Overview

Killed by kindness, stifled by overprotection, choked by subtle if sometimes unconscious snubs, the physically handicapped are one of the world's most invisible minorities. Seeking to draw attention to the various attitudes and perceptions about the handicapped, renowned poet Vassar Miller has assembled this collection of short stories and poems culled from the best of contemporary literature. The forty-five works focus on characters with motor and/or sensory disabilities. Ranging from optimistic to embittered and from sentimental to realistic, they portray the handicapped and the family; the handicapped and society; the myth of the holy idiot; the handicapped as human being, good, evil, and indifferent; the handicapped as unique. Both instructional and entertaining, this book will be of interest to a wide variety of readers, including the handicapped themselves. It will be especially helpful to professionals in the medical, education, and social service fields. As Vassar Miller says in her introduction, ""... the book is meant as a midwife in bringing to birth a renewed understanding of all human beings as so many mirrors of God, however seemingly distorted ...""

Full Product Details

Author:   Vassar Miller
Publisher:   University of Texas Press
Imprint:   University of Texas Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.00cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9780292715509

ISBN 10:   0292715501
Pages:   166
Publication Date:   01 July 1985
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction Yoke in His Youth At the School for the Deaf (Robert Pawlowski) Mutterings over the Crib of a Deaf Child (James Wright) Like the Hully-Gully but Not So Slow (Anne Finger) My Family Is Unhappy (Cheri Fein) The Wrestled Angel The Sentry of Portoferraio (Daniel Mark Epstein) Black Lightning (Arthur Sze) The Lace Maker (Barbara Howes) Lying Alone in the Dismal Winter Mornings (Christy Brown) The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field (Richard Hugo) Finch the Spastic Speaks (Gordon Weaver) In Body, a Passenger, and Rumpled Charwoman (Ben Belitt) Veteran’s Hospital (Ben Belitt) Visit to the Institute for the Blind (Felix Pollak) Stutterer (Alan Dugan) The Game (Harold Bond) The Stroke (Christopher Fahy) The Eye (Part II) (Richard Wilbur) Beam in the Eye The Ones That Are Thrown Out (Miller Williams) Average Waves in Unprotected Waters (Anne Tyler) The Street (Natalie Petesch) Beating and Beatitude (James Corpora) Silences (David Keller) The Glen (Josephine Jacobsen) The Grasshopper’s Burden (William Goyen) The Sacrifice (Fergus Reid Buckley) An Unrung Bell The Handicapped (Philip Dacey) How Stump Stood in the Water (David Wagoner) A Late Elegy for a Baseball Player (Felix Stefanile) Seated Nude (Richard Ronan) Wrestling with Angels (Walter Mcdonald) After Being Paralyzed from the Neck Down for Twenty Years, Mr. Wallace Gets a Chin-Operated Motorized Wheelchair (Ronald Wallace) Recovery Song (Barry Wallenstein) Stumpfoot on 42nd Street (Louis Simpson) 9:00 A.M. at Broadway and Walnut on Your Birthday (Ripley Schemm) Bleeder (Hollis Summers) Waiting for Happy (John Gilgun) Saint Flannery (David Ray) Pizarro Teaches the Mentally Retarded to Swim (Lee Bassett) To One Deaf (Sister Mary Lucina)

Reviews

...<cite>Despite This Flesh contains so many fine pieces of writing that it succeeds in being a remarkable literary anthology as well as satisfying Miller's hope that it might 'serve as a midwife' to a kind of humane and clear-sighted understanding of the disabled. Los Angeles Times Book Review

...Despite This Flesh contains so many fine pieces of writing that it succeeds in being a remarkable literary anthology as well as satisfying Miller's hope that it might 'serve as a midwife' to a kind of humane and clear-sighted understanding of the disabled. * Los Angeles Times Book Review *

Author Information

Vassar Miller (1924–1998) was a Poet Laureate of Texas. She lived with cerebral palsy.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions