One of the ways we overcome our nervous shyness about our disabilities is by talking about them, and writing about them. And by encountering the poetry of Kathi Wolfe. I enjoy her work out-loud -- she is a frequent performer of her poems at local DC-area venues -- and on the page.
Kathi's "Blind Ambition" (in which she speaks of the monsters in arithmetic) is offered below; I first discovered this poem when it was posted by Split this Rock as poem of the week.
Blind Ambition by Kathi Wolfe
I'm in my seat,
averting my eyes,
those funhouse mirrors,
from the numbers
swimming across the blackboard.
Figures are slimy
monsters who slobber
all over your picnic
basket on the beach.
I grab my white cane
and run away from them.
"If you were Helen Keller,"
my teacher says,
"you'd get a gold
star in arithmetic."
Her voice sounds
like she's just
met Prince Charming.
"You would be a perfect
young lady," she says.
I don't want
to make friends
with fractions
or skip rope
with multiplication tables.
I want to chase
lightning bugs,
pull my brother's hair,
open up all the presents
before the company
comes on Christmas morning.
I don't want to be any
Goody-Two-Shoes Helen.
I want to baptize
my new sneakers
in the mud.
"Blind Ambition" is in Kathi's chapbook, The Green Light (Finishing Line Press, 2013). Kathi is legally blind.
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