#accessible poetry

[satanfemme]

[ID: a poem titled "Bridges". visually, the lines are somewhat disjointed and drift towards the right side of the page. the poem reads as follows. "and I feel / sick – because there is something – wrong / with the way I was made – I / am wrong – I / eat wrong – I / kill wrong – I / love – wrong – and by all accounts – / our top researchers have concluded the subject may not be classified as human / at all – well I feel / sick – well I feel / like a girl – and I love / like a dog – what about that. / what about that. / or maybe I’d be a saint / if I weren’t / so god / damn lonely." End ID]

Bridges, V. V.

#original poetry #poetry #poets on tumblr #described poetry #accessible poetry #val art

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

#every time someones like ''AI will replace u" im like. u will have to fucking KILL ME #there is no replacement here bc i am not filling a position. i am just writing #and the writing is what i need to be doing #writeblr #this probably doesn't make sense bc its sooo frustrating i rarely speak it the way i want to #edited for the typo wrote it and then was late to a meeting lol #i love u people who mention my typos genuinely bc i don't always catch them!!!! :) it is doing me a genuine favor!!! #my friend says i should tell you ''thank you beta editors'' but i don't know what that means #i made her promise it isn't a wolf fanfiction thing. so if it IS a wolf thing she is DEAD to me (just kidding i love her) #hey PS PS PS ??? if ur reading this thinking what it's saying is ''i am financially capable of losing this'' ur reading it wrong #i write for free. i always have. i have worked 5-7 jobs at once to make ends meet. #i did not grow up with access or money. i did not grow up with connections or like some kind of excuse #i grew up and worked my fucking ASS OFF. and i STILL!!! wrote!!! on the side!!! because i didn't know how not to!!! #i do not write for money!!!! i write because i fuckken NEED TO #i could be in the fucking desert i could be in the fuckken tundra i could be in total darkness #and i would still be writing pretentious angsty poetry about it #im not in any way saying it's a good thing. i'm not in any way implying that they're NOT tryna kill us #i'm saying. you could take away our jobs and we could go hungry and we could suffer #and from that suffering (if i know us) we'd still fuckin make art. #i would LOVE to be able to make money doing this! i never have been able to. but i don't NEED to. i will find a way to make my life work #even if it means being miserable #but i will not give up this thing. for the whole world.

[bookerplays]

Prole and Caduceus - offering accessible poetry

Prole and Caduceus – offering accessible poetry

When it comes to clear, compelling, enjoyable poetry, Prole is up there with the best. They’ve been kind enough to take another of my poems for issue 33, alongside succulent work by Bob Beagrie, Sharon Black, Matt Broomfield, Pat Edwards, Matthew Friday, John Grice, Kevin Hanson, Robin Houghton, Sue Kindon, Wendy Klein, Richie McCaffery, Emma Pursehouse, Nikki Robson, Joel Scarfe, Sue Spiers, and…

View On WordPress

#accessible poetry #Brett Evans #Caduceus #Claire Booker Dawn Gorman #complimentary medicine #environment #health #new poems #new writing #Phil Robertson #Prole short stories

[words-and-coffee]

Kupu rere kē My friend was advised to italicise all the foreign words in her poems. This advice came from a well-meaning woman with NZ poetry on her business card and an English accent in her mouth. I have been thinking about this advice. The convention of italicising words from other languages clarifies that some words are imported: it ensures readers can tell the difference between a foreign language and the language of home. I have been thinking about this advice. Marking the foreign words is also a kindness: every potential reader is reassured that although you’re expected to understand the rest of the text, it’s fine to consult a dictionary or native speaker for help with the italics. I have been thinking about this advice. Because I am a contrary person, at first I was outraged — but after a while I could see she had a point: when the foreign words are camouflaged in plain type you can forget how they came to be there, out of place, in the first place. I have been thinking about this advice and I have decided to follow it. Now all of my readers will be able to remember which words truly belong in Aotearoa and which do not.

