2022 Poetry Coalition Themed Programming: Poetry & Disability Justice

In March 2022, Kundiman, in partnership with the Poetry Coalition, created month-long programming to promote poetry within our daily lives and in our communities. This year’s theme was “The future lives in our bodies: Poetry & Disability Justice.” This line of poetry is from Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s poem, “Femme Futures.” Poetry Coalition members intended to uplift how poets can provoke questions around disability justice and imagining new futures. Selected quotes from literature by disability justice activists and writers were shared on social media throughout the month.

For the sixth year, Kundiman continued our Postcard Project tradition as part of our Poetry Coalition programming. During the month of March, Kundiman fellows wrote and sent postcard poems to each other everyday. Fellows were encouraged to write on the topic of disability justice, or to express anything that inspired them. The Kundiman community as a whole were also invited to participate with their own postcard creations.

Kundiman hosted a Poetics of Disability Justice workshop with Em Dial and Laurel Chen. In this 90-minute generative writing workshop, attendees were presented with a thoughtful space meant to center disabled experiences and spark the imagination of disabled writers to create work that bends language to meet Disabled poetics.

Thank you to all who participated and followed along with us for this year’s Poetry Coalition programming!

2022 Postcard Gallery

Weekly Prompts and Suggested Readings

During the month of March, Kundiman Fellows participated in discussing the prompts and readings focused on the theme of Poetry & Disability Justice. We hope that these prompts and suggested readings are informative and serve as a way to start your poems discussing Disability justice!

PROMPTS: 

1. Write a palindrome, a poem in which events are undone as the poem progresses. I.e. “i stand up from the chair / walk backwards to the counter where i pour tea from cup to kettle / outside flakes fall from the sidewalk to the sky”

2. Use some sort of punctuation to staccato a recounting of your day. Could be a forward slash or ampersand, etc. Think about how that interruption can affect how the bodymind moves through the poem. 

3. In “One Working Remotely & No Longer Commuting With Chronic Pain,” Camisha L. Jones writes: “i rest / and i rise /  and listen to the body that’s carried me here as it whispers the way forward.” Reflect on the ways you’ve listened to your body: what do you detect & discover when you listen?

SUGGESTED READINGS AND LINKS: 

On Working Remotely & No Longer Commuting With Chronic Pain by Camisha L. Jones

Last Best Niche by Cyrée Jarelle Johnson

My First Love, Confused For Perennial by Aurielle Marie

Poetics of Disability Justice with Em Dial and Laurel Chen

On March 12th, Kundiman hosted Poetics of Disability Justice— a 90-minute generative writing workshop led by writers and activists Em Dial and Laurel Chen. Attendees read poems by Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, Aurielle Marie, and Camisha L. Jones while applying Sheila Black’s understanding of disability poetics to crip time. This workshop was meant to build a thoughtful, intentional space that centers Disabled experiences and inspires Disabled writers to create work that bends language to meet Disabled poetics. As part of our Poetry Coalition March programming, this free workshop was made possible in part with funds from the Academy of American Poets provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Thank you to all who attended, and thank you to Em and Laurel for their hard work and dedication in leading this workshop. For those interested, a link to the slideshow used can be found here.

2022 Postcard Project Testimonials

“I'm so grateful to have had the community, prompt, and structure to send postcards for a month. I have longtime postcard correspondences with a few writer friends, but this was different, sending to someone different every day, and looping back around. Some fellows I've known for years, others I've never met. As with any prompt, I appreciated the ways various writers and minds responded to the constraints with such creativity. Also, as my other writing feels fraught at times, postcards reminded me to play, to write quickly, to not overthink, to experiment with line, words, and color.” — Sejal Shah

"I never fail to participate in Kundiman's postcard project because it generates much work for me: 30-31 possibilities and seeds for poems. Through the years some of those seeds have sprouted, leafed, and fruited. I've approached the task unlike my usual practice, writing each postcard in one sitting, with a swift dash of the pen, wherever it takes me. And to know that someone will receive it is truly a gift sent."— Joseph Legaspi

This project was supported by the Academy of American Poets with funds from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.