A Brand New Outfit
This week a new issue of the Alaska Quarterly Review arrived with conjoined essays of mine inside bearing the title, “Autism, Poetry, and the Art of Transformation.” In these essays, I explore how my students, who often struggle mightily with what professionals call “cognitive flexibility,” habitually explore change in and through their writing. The poem is a space where they can bring change into their world on their own terms, rehearsing transformation so that they can better embody it when the time comes.
Here is a short excerpt from one of the essays:
Finally, it was Daqwhan’s turn. Daqwhan was feeling disregulated by something, possibly the content of the poem we were writing. He was mumbling insults under his breath toward Zach and giving him a sidelong glare. Stephanie asked Daqwhan if he needed his putty and he nodded his head. Putty in hand, kneading the dark blue blob into shape, he seemed to gather himself. I asked him whether he would make a chrysalis or cocoon. “Cocoon,” he said shortly. I asked him what the cocoon would be made of and after repeating the question a few times he answered, “Daqwhan.” I told him how much I liked the idea that we could make a cocoon of ourselves. It was an act of self-sufficiency or self-reliance, as Emerson would have it. When I asked what transformation this cocoon of himself would occasion, he said, “I would turn into a werewolf.”
And here is the poem Daqwhan and his peers wrote:
When they had finished writing the poem, Dylan, who is a man of very few words but very many drawings, handed me a piece of paper he’d been illustrating:
All of us–caterpillars, monsters, people–need a brand new outfit every so often. A poem can be like a changing room where we try our costumes on and see if they fit. Grab a copy of the AQR and see if you agree. And grab a copy of Dylan and Zach’s collaborative chapbook, Superman’s Birthday Is a Giant Problem, if you want to read more poems like this one.
Making Room for Change,
Chris