Alice Te Punga Somerville, Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised - Kupu rere kē

#Alice Te Punga Somerville #A few people mentioned wanting a text version for accessibility... #powerful right off the bat #Always Italicise #Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised #Always Italicise How to Write While Colonised #Kupu rere kē #aotearoa #colonization #colonisation #Decolonisation #Te reo māori #Decolonization #quote #quotes #poem #poetry #Māori poetry #Māori #new zealand #new zealand poetry #new zealand poem

[burningvelvet]

conservatives are always saying “the liberals are getting out of hand these days! why can’t we go back to the time when everyone was normal?!” as if over two centuries ago circa. 1820 percy shelley wasn’t an outspoken polyamorous vegan anti-fascist chronically ill atheist spiritualist poet with weird hair and funky blouses and 10 mental illnesses buried in financial debt who lived in unofficial exile with his goth bisexual feminist wife who pioneered science fiction who ran around with him threatening old people by saying they wanted to decapitate the king

#he would have had blue hair if he had access to it #& neopronouns #probably #percy bysshe shelley #percy shelley #mary shelley #romanticism #romantic literature #english romanticism #english literature #literature #english academia #poetry #writing #writers #liberals #politics #lgbt #lgbt history #history #progressive

[plenaurum]

the thing about this z library thing is that I see small authors rejoicing in the fact that ppl can’t steal their books anymore bc they were “losing out on sales” and. this may be immoral to say? but I kinda don’t care

#z library #call me selfish entitled etc #but a girl in India said she lost her sole access to poetry #ppl in countries that don’t have access to libraries and books had good use for z library #and also. #z library was just easier and accessible #if I liked the book I’d go out and buy it in physical form #if I didn’t. well. i can just delete it #also I love pirating I’m sorry u guys #piracy #zlibrary #zlib

[fayrobertsuk]

Poetry for ALL

Some personal anecdotes and a plea follow...

As quite a few of you know, I’ve been engaged in disability awareness and rights campaigning and other work since sometime in the 90s, so when I was given an opportunity to support and host an event dedicated to making performance poetry as accessible as possible in 2018, I jumped on it.

(image description in alt text)

Poetry for All is the brainchild (and heartchild, and soulchild) of Rose Drew, who I first met through one of Richard Tyrone Jones’s Utter events in London. She’s an extraordinary writer and performer, and a powerhouse of an events host and organiser. Within about 30 seconds of watching her on stage, I knew I wanted to be like her when I grew up as an artist. When she got in touch three years later to ask if I’d like to help out with what turned out to be the inaugural event, I threw myself into providing as much support as possible with enthusiastic abandon, and we pulled together a line-up which included the extraordinary performers Raymond Antrobus and DL Williams (“DeafFirefly”), both of whom I’d performed with before and was keen to see again. 

Now, there’s a whole section on our new website about the history of the events where you can read the facts, but I want to say here that, personally, that first event in March 2018 (coincidentally on my birthday!) was an absolute eye-opener – seeing how poetry events could expand and develop the ideal of accessibility in ways I hadn’t considered. It was also extremely inspirational as I realised that, well, I was allowed to write about my disabilities. Seeing and hearing artist after artist sharing so much and so eloquently unlocked something in me that I didn’t even know I’d been repressing:

I’m allowed to be an openly disabled poet. I’m allowed to express my neurodivergence. I can tell my truth. 😱🤯

Bit of a culture-shock, but I owe so much to the poets and to Rose (and to Dave Wycherley, BSL interpreter extraordinaire – that’s a hard and physically/ mentally taxing job as it is, but to do that with poetry? on the fly?! breathtaking...) for helping me get to that starting point, knocking down the walls of my own internalised ableism.

So, apart from a paean to self-expression and why representation and finding tribe matters, and a screed of gratitude for new friends made and old friendships strengthened through the course of these events, why am I writing this? What’s with the hashtag? “Plea...?”

Well, so far, since you ask, all of our events have had local funding in York, where they’ve taken place exclusively so far. Rose applied for Arts Council England funding for this and next year for a tour comprising several venues and a host more disabled artists and BSL interpreters from various parts of the UK (all getting paid properly!), but we found out last week that we’d not got the money. Any of it. So our forthcoming event on 24th November in the gorgeous National Centre for Early Music is in jeopardy and, since the thought of Rose (herself a disabled artist on low wages) having to pay for this out of her own pocket was not to be supported, I threw myself at a plan of creating a (somewhat last-minute) Crowdfunder, so that we can at least pay for the venue, the artists’ and interpreters’ fees, the travel and accommodation expenses of those of us coming from out of town, and the costs of producing merchandise to sell. We’ll be producing an anthology in print and ebook form, as a joint publication between indie publishers Stairwell Books and Allographic Press. And, if we exceed our funding goal, there’ll be video and audio available of the event to boot!

