Versus Versus: ed. Rachael Boast, Bloodaxe
I am a retired Teacher of the Deaf by profession, and volunteer as a table tennis coach at Brighton Table Tennis Club, where I help train the national Down Syndrome squad. We have table tennis sessions with folk who have many different disabilities, including autism, cerebral palsy, learning difficulties, wheelchair users, mental health difficulties, and a range of neurodivergent conditions. There is never a dull moment and after every session I come away with a broad smile and grateful for the opportunity to be there. So when my brother-in-law Greg Freeman, a poet himself and reviews editor of Write Out Loud, asked me to review this book, I thought I could give it a go.
Versus Versus, published earlier this year, is a collection of 100 poems selected by Rachael Boast, a British writer, editor and disability advocate. Rachael notes in her introduction that “the narrative of deafness, disability and neurodivergence is so often framed within a narrative of tragedy, meriting an outpouring of pity. Whereas the real tragedy is ignorance …” She points out that many of these writers are accomplished authors of published fiction, poetry, children’s books, non-fiction, art work and essays, yet still marginalised.
Many of the poems in the early pages of the book are about physical disability, the reliance on others and the vulnerability felt by misbehaving bodies. Lasteef McLeod’s powerful ‘I am too pretty for some “Ugly laws” ’ relates to 1867 Chicago legislaton that fined people who were maimed or deformed for appearing in public view: “Whatever you do/my roots are rigid/like a hundred-year-old tree/I will stay right here/to glare at your ugly face too.”
Andy Jackson’s poignant ‘Song Not For You’, after ‘The song of the dwarf’ by Rainer Maria Rilke, says exactly what it means: “Fantastic to see you getting/ out, you say, as you imagine waking/ up in my body, the courage / you’d need not to kill yourself.”
The poem on the next page, ‘Crip Fairy Godmother’ by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, is over five pages, and leaves no holds barred, about the shock of no longer being able-bodied. You get the message loud and clear. This is the poem to read if no other: “Hi, baby crip/ I know, you feel like a ton of bricks just hit you. They did.”
At first, I thought the personal and engaging ‘The Endlessness’ by Ada Limon was about neurodiversity. Then I wondered if her disability was blindness? I went to the end of the book to read Ada’s biography, hoping for answers, but was still none the wiser, except to find out she has many accolades, including having been US poet laureate.
‘Skipping Without Ropes’ by Jack Mapanje was my favourite. It has to be read aloud. I did this, many times! It gathers such momentum and really speaks to you. “I will create my own rope, my own / Hope and skip without your rope as / / you insist I do not require to stretch / My limbs fixed by these fevers of your / Reeking sweat and your prison walls". In the biographical notes we read that Jack is a Malawian writer, and was imprisoned in 1987 for writing poetry which the dictator Hastings Banda read as a coded attack on him. Jack needed medical treatment for his injuries on release in 1991.
It is a truly cosmopolitan collection, with many translated poems, including from Japan, China, French Sign Language, Spanish, and several from Arabic.
I was surprised to find a clutch of poems written from the viewpoint of refugees, finding them seemingly out of kilter with the themes of the book. However, they were very powerful, and not to be missed - ‘6 Errant Thoughts on Being a Refugee’ by Sarah Lubala, especially.
Getting back to the expected themes of the book, ‘The Alice Case’ by Joanne Limburg uses a brilliant mechanism to portray neurodiversity. Her poetry collection, The Autistic Alice,was published in 2017, and she has also written books about autism and feminism. ‘A Field Guide to Stares’ by Karl Knights also really gets it: “The temporarily abled// … they see a possible future/scowl and turn away.”
Other poems that caught my eye include ‘Injections’, by Shad Alshammari - short, sweet and poignant, ‘No’ by Ona Gritz, and ‘Having it Out with Melancholy’ by Jane Kenyon. Other poems look at the topics of pain, depression, attitudes of the medical profession, and feelings of helplessness, to name just a few.
All 100 poets have a biographical paragraph about them at the end of the book. These were very helpful and enlightening and aided understanding of many of the poems. In summary, a special read, so much explored. Well done Bloodaxe Books and Rachael Boast.
Kathy Owston is a recently retired Teacher of the Deaf of over 40 years. She has worked at Oak Lodge School for Deaf pupils in London, as an Advisory Teacher of the Deaf in Oxfordshire, London and in West Sussex, and as an Implant Centre Teacher of the Deaf (ICToD) at St Thomas’ Hospital Auditory Implant Centre, London. She has also worked with Deaf children as an Educational Audiologist in Zimbabwe, and more recently in Nicaragua. She grew up with a younger sister who has severe learning difficulties, which most probably shaped the future contours of her life.
