The poem “Poet of Cripples” written by Jim Ferris dictates the narrator as the poet for people with disabilities or “cripples”. Ferris himself is disabled and portrays a problematic stance on disability throughout the poem due to the poetic speaker’s heroic tone. Ferris presents a common view that he may experience as a person with disability, that is the idea of needing to be put back together and or losing control of one’s sense of power. I will argue that he uses the poetic speaker to highlight his experience of “loss” of power in his life.
The poetic speaker’s first questionable approach is the fact that he declares himself “a poet of cripples”; he takes the title along with the power to speak and be the poet for cripples. This presents the perception that people with disabilities need someone to be their poet and speak for them, that they are not capable of being their own poet. This takes the power away from the community, when they are people too and should have the opportunity to be their own poet. The poetic speaker ends the poem with “I sing for cripples” continuing the pattern of taking the power away from others simply because he thinks he needs to speak for them. The community is allowed to sing for themselves and speak for themselves, but in society people assume because they are disabled they need someone to be their voice. Society takes the power away from people with disabilities because they have this idea that because they have a disability they do not have the ability, or sometimes even the option to make their own decisions and control their own lives.
In the poem it is suggested by the poetic speaker that people with disabilities are not whole or are missing something and needed to be complete. Ferris writes that people with disabilities are “groping to be whole” and that they need or want to “become full, whole” and that it is the narrator’s duty as a voice for the community to help them. Throughout the poem the suggestion that people with disabilities are incomplete or missing something; wanting to be whole. The suggestion is problematic in the sense that it devalues their feelings and the narrator takes on the role to determine that they should not be happy with who they are and they are not like everyone else, they are only half of non-disabled people. Society creates the perception, as well, that people who have disabilities or impairments are missing something and it creates a negative association with disabilities when they are also people and are whole despite their disability. They are allowed to be okay with who they are and not feel like their life is a loss and they do not need to feel the desire to want more, no one is more whole than anyone else.
Another complication presented in the poem is the use of the word “normal”. Jim Ferris presents the concept that people that are nondisabled are considered which labels people with disabilities as abnormal. Ferris simply sheds light on the issue that is brought on by society is that anyone who is in any way different or is not what society defines as “normal” they are abnormal, therefore, since people with disabilities usually stand out or are considered different they are labeled as abnormal. He blends his personal experience with disability into the poem throughout by including how people manipulate and control people with disabilities simply because they think they need to save them. However, the idea of feeling abnormal comes from within Ferris and how he is seen as different from other’s simply because one leg grew shorter than the other. Similar to how society treats other people with disabilities, there is the possibility he experienced the same otherness and incorporated it into his work to grow the understanding of viewpoints with disability.
Despite the negatives the one thing I found interesting in the poem is Ferris’s attempt at uniting everyone and creating a larger community. The narrator suggests inside everyone there’s disability and he sings for everyone, suggesting everyone is alike and it is everyone’s differences that bring them together. It also suggests that even though one may not be disabled they still have a connection to someone in life that is disabled creating that connection.
“I Pledge”
Word Count: 615
I absolutely loved your response to Ferris’s poem. I didn’t read the poem in such a way, but I love this perspective. Ferris uses the line “Let me be a poet of cripples, of hollow men and boys groping to be whole, of girls limping toward womanhood” to use disabling imagery in explaining how it feels being disabled in those awkward stages of life. The next couple lines say, “our hidden void, a place for each to become full, whole, room of our own, space to grow in ways unimaginable to the straight and the narrow, the small and similar, the poor, normal ones who do not know their poverty,” disability can sometimes be hidden and at times be very empowering. I’m not sure I am on the right track but from what I understood it sounds like people who are “normal” do not understand their disability nor how important it is to their aesthetic let alone their own poverty (what they are struggling with) so how can they (normal) sit back and judge/ critique, this can be seen in The Secret Garden with Colin and the staff. The following line supports this by saying look deep within yourself you are a cripple too even though you may not see it, everyone can be a cripple. That is more of how I read it.