We’ve created a frankly very exciting range of pledge rewards for people wanting to support us (all the way from £1 and £2 options, since money is tight, especially for disabled folk, right now, to more chunky ones like private mentoring, workshops, and a publishing package), and we’ve got three weeks(!) to raise our £1,500 to cover the shortfall from ticket and merch sales. Eeep! So, if you’re able to and would like to help us, we’d be ever so grateful. The campaign is here:

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/poetry-for-all-2023-fundraiser

And if you have absolutely no funds to share with us at all, we’d be incredibly grateful if you shared on social media, with friends, on blogs, all of that!

Thanks for reading all this, and have a great day!

#fay speaks #image #image description #disability #disability awareness #accessibility #fundraiser #crowdfunder #poetry for all #I am going to be posting about this a LOT! #accessible events #accessibility matters #respresentation matters #fundraising

[flourbray]

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost, and the changing future of Jumbo-Visma.

#cycling poetry #i have: 1) some incredibly inspiring hockey mutuals 2) a book of Frost's poetry - though i do plan to use others #3) access to image editing software #4) too many photos of these bikeboys #anyway #team jumbo visma #jonas vingegaard #primož roglič #poetry #poetry edit #robert frost

[br1ghtestlight]

one of those web weaving poetry type posts except w/ the belcher things and also I don't have sources for most of these and it's Not good <3

#I love having access to 500 poetry/quotes and also 500 bobs burgers screenshots at all times it makes things like this soo easy #not kidding about either of those numbers. sighs #txt #bob's burgers #poetry

[satanfemme]

[ID: a poem titled, "Dermatillomania". it reads, "(I pray;) / How pathetic we fall. / Family values always Born to Die, / So Below: above All. / — the midsummer's high Sun / Burrows into You like a ruthless / Mango, young — as You — / Pour a swig of HYDROGEN peroxide / Down your Ear canal for once — / For the third time — unwavered — so it can kill in a Storm — / Of easter Egg / Scented seafoam suds now — fluff and creme and — / It feeds on the Blood hungry, at the cavernous dead end, the cave of flesh, and ugly. / Those jagged rust flakes that cough up itch as they freeze-thaw suddenly / dissipate into a cool breeze with a sigh of mist from my chest. / One day, smelling of HYDROGEN and Oil, I sit at the picnic table opposite of my divine guest; / A Sparrow, brown and tan — one feather upright between His shoulders from a tussle somewhere / else. And He speaks words I dare not repeat. / Only once He's finished does it dawn in my mind as a question — / For me. My stomach jolts — like a missed step. my eyes dodge like a shadow I thought was someone else. / — then I respond, carefully as you must: / 'My greatest artistic flaw — which deeply cracks within me — is such that I'll never be honest, / because I can never be honest. The more words I say, the more I'm Nothing at all.' / How clever my Lyrics — / Oh how pathetic I fall. / I can't kill myself yet — / So below, above all. / And as my naked Chest runs slick as slip, / A Bird bleeds into Our Sun." End ID]

Dermatillomania, V. V.

#described poetry #poetry #poets on tumblr #dermatillomania #val art #described art #accessible art #accessible poetry #freeform poetry

[definitelynotshouting]

sometimes growth is the first flame before a forest fire.

sometimes growth involves a knife.

#poetry #poems #original poetry #original writing #writeblr #growth #recovery #transformation #grief #loss #and a secret sixth thing #iykyk #shouting speaks #my poetry #vatac #this is my first time trying to image id a poem so lmk if i need to adjust it for better accessibility #anyway yall seemed to like the first poem so. heres another recent one #ph

[campgender]

“Stone Butch, Drag Butch, Baby Butch” by Joan Nestle

published in A Restricted Country (1987)

1.

