Overview

Bethany Handley’s debut pamphlet, Cling Film, explores existing as a young Disabled woman in an ableist and inaccessible world. The opening line of the title poem reads: ‘Ableism. Verb. The act of wrapping the world in cling film.’ The collection lays bare the barriers that disable people, from physical inaccessibility to the discrimination of others, such as incompetent doctors, or ignorant passers-by. Joy is found in nature, however, including a wheelchair user leaving proud tyre marks across the beach in ‘Hiya Butt Bay’. These formally inventive poems challenge myths about disability in ways that are striking, astute, and devastatingly exact.

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9781781727683

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Reviews

“Cling Film is a collection that lifts many veils and lets in much-needed light and air...” – Carol Rumens, Guardian

Author Information

Bethany Handley is a writer, poet and Disabled activist from South Wales. Bethany campaigns for better access to nature for Disabled people. Her work explores nature and disability, challenging the barriers Disabled people experience, and has been published in POETRY, Poetry Wales, Spelt, The Welsh Agenda and Plantlife, and featured by BBC Radio 4 and BBC Wales. Bethany is one of the writers on Literature Wales’ Representing Wales 2023–24 and she was awarded Creative Future’s Gold Prize for Creative Non-fiction 2023. Bethany mentors other Disabled writers and is co-editing a bilingual anthology of Welsh d/Deaf and Disabled writers.

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