Poetry Monday: The Knife of Language

Helen Takes the Stage
by Kathi Wolfe

(Helen Keller starred in a vaudeville show The Bluebird of Happiness in 1924.)

Here I am,
playing,
like a well-trained
seal, for you,
between the clowns
and singing dogs.
Your surprise
at seeing me in the flesh
in a room smelling like cigars,
makes my skin prickle with heat
more than the stage lights.
Did you know
that Mark Twain taught
me to play pool and spit tobacco?
Annie, my teacher, hates
my being here.
"It's so undignified
to tell jokes to drunks
and traveling salesmen," she says.
I crave applause
more than scotch, cigarettes
or hot dogs swimming in mustard.
With the knife of language,
I've carved out the best life
an icon can.
But, being a saint
is as difficult
as getting a drink during Prohibition.
Yet, until the curtain falls,
I am tethered, like you,
to the laughing
muck and mire of the earth.


And from The Washington Post in July of 2001, an article by the above poet on heroes and inspiration: "He's Your Inspiration, Not Mine":

Don't get me wrong -- I like to readnews reports on disabled people, at least when they're about issues -- health insurance, discrimination, education -- that concern me and my peers.

Just keep us in some kind of real context. Occasionally, show us not as main characters but as background characters -- like a story about a Metro delay or the Smithsonian Folklife Festival that includes, but doesn't necessarily feature, the folks with white canes and wheelchairs stuck on the subway or sitting in the audience. And on TV and in movies, give us some roles as regular characters -- like Marlee Matlin's deaf political consultant on "The West Wing." There's been progress on this front in the last few years; I'd like to see more.

And I'd like to see stories about some of the peoplewho really are heroes to those of us with disabilities. Like those who found a sudden demand for their previously unwanted services during World War II, and rose to the challenge. While able-bodied men were away fighting, disabled people worked in factories and offices and served as volunteers. Reporting for a 1995 article, I talked to Norma Krajczar of Morehead City, N.C. As a visually impaired teenager in Massachusetts, Norma was a volunteer aircraft warden; the thought was that her sensitive hearing would give her an advantage over sighted wardens in listening for enemy planes. And I learned that Akron, Ohio, became known as the "crossroads of the deaf" because of all the deaf people who came to work in tire factories converted to defense plants -- making more money than they had ever been able to before. Yet, even with all the reporting that's been done recently about the Greatest Generation, you don't hear much about those folks.