New words swirl around us

and still I see you in the street

loafers, chinos, shades.

You dare to look too long

and I are turn your gaze,

feel the pull of old worlds

and then like a femme

drop my eyes.

But behind my broken look

you live

and walk deeper into me

as the distance grows between us.

Shame is the first betrayer.

2.

The birth of Lesbian feminism. New York. The old firehouse on Wooster Street. Wooden chairs pulled across the cobbled floor. Pretty young women form a circle to form a group called the Lesbian Liberation Committee. Two old-time Lesbians arrive, grey-haired, short DAs. They stand on the outskirts. I go to the bathroom on the floor below. Two of the young women stand in front of me. “Why do they have to look like men? I hope they don’t come back.” When I returned upstairs, the grey-haired women were gone. They never returned. Jean and Ginny told the world who we were and what we wanted. Books were written saying the bad old days were over. The national organizations started, the presses and newspapers began, and the grey-haired women receded further and further, as if they had blended into the walls.

Shame is the first betrayer.

3.

Stone butch, drag butch, baby butch

the litany of the unwanted.

I see your eyes smoking

behind the self-congratulations

of the vegetarians

the Goddess worshippers

the healers.

Your magic worked in other places

in church alcoves

in diner toilets

in moving cars

pants with sharp creases

shirts cuffed

hair slicked back

riding Brooklyn subways

at five in the morning

shades worn just right

for mystery, for protection.

Rigid, you walked the gauntlet of their sneers

Hey lezzie, hey queer

and even when it was the end of the line

you kept moving.

A strange witch,

my baby butch.

4.

Stone butch, drag butch, baby butch

leaned me back against the bathroom door

tuned for the intrusion, you sucked my breast.

Alert and wanting, we made love in a public place

because territory was limited.

You pushed my wetness out

only when cunning had won for us a place.

In a subway station toilet

I held your head between my thighs

heard the roar and thought it was

our secret rushing out.

5.

Stone butch, drag butch, baby butch

Sandy tells me of the time

she walked in Prospect Park

with her lover on her arm.

Forgetting they were freaks,

they let the bending trees

caress their day.

The men, outraged by Sandy’s pants

and Carol’s skirt,

attacked with chains.

The women fled,

past playgrounds

past the benches made for lovers.

Sandy, smiling, says

through all the years

they never hurt me,

but we both know better.

6.

A hot dark night on Eighth Street.

Held tight with love,

the butch yells up to a shadow on the wall

all she can see of her lady

who calls out

“I’m here baby”

and we all hear her.

A shrine for separated lovers,

the Women’s House of D.*

They tore it down

replaced it with a garden

but those voices still are there

the lasting blossoms of our surviving time.

Stone butch, drag butch, baby butch

I keep you deep within me

warning voices in a changing time.

Shame is the first betrayer.

*The Women’s House of Detention stood for many years on the corner of Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village.

#joan nestle #butch #stone butch #drag butch #baby butch #queer history #butch/femme #poetry #a restricted country #open access #image described #mac’s bookshelf #they are our stigmata #why not take me now as i am? #οἱ λίθοι κράξουσιν

[danathon23]

I just watched All Of Us Strangers and I had the audio description on. I really liked the movie but oh wow the audio description was exciting! Specifically because of a connection I noticed between the first and last scene. (Possible spoilers!)

Here are my thoughts I jotted down right after finishing the movie, trying to recall the audio description from memory.

The audio description of the opening scene described sunlight reflecting on a building getting brighter orange, intensifying like a starburst. The end scene of Adam and Harry resting in bed drew further away making them smaller, and then morphed into a ball of light. It became a shining star in the night sky.

