Rainbow collection of disability symbols under text reading QUEERING CRIP, CRIPPING QUEER, workshop facilitated by Robin Eames.
I did a workshop today at the University of Queensland for the Queer Collaborations conference, titled QUEERING CRIP, CRIPPING QUEER.
A recording of the workshop is available here (Auslan interpreted) and the slides can be accessed here.
Love & solidarity,
robin
I have a poem in the latest issue of Voiceworks, #111, Riff. This poem is a lot of things: a love letter, an exercise in surreality, and a conversation between binary and nonbinary forms of trans identity. It draws on ancient Sumerian, Greek, and Egyptian astronomical theories, including those of Anaxagoras, Anaximander, Aristotle, Empedocles, Thales, and Ptolemy.
You can buy the issue here.
my body is a disc floating on an endless ocean
gently orbiting the distant island of your body
daylight reigns over my body and night over
your body black and absent of suns or stars
you are an immense vault studded with tiny
points of perfect light in which i am enclosed
the surface of my skin is much colder than
yours which is formed out of blazing metal
your body is a binary system while my body
continues to resist all binary classification
i am growing into a great old oak tree whose
questing branches twine around and into you
my body is no longer capable of sustaining life
and yet is still capable of sustaining your body
i retain my own field of gravity which is several
times heavier than the lighter gravity you exude
i am suspended in endless space watching you
plummet inevitably into a vast and infinite void
your body is a chariot wheel of mist-shrouded
fire encircling the hollow cylinder of my body
my body revolves not around the sun as initially
thought but in fact revolves around your body
the death of my body approaches rapidly but i
have every hope that your body will live forever
i am constructed from four elements while you
are formed of a single fifth and mythic element
you are a quintessence of luminiferous aether and
i simply consist of classical earth air water and fire
your existence is a scientific marvel while i am
considered to be a mathematical impossibility
my body is doubted by philosophers of antiquity
whose texts questioned the veracity of your body
unbeknown to many my body is not a flawless
sphere like yours but rather very slightly elliptical
Recently one of my poems was a finalist in the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities’ Pen2Paper disability-focussed creative writing contest. I have reproduced the text of the poem here.
—
To my crip siblings, crip lovers, & crip mentors, to Laura Hershey and to Stella Young.
—
To the crips I love and who love me in return
from a distance or intimately close during
long nights where neither of us can sleep for pain
waiting for morning and the pain that morning brings
I am here for you.
To the crips who have been crips for longer
than I have been on this earth and who
welcomed me with open hearts and fire
of loving purpose in ancient battle
I am here for you.
To the crips who taught me power
comes from pride and pride comes from practicing
until you are proud (and that you don’t get proud
by being shit: you get proud by practicing)
I am here for you.
To the crips who do not know that they are crips
but know only that they hurt that their bones ache
that their muscles are heavy and that their eyes sting
in sunlight after another unhelpful appointment
I am here for you.
To the crips institutionalised and imprisoned
whose first crime was living and continuing to live
abused and neglected in homes that are not homes
trapped not in their bodies but by bar and mortar
I am here for you.
To the crips who sleep overnight
in desk chairs and wheelchairs
in the offices of politicians bedecked with banners
reading FREE OUR PEOPLE
I am here for you.
To the crips that have houses but not homes
or homes but not houses or neither home nor house
forced to live on the kindness and sideways glances
of strangers on public transport
I am here for you.
To the crips whose lands have been stolen
whose waters have been stolen
whose children have been stolen and whose lives
continue to be stolen
I am here for you.
To the crips who dislocate their hips
doing full service sex work to pay for medical bills
incurred from dislocating their hips
while doing full service sex work
I am here for you.
To the crips fighting to love each other
and to have their love recognised on equal terms
with all who are in love without penalty or price
or public stigma or getting bashed on street corners
I am here for you.
To the crips fighting to love themselves
after being unloved by those who should have loved them
or after being hurt by those who professed their love
but only when it was convenient
I am here for you.
To the crips who are drowning
in cold oceans seeking refuge or drowning
on dry land as their lungs fill with fluid
while emergency registrars do not watch
I am here for you.
To the crips who are burning
who have burnt out and from the ashes
are rising again charcoaled and brittle
and bold and battle-hardened
I am here for you.
To the crips who died
after living and loving and fighting
and then falling
to be remembered with love and fight
I am here for you.
To the crips who aren’t dead yet
living and fighting and fighting to live
and loving each other and fighting
for each other
I am here for you.
To the young crips, the old crips, the
queer crips, the trans crips, the brown crips,
the black crips, the proud crips, the tired crips,
the warrior crips, the poet crips, the dead and alive crips,
I think of you
I love and fight for you
I am here for you.
On the 14th of January (two days ago) I ran a workshop for the Romantica Social Centre’s Rad Queer Festival, titled Queercrip Rebellions. I ran out of time before the workshop to prepare my presentation properly, but the (as yet unfinished) content of the powerpoint is below.
Queercrip Rebellions in powerpoint form
Queercrip Rebellions in document form
Robin M. Eames 