Beauty Is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability - Sheila Black

nChosen by the American Library Association as a 2012 Notable Book in Poetry. nn nBeauty is a Verb is a ground-breaking anthology of disability poetry, essays on disability, and writings on the poetics of both. Crip Poetry. Disability Poetry. Poems with Disabilities. This is where poetry and disability intersect, overlap, collide and make peace.n n BEAUTY IS A VERB] is going to be one of the defining collections of the 21st century...the discourse between ability, identity & poetry will never be the same. --Ron Silliman, author of In The American Treen nThis powerful anthology succeeds at intimately showing...disability through the lenses of poetry. What emerges from the book as a whole is a stunningly diverse array of conceptions of self and other.--Publishers Weekly, starred reviewn n nFrom Beauty and Variations by Kenny Fries: n n nHow else can I quench this thirst? My lips ntravel down your spine, drink the smoothnessn nof your skin. I am searching for the core: nWhat is beautiful? Who decides? Can the lawsn nof nature be defied? Your body tells me: come nclose. But beauty distances even as it drawsn nme near. What does my body want from yours? nMy twisted legs around your neck. You bendn nme back. Even though you can't give the bones nat birth I wasn't given, I let you deep inside.n nYou give me--what? Peeling back my skin, you nexpose my missing bones. And my heart, longn nbefore you came, just as broken. I don't know who nto blame. So each night, naked on the bed, my bodyn ndoesn't want repair, but longs for innocence. If ninnocent, despite the flaws I wear, I am beautiful.n nn nSheila Black is a poet and children's book writer. In 2012, Poet Laureate Philip Levine chose her as a recipient of the Witter Bynner Fellowship.n nDisability activist Jennifer Bartlett is a poet and critic with roots in the Language school.n nMichael Northen is a poet and the editor of Wordgathering: A Journal of Poetics and Disability.n n