Lyrical Ableism and the Disabled Poem Maddening the Creative Writing Workshop

Abstract

In referring to texts as “bodies,” we understand the poem as a living body with the capacity to be mad or disabled. Drawing on Kim’s notion of curative violence, this article explores the academic creative writing workshop as an institutional force of so-called lyrical ableism, creating normative standards of creative practice that are intolerant to inherently harmless differences in form and style. The article suggests that care networks might be formed not only between fellow poets, but between poets and their own poems. Suggestions are given for maddening the writing workshop in the vein of Chandler’s “cripping the arts,” outlining a process that identifies (alleged) flaws in early drafts as components of the poem’s madness before using an access-first framework to guide revision as an act of accommodation rather than violent elimination.