Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back - Tapa blanda

"The face of next-generation disability poetics announces itself with a roar razor-fine lyric, body knowledge, crip humour and revolutionary grief are all on display, along with something more: the joy of the discovered self. The poems here are gorgeous and important."
-- Sheila Black, co-editor, Beauty is a Verb

"Stairs and Whispers is an incredible addition to crip literature that I m excited to add to my shelf! The poems and essays featured here are at once devastating, enraging, and uproarious for me as a queer neurodivergent writer of colour."
-- Lydia X. Z. Brown, activist, writer and speaker

"Watching the new surge of Deaf poets take on the world of BSL, film and creative captioning feels very important ... to reclaim the right to be a poet and to use both signed and written word to demonstrate the diversity and richness of the Deaf community ... commenting on being Deaf, politics of identity and a celebration of who we are."
-- Jenny Sealey, Artistic Director, Graeae Theatre

"This is a collection which redefines what poetry is. This is a collection which is nearly as varied as the diversity of impairment and disability and D/deaf experiences in Britain today. This is a collection which I will read and re-read until I have absorbed the richness and colour and anger and misery and humour and power of it."
--Tom Shakespeare, author, Disability Rights and Wrongs

Five years after the seminal U.S. anthology, Beauty is a Verb, Nine Arches Press is proud to publish this innovative and boundary breaking anthology. Co-edited by poets Sandra Alland, Khairani Barokka and Daniel Sluman Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back examines the poetics of disabled and D/deaf cultures. The first of its kind and packed with fierce poetry, essays, photos and links to accessible online videos, it showcases a diversity of styles, opinions, and survival strategies for a world that often works to shut us down.

With contributions that span Vispo to Surrealism, and range from hard-hitting political commentary to intimate lyrical pieces the poets brought together in this anthology refuse to perform or inspire according to tired old narratives.

Includes poetry & prose by:
Aaron Williamson, Abi Palmer, Abigail Penny, Alec Finlay, Alison Smith, Andra Simons, Angela Readman, Bea Webster, Cath Nichols, Catherine Edmunds, Cathy Bryant, Claire Cunningham, Clare Hill, Colin Hambrook, Daniel Sluman, Debjani Chatterjee, Donna Williams, El Clarke, Eleanor Ward, Emily Ingram, Gary Austin Quinn, Georgi Gill, Giles L. Turnbull, Gram Joel Davies, Grant Tarbard, Holly Magill, Isha, Jackie Hagan, Jacqueline Pemberton, Joanne Limburg, Julie McNamara, Karen Hoy, Khairani Barokka, Kitty Coles, Kuli Kohli, Lisa Kelly, Lydia Popowich, Mark Mace Smith, Markie Burnhope, Michelle Green, Miki Byrne, Miss Jacqui, Naomi Woddis, Nuala Watt, Rachael Boast, Raisa Kabir, Raymond Antrobus, Rosamund McCullain, Rose Cook, Sandra Alland, Saradha Soobrayen, Sarah Golightley, sean burn, Stephanie Conn