and these two poems come from her full-length collection Suites for the Modern Dancer.

Residual Vision / A Feast for Young Corvids

Visually impaired children need to be placed
in situations requiring them to solve problems.
 – Institute for Innovative Blind Navigation

Each bead shines like an eye. Their glass sides click
together in the valley of his palm. He plucks and wings them.

As each one leaves his hand, it disappears. I hear them
ricochet off bile-yellow burlap walls, handprint turkeys,

finger paintings, loose-leaf haiku in stilted crayon.
Mr. Charlie says now pick them up. I suck my thumb,

asks how many he just tossed. He won’t say. Then, the grind
and creak of a classroom door released. A scrawl of bodies,

iridescent, barely staying within the lines, noisy, curious.
I know because my own body is like this, but not.

They can cast their eyes in one direction, two beads
strung on a strand. They watch me operate; my own eyes

shiver in their sockets, legs twist to protect my fragile
balance. All the heads turn at once toward me. Sharp beaks.

Lithe bird-beast bodies dive to trap the shining things
swallowed by the corners of the kindergarten wing.

Perihelion

I drag my new husband from the muscular sea.
His limbs are rooted in kelp. Spread on his back, 

on the sand’s hard table, his rib cage glistens, 
monstrous and still. I’m confused on how to tune

this prehistoric instrument, on how not
to break it. A piece of rib could pierce a lung. 

The thug’s-eye sun measures my actions. 
my shoulders blush and burn. I press 

with dumb fingers until he exhales ocean. 
My shouts send two gulls reeling, ashy wings 

beat too near our heads. I breathe for him, 
and waving wildly, chase the gulls. 

Otherwise, they’d steal our eyes.

Saltation with Cane

Meet the Poet

Image description provided by Jill Khoury:
The photo is a desaturated portrait of the head and shoulders of a white femme. She has short pink hair, cat’s eye glasses, and wears a black sleeveless shirt. A tattoo is visible on her left shoulder. Her head is tilted and she aims a quizzical look at the camera.

Jill Khoury writes on gender, disability, and embodied identity. She holds an MFA from The Ohio State University and edits Rogue Agent, a journal that features poetry and art of the body. She has written two chapbooks—Borrowed Bodies (Pudding House, 2009) and Chance Operations (Paper Nautilus, 2016). Her debut full-length collection, Suites for the Modern Dancer, was released in 2016 from Sundress Publications. Find her at jillkhoury.com.

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