Online Archive of University of Virginia Scholarship
"Ligamental"90 views
Author
Isaacson, Talia, Creative Writing - Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia
Advisors
Petrosino, Kiki, AS-Creative Writing (CRWR), University of Virginia
Spaar, Lisa, AS-Creative Writing (CRWR), University of Virginia
Teare, Brian, AS-Creative Writing (CRWR), University of Virginia
Abstract
What does it mean for a body to belong? Can a disability, in Virgil's words, be "mustered into furrows, and with great effort, tamed?" This manuscript explores a young speaker's experience of disability – in particular, a glottal block stutter – through their desire to control their stutter and the physical world. Through agricultural labor on an isolated farm in Maine, she attempts to govern her body and the bodies around her, suppressing her disability along with her burgeoning queerness. She experiences the promise and danger of this approach, along with its eventual failure. And in that failure, we encounter other failures: of the lyric, of the Georgic ideal, of dogmatic morality, of ableist ideas of cure. Part-memoir, part-crip revelation, this manuscript is a prayer toward Jjjjjerome Ellis's invocation: "give me a speech impediment / that I may live."
Degree
MFA (Master of Fine Arts)
Keywords
farming; stutter; Georgic; queerness; disability
Language
English
Rights
All rights reserved (no additional license for public reuse)
Isaacson, Talia. "Ligamental". University of Virginia, Creative Writing - Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, MFA (Master of Fine Arts), 2024-04-19, https://doi.org/10.18130/4c4h-9384.
