#SeasonalSonnets: 10th Dec.

Hello my lovely readers!

Tonight's #SeasonalSonnets entry, like the one for the 7th, is slightly different in that it doesn't have a 'light drawing'. Instead it has a picture that is courtesy of the UK Disability History Month (UKDHM) website. This is because I was inspired to write this particular poem after reading yet another article for my thesis that espoused the importance of diversity and inclusion in theatre - which not only neglected to mention disability as a diversity issue but then used it as an extended metaphor throughout the piece in order to explicate the difficulties the industry presents to practitioners from other minority groups. The  metaphor was implemented in a number of ways, but was most obvious in the repeated use of the word 'crippling', which even made its way into the title of the article. 

This is a description which, as I have written in previous posts, along with its many derivations has a complex background in relation to disability. Most frequently it has been employed as a slur. Such slurring usage resulted from the explicitly physical connotations of its etymology found in its linguistic links to 'creep'. The implications of the kind of movement it suggests can be found in the naming of the area of London that now (aptly?) houses the Barbican Centre as 'Cripplegate'. It is so called in reference to the fact that there used to be a gate into the City of London there - a gate at which a homogenous group of 'cripples', or (more specifically) people with physical disabilities, used to beg passersby for money and support. (For source information for everything in this paragraph, cf. David Turner's Disability in Eighteenth-Century England: Imagining Physical Impairment [2012]).

Whilst this kind of usage is now being reclaimed by many people as a form of empowerment rather than shame, it still carries negative connotations, and is still used to demean us. It's something no-one wants to associate with in reality, though, because the actual lived experience of the pain that causes an individual to move in these particular ways is too difficult to confront. This is understandable to me - chronic pain, limited mobility and their associated conundrums are hard to cope with and live alongside. There, I admitted it. What I don't understand, however, is why, if it's too tough to imagine, people are still perfectly fine with figuratively appropriating its language and discourse to describe other situations - so much so that it's become a ubiquitous element of the cultural vocabulary, and reached words other than just 'crippled'.

Here are a few examples, in case they're useful.

'The economy is crippled.'

'They were paralysed with fear.'

'She was wracked with spasms of guilt.'

Why?

Perhaps I should be flattered that the experiences of people like me underscore so much of language and culture - but that's the issue. If they do, they ought to be considered as the real, tangible, physical and mental social justice concerns that they are - and yet they aren't (we aren't) afforded that privilege.

So, I guess I've written this sonnet as a contribution to the conversation that suggests we should be - and, until we are, I'll keep writing, and joking, and being ironic.

I'll leave you until tomorrow, with the disclaimer that my opinion is not the only one, and I'm certainly not out to alienate people - merely (hopefully) to enlighten and educate.

Much love x

10^th December

Next time you find a situation ‘crippling’,

just take a moment, think on what that means...

Ask yourself ‘Do I feel my body rippling

with a pain that tears my muscles at the seams?’

Have you been physically affected by the happ’ning,

and is your mind so fogged it makes you want to weep?

Are you so tensed up you feel your teeth a-chattering,

and can you only manage movement if you creep*?

If not, may I suggest you change your language,

or, at least, note th’effects of terms you use

‘cause, tho’ they’re ‘only words’, they do much damage –

and disability bears the brunt of the abuse.

Have you noticed we provide convenient metaphors,

yet no-one really cares what we are living for?     

 

Used with permission of UKDHM organisers