#all of us strangers #audio description #andrew scott #paul mescal #andrew haigh #alt text as poetry #poetry #film #access is love #accessibility

[jovialtorchlight]

through all the breaking and crisis she is the constant

#jonny bolduc #original poetry #image poem #image macro #public domain #smithstonian #open access journals

[mehreenkhan]

𝒫𝑜𝑒𝓉𝓇𝒾𝑒𝓈・⚬⭐︎∙☼º◦☽

♡ wo khiltay gulab jesa tha

♡ ranjish hi sahi

♡ rog ese bhi gham-e-yar se lag jaty hain

♡ aah ko chahiye ek umer

♡ zara phir se kehna

♡ kuj unj vi rahwan okhian san (Punjabi)

♡ humesha dair kar deta hun main

♡ aj zikr-e-gulaab rehne do

♡ Ab jo aaye ho to thehro

♡ kabhi kitabon mein phool rakhna

♡ hosh walon ko khabar kya

♡ kar raha tha gham-e-jahan ka hisab

♡ shab-e-intezaar koi to ho

♡ zindagi khaak na thi

♡ waqt mila to sochen gy

♡ silsilay tor gaya

♡ lag ja galey

♡ aj jane ki zid na karo

♡ chehre pe mere zulf ko

♡ is qadar pyaar se ae jaan-e-jahaan

♡ gham-e-ashiqi tera shukriya

♡ kya khazane meri jaan hijar ki shab

♡ main khayal hoon kisi aur ka

♡ apki yaad ati rahi raat bhar

♡ niyat-e-shoq bhar na jaye kahin

♡ tum ko dekha to yeh khayal aya

♡ hum roz mila karte thay

♡ usay bhool ja

♡ wo jo hum mein tum mein qarar tha

♡ jo bache hain sang samet lo

𝑀𝑜𝑜𝑑𝑏𝑜𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑠

♡ Childhoodcore

♡ Purana Lahore

♡ Humsafar

♡ Mahira Khan

♡ Rooftop

♡ Meethi Eid

♡ Chaand Raat

♡ Eyes

♡ Dupatta

♡ Coffee

♡ Desi love languages

#this took me an hour #made a post of my babies🥺 #access my moodboards and poetries #mehreenkhan #desi #desiblr

[thetragicallynerdy]

to fight god

[ID: six images, each showing a pages of a comic drawn in rough pencil with minimal pencil crayon colour and hand-written text.

One - Text reads "How do you fight a god?" Below is art of two raised fists with red on the knuckles, beside text that reads "with my two bloodied fists, knuckles split to the bone." Underneath and close enough to nearly overlap is art of a person with long curly hair holding a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire resting on their shoulder. They are looking away from the viewer, and tears run down their cheeks. The baseball bat is cracked, and red blood coats one side and the shoulder of the person, where the barbed wire has cut into their shoulder. Text reads "With a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, already cracked down one side."

Two - Text reads "A flaming swords, stolen from an angel." The art shows a chubby person holding a broadsword in both hands, the blade pointed downwards. The sword has red flames around the edges. The person wears a simple sweater rolled up their forearms, and we only see their torso and hands holding the sword. Below is a picture of a hand holding a gun. There is a line of red on the finger that rests on the trigger. Text reads "A gun, my finger on the trigger."

Three - A person with long hair and multiple ear piercings shouts, their mouth open wide and faced scrunched up. Text reads "my words, my voice, my song, I will shout god down from the heavens." Red lines emphasize around the text as if the person is shouting it. Below is an image of a grizzly bear and a great white shark beside each other, both facing the same way with their mouths open in snarls or roars, as if fighting a common enemy. Text reads "with god's creatures, banded at my side."

Four - Text reads "the righteous thousands, furious at the betrayal of the god that wrought them." Art between the text shows six hands, raised together as if in a crowd of people. One hand holds a sword, another an axe, another a book, and another beads that look like potentially rosary beads. Two are raised in closed fists, and one with their palm open, as if in supplication. Swords and a book are visible in the background. The sword, the axe, the rosary beads, and the pages of the book all have red edges - the closed fists have red where the nails bite into their palms, and the open palm has red along the lines of the hand.

Five - Art shows a hand open with palm facing upwards. A single flame floats above it, coloured red. The background is a dark grey around the hand and flame. Text running down the forearm of the hand reads "my anger, because it's the only thing I have left."

Six - Art shows a single sprout of a green plant growing from the soil, with two new leaves, and the seed still attached. Text at the top and bottom reads "… hope. For what else could kill a god?" Hope is underlined in green, while kill and god are written/underlined in red.

End ID.]

(Based on this poll I made, with some minor changes and rearrangement)

#art #poetry #fighting god #comic #accessible art #not even sure how to tag this one tbh