Jan. 1, 2023
If I Can’t Get in the Door How Can I Join the Party?
Socioeconomic Barriers and Crip poets
By Catherine Young
My application for poet laureate was almost ready.
I had my poetry samples, my two-page CV (which could barely fit my writing accomplishments and left out my earlier careers before permanent disability and my disappearance from the working world). I was now ready to complete my cover letter for this position that had never been held by disabled person.
I felt it essential to clearly state these lines at the bottom of my cover letter:
When considering the diversity of people and poetry, it is important to recognize disability. I am a disabled writer now making my application to you.
Though I have been writing, publishing, song crafting, performing, and working as an activist for poetry for the past couple of decades, I’ve only recently been able to participate real-time attending and conducting workshops to connect people through poetry. Covid 19 precipitated connection via Zoom and other online platforms, making venues possible for me. You may also wish to know disabled artists often do not apply for positions of recognition because awards can result in loss of needed services. I believe it’s time for a disabled poet to lead a celebration of poetry.
This was a much more specific and empowered statement than the san serif note I usually include at the bottom of my submissions, promotions, and letters of introduction:
*Please note:
Because I am disabled, I work with adaptive technology, voice-activated tools, and a magnified screen. I hope no mistakes in format will be introduced by the technology which I cannot detect. Please let me know if there's anything more I need to do.
The clarity of what I needed to include in my cover letter came because I listened to the April 2022 Dodge Poetry Zoom session “Poetry and Disability and Justice.” During the Zoom session I began weeping. For the first time I had found people who could speak to my experience; my truth. A crip community. Though I had been fighting for social and economic justice, marching for women’s rights and gay rights in the 1970s, fighting for ecological and environmental justice in all of my employment, until that Zoom session, I had not known that others shared my experience of marginalization.
*
I’ve always been a writer, and always – though not recognized officially – I’ve been disabled.
Over two decades ago, I was a worker and the wage earner for my farm family which included two young children. I didn’t know exactly what would happen when I gave up employment, gave up any sense of privacy to go through the SSDI process and cross the threshold into official disability. I made the choice not so much for my own sake, but for my family’s. All I knew when I stood at the threshold was that I would be entering a different world.
Now having lived as an invisibly, but officially, permanently disabled person for these past two decades, I can say that without a doubt, the Crip reality in our country is not only a separate world, but at times, with crazy disability rules concerning services and income and poverty, it can feel like an imprisonment. This is no surprise. The disparities in our socioeconomic system that shut out Crip people marginalizes BIPOC and LGBTQ people among other groups.
But despite our country’s system of isolation and gate-keeping, I’m a published poet. I am not a hero. I fight for the opportunities, I ask for them directly, and I find gracious people who, once they understand about barriers, try to help. What I want to relate here are barriers I’ve encountered as a Crip poet. There are lots of them. And like a lot of things in Crip life, they are often invisible to the rest of our culture – including poets outside, and sometimes inside, the Crip community.
In my Crip world, poverty is a given. As a permanently disabled person I am not allowed to have gainful employment, and I would not be able to sustain a “working” life. I receive SSDI as my income (a very low amount). The range of monthly SSDI income as near as I could find in a search is $800 to $1,500 per month. It’s actually even lower than stated because Medicare is deducted from the income, but the amount never shows up in the SSDI annual income reports.
Because of low income and removal from employment, some of us Crip poets exist outside the world of poetry networking that takes place in academia, professional organizations, and gatherings. It also means we are limited in the ability to gain recognition because we can’t afford to participate.
On a limited disability income, opportunities for workshops or memberships in can be inaccessible. This also applies to tools of writing. When there is not enough income to support to basic needs and services, purchasing books, journals, or devices for reading and writing is not possible. It can be hard to make application fees to fellowships, residencies, and book or contest reading submissions (ranging from $3 for regular submissions to the $35-$400 contests, book reading fees and residency applications).
Often I’ve written to literary journals requesting waivers for submission and contest fees because I am a physically disabled writer on an extremely low income. Sometimes literary organizations have responded that the only way they can run a contest – or even a journal – is by receiving the fees, so, no. About half of the publishers have responded generously, but sometimes lose my submissions because they direct me submit differently, and then forget my submissions are there.
One piece of information that’s not as well-known about SSDI is that there is a $2000 monthly limit on how much money a disabled person might have in savings. That means, an award can negatively affect monthly income and most importantly for those who are receiving medical care services through Medical Assistance, there may be a loss in care.
Additionally SSDI is nontaxable income and is not counted on the tax form. A monetary award for a writing artist, however, can show up on tax forms as taxable income – which can be a problem both for how it affects services and the status of Permanent Disability.
One of the most challenging situations I face as a Crip poet is being able to find and use the tools that I need for writing. When I left the world of the employed, I had to wait seven years for computer that would allow me to voice type in position for my muscular difficulties.The computer and software came from my state’s DVR, disability vocational resource, and the only way I could receive it was if I stated that I would use it to help my spouse increase his earnings as well as my help my children’s homework. It was demeaning. Nowhere was I allowed to say I needed to be able to communicate as a human being – and writing, creating as a writer to share or publish my talents was off the table. That would’ve required a declaration of a business plan structured for income that would wipe out my healthcare as well as the healthcare for my children. (In the end, the “extra income” declared for my spouse – which I had to provide -- did decrease much-needed disability support services for a few years.)
Once I was able to receive the tool for writing that I needed, I wrote and continued writing – all the way through an MFA program to this year, when my collection of ecopoems, Geosmin was released. When needs are met, when services are available, any one of us has the opportunity to achieve and be recognized.
I ask each of us to consider what it means when achievement awards and recognitions are based on the ablest ideas of much and many. If a Crip poets cannot afford to participate in submissions and contests, or struggle without appropriate tools and support, I wonder how they can develop a bodies of work large enough to be recognized – especially in light of the unevenness of our statewide disability services.
One of the most important statements I heard in the Dodge Poetry Zoom last spring was about what it takes for a Crip poet to write: persistence and bravery.
My wish is for recognition of persistence, and for everyone concerned with lifting up marginalized people to find new ways to welcome Crip poets to the table.
Catherine Young
Catherine Young is author of the ecopoetry collection Geosmin and her memoir Black Diamonds, Blue Flames is forthcoming from Torrey House Press. Her poetry and prose is published in journals nationally and internationally, and her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays. Before beginning a life of isolating MCS disability, Catherine worked as a farmer, mother, and educator. She deeply believes in the use of story and art as tools for transforming the world. Rooted in rural life, Catherine lives with her family in the Upper Midwest. Her writings and podcasts are available at http://www.catherineyoungwriter.com/
Image Description: Catherine Young wearing a long lavender scarf and blue sweater.