Staring Back The Disability Experience from the Inside Out

by Fries, Kenny

• ISBN13: 9780452279131
• ISBN10: 0452279135
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-10-01
• Publisher: Plume

Summary

In this groundbreaking and far-reaching collection, writers such as Andre Dubus, Stanley Elkin, and Adrienne Rich, confront what it means to be disabled in our society. Through the vehicles of nonfiction, poetry, fiction, and drama, "Staring Back" is the first anthology to open the landscape of the disabled experience for exploration and discussion.

Author Biography

Kenny Fries is well-known for his teaching, writing, and activism in the area of disability rights. The winner of the Gregory Kolvolakos Award for AIDS Writing, and the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony, he is the author of two volumes of poetry, as well as the memoir Body, Remember (Dutton). He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, and teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at Goddard College in Vermont.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(12)
NONFICTION
``Pony Party''	13	(9)
Lucy Grealy
``Walking with the Kurds''	22	(15)
John Hockenberry
``Falling into life''	37	(14)
Leonard Kriegel
``Carnal Acts''	51	(11)
Nancy Mairs
``Bells''	62	(12)
Ved Mehta
``The Unification of Stephen Hawking''	74	(13)
Mark O'Brien
``Renascence''	87	(6)
Margaret Robison
``Living in an Unstable Body''	93	(12)
Barbara Rosenblum
``Imperfection Is a Beautiful Thing: On Disability and Meditation''	105	(10)
Joan Tollifson
POETRY
``Midway: State Fair''	115	(2)
Joan Aleshire
``The X-Rays''	116	(1)
``The Hemophiliac's Motorcycle''	117	(5)
Tom Andrews
``Little Girl Gone''	122	(1)
Johnson Cheu
``Banana Stealing''	123	(2)
Johnson Cheu
``How to Talk to a New Lover About Cerebral Palsy''	125	(2)
Elizabeth Clare
``Learning to Speak''	126	(1)
``G-9''	127	(16)
Tim Dlugos
``big eaves''	143	(3)
Larry Eigner
``quite a ways from the sky''	143	(1)
``flat unroofed body''	143	(1)
``Rvrbrance''	144	(2)
``Excavation''	146	(5)
Kenny Fries
``Body Language''	146	(1)
``Beauty and Variations''	147	(4)
``The Engines Are Roaring''	151	(3)
Terry Galloway
``People Love Their Freaks''	152	(2)
``Cancer Winter''	154	(6)
Marilyn Hacker
``Back Problems''	160	(2)
David Manuel Hernandez
```Talking Books'''	162	(3)
Stephen Kuusisto
``Learning Braille at 39''	163	(1)
``Harvest''	164	(1)
``The Magic Wand''	165	(2)
Lynn Manning
``Unsolicited Looking Glass''	165	(2)
``The Secret of the Sea Star''	167	(3)
Emma Morgan
``Attention Deficit Disorder''	168	(2)
``Heart Ear''	170	(1)
Edward Nobles
``Contradictions: Tracking Poems''	171	(2)
Adrienne Rich
``Open Wound''	173	(3)
Tom Savage
``Harmonic Convulsion''	174	(2)
``He Watches the Sky''	176	(5)
Nancy Scott
``Hearing the Sunrise''	177	(4)
FICTION
``Wolf'' from Cats Don't Fly	181	(13)
Marcia Clay
``Dancing After Hours''	194	(28)
Andre Dubus
``Her Sense of Timing''	222	(17)
Stanley Elkin
``Coitus Interruptus''	239	(16)
Mike Ervin
``Helen and Frida''	255	(9)
Anne Finger
``Ten Reasons Why Michael and Geoff Never Got It On''	264	(14)
Raymond Luczak
``How Much It Hurts''	278	(10)
David Mix
``The Interview''	288	(15)
Jean Stewart
THEATER
The Hidden History of People with Disabilities''	303	(30)
Doris Baizley
Victoria Ann-Lewis
``Blue Baby''	333	(34)
Katinka Neuhof
``Mishuganismo''	367	(36)
Susan Nussbaum
Contributors	403	(8)
Credits	411	(4)
Acknowledgments	415