American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
Future Reflections Special Issue on Cooking REVIEW
by John Lee Clark
Reviewed by Jessie Kramer
From the Editor: John Lee Clark is an acclaimed deafblind poet and essayist. How to Communicate was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award in Poetry. One of the judges commented that How to Communicate is “frank, funny, and utterly brilliant. The poems ... press back on the most basic assumptions of poetry and publishing, including how it is materially read. ... Clark expands what a poem can do, and reminds us of its most central calling of speaking intimately and broadly, all its ways of touch.” Reviewer Jessie Kramer serves on the board of the NFB’s Deafblind Division.
How to Communicate: Poems
by John Lee Clark
W.W. Norton, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-324-03534-3
104 pages
Available in alternative formats from Bookshare and the National Library Service (NLS)
I am not a scholar of poetry, but I am a person who enjoys reading poems. I very much enjoy these poems by John Lee Clark. He is a deafblind poet who writes about deafblindness from the inside. I like the rhythm to his poems and his rich sense of humor. I love the poem about the blockies, from his sequence of short poems called “Slateku.” He brought a smile to my face.
I love this author. He breaks down our disabilities to the simplest joys in life. Hooray! He talks of the irony of our disabilities, how people think we shouldn't be able to travel. There are simple joys that he expresses, such as eating different foods in different places. He celebrates the human condition. Bravo!
Clark has a great gift for pointing out oddities in the world. He writes about how the Deaf world will be extinguished if people won't teach their children to sign. I see the roots of this belief when he talks about mutants in the world, how we forget their gifts to the world. I think Clark teaches us as deafblind people that we need to have greater love for ourselves and our uniqueness. I love, love, love how he tries to educate the public about Braille! He puts it in a very realistic manner. The reader gets a little historical perspective.
I have always felt that my disability makes me aware of the differences in the world. I put this on a personal level, not on a community level, such as thinking about the blind and visually impaired community or the Deafblind community. I thank Clark for bringing that wider perspective to me. It will make me stand even prouder.