Poetry Monday: Wordgathering, Issue 2
The second issue of the online disability poetry journal Wordgathering is up with plenty to read.
Here's the start of an amazing poem by Onyinyechukwu Udegbe:
IT'S A LIE
It's a lie, I am not afraid to be seen.
Your gaze does not see me.
Your gaze cannot see me,
Your gaze has not seen me.
It is not I, that your gaze sees.
Your gaze is not welcome in this, my own, kitchen.
They too loved the hottentot, everyone loves the circus.
Go read the rest of the poem, and the other good stuff over there.
5 comments:
http://www.freewheelchairmission.org/thewheelchair.html
Have you ever seen this? I thought it was cool.
I have seen it, and I think that is the organization that Ghanaian Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah used in the documentary Emmanuel's Gift to bring chairs to his countrymen and women. At least the wheelchairs looked similar.
But I wonder how simple it is to obtain replacement seats for when those plastic seats inevitably break. Equipment like wheelchairs needs to be durable, and I wonder why the seats can be made of the same metal the rest of the frame is. Cost, I know. But if you are providing a wheelchair for someone who will need it for the rest of her life, it should not have a plastic seat that could easily break apart yearly. Unless replacement seats are readily available and affordable.
Whirlwind Wheelchair International is a similar organization, except they help communities create local workshops where chairs appropriate to that environment can be built and repaired. A business, a place to work, as well as a provider of equipment designed to last. Seems a bit better plan to me.
Thanks for the link - it's a really interesting site!
There are some very beautiful poems at this site. Thank you very much.
BlueLily - thanks for the link to that other org! I have this sort of vague long term goal to teach in Africa before I'm 35, and I would love to do some other volunteer work after/during, so I've been looking out for interesting work being done.
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