I recently reached out to a friend, Rosemary. She was one of the first people I met over a decade ago when I first started working in digital accessibility. Rose was born with cerebral palsy. I’ve heard her voice, but I’ve never heard her “speak.” This is not to say that she hasn’t spoken to me; she has. And it’s not to say that I haven’t heard it, I have… I listened with a part of me that I didn’t know could hear until I met Rose. I think you’ll understand exactly what I mean once you’ve read the poems in her new book: Soul of a Rose.
I’m going to limit how much I go into about Rose’s lived experience. I’ll cover what I think is germane to my thoughts on her poetry and focus on what this review his about: Her poetry. However, I encourage you to read Rose’s story in her own words.
Rose graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in communication from Cleveland State University, then spent the next 10 years writing Sun Newspapers’ most popular column, “Bit of a Challenge.” Rose is a world traveler and has been to Italy, Germany, Austria, France, and Spain. She met the Pope.
Because of Rose’s cerebral palsy, she’s limited physically. She uses an electric wheelchair to get around, a head pointer to interact with her computer’s keyboard (imagine a headband with a pencil attached to the front), and a word board to communicate with the people around her.
Rose now works for an accessibility company, REM Creative Consulting. Our mutual passion for Digital Accessibility was the spark that started our friendship. Her prose is what drives it forward, as you will understand when you read Soul of a Rose.
Accessible was the first word that popped into my head when I started reading Rose’s poetry. Her poetry is respectful… inclusive… she doesn’t try to obfuscate her meaning through pretentious prose or overly enigmatic themes. She invites the reader into her world, leaving plenty of room for the reader to bring themselves into her work and relate in their unique way to her art… as it should be.
“Looks like you have made the grade of life.” Rose begins in her poem, Girl Rising from Ashes of Life.
“Through every impossible strife,
When you were flunking out of self-esteem,
When your spirit sulked in the corner, You found something within to be redeemed.”
I’ll let you read the rest. With those words, I am ushered into Rose’s struggle, and it reminds me of my own struggles trying to navigate school with dyslexia. I imagine Rose has never sat up all night with a friend, drinking wine and talking aimlessly, laughing, and crying, in the same way many others have. But I know she found her own way to experience the same kind of connection. It strikes me that her poetry is one of those ways, and that’s why she writes without barriers. That’s why she makes sure that no matter who you are, she facilitates access to her thoughts and feelings. She is inclusive. Reading her poetry is like walking and talking side by side with her along the shore as the sun fades:
“Hope in Dusk
Calmness sets in the water,
Dusk, made up in a pinkish haze and adorn by green,
Prepared for a magical night.
I sit along the edge of the glory,
Marveling how it reflects
Everything faded from long ago.
Brittle little branches see hope against the horizon.”
There are several Models of Disability. The one that is most relevant to the work Rose and I do is the Social Model of Disability. In short, the model defines disability as the result of environments that fail to accommodate human diversity – a website cannot be navigated by a screen reader user; therefore, the environment (the website) has failed to accommodate the screen reader user. In that case, if the website accommodated the user, the user would not experience a disability.
I’m sure Rose has experienced many environments throughout her life that do not accommodate her well. What her poetry shows me, however, is that she has recognized that, as someone without speech, without the same level of mobility as most others, she herself could be an environment difficult for us to access. However, she has flipped the script on what it means to accommodate and found unique ways to give us access to her.
Rose has done this without the benefit of guidelines. There is no WCAG 2.2 AA to show Rose what to do to make herself more accessible. She writes her own rules, redefining what it means to have a disability and to give access. She could easily be an environment that remains closed to us. Mad at the world for how she came into it.
Instead, she leads us by example, showing us what it means to accommodate and that all it takes is the desire to do it, and the methods will write themselves. All of this she does with an open heart and a smile, grateful for the people in her life. Grateful for a selfless mother who dedicated herself to Rose’s happiness. Grateful to you for reading her poetry.
“Thank you for Being you
Thank you for being you.
For uncorking yourself though you were never told,
Letting all your character explode
Bursting with humor, passion, inspiration
Upon every person you meet regardless of the relation.
Thank you for being you,
For finally discovering your inner gold
And sharing it with those who greatly benefit
Though society may think they may be unfit.
You rise above obstacles, always finding
The right path to the joy you deserve
And then paving your own that is so defining.
Thank you for being you.
Thank you for the beautiful reminder, through Rose’s story and poetry, that all it takes is a desire to make the world a more inclusive place. If we believe it’s possible, it can be done.