poems of the neurodivergent experience

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Sometimes called monotropism, these are interests that are intensely interesting and preoccupying for autistic people.

However, I do read and tend to write, quirky, unsympathetic characters who struggle to fit in. Capable, privileged, single-minded characters, especially those with support groups they can rely on, I can’t identify with. God, it’s the same as my relationship with breathing. I am autistic, and my creative practice is inextricable from my own self – how could it not be? I absolutely despise person-first descriptions (“with autism”, etc.), talking about me like I carry this extra element of self round in a little suitcase, as an accompaniment to an already-whole person. I am a whole person and “autistic” is a value-neutral descriptor of that. I write and perform as an act of self-realisation and self-advocacy, speaking my reality into the sights of a world that was not built to recognise or accommodate it. It’s a beacon to people like me, it’s a call to arms for everyone who would support us, it’s a guilt trip for everyone who should know better, and it’s a warning to the boots trying to stamp us down. Michael Fitzgerald (2005). The Genesis of Artistic Creativity: Asperger’s Syndrome and the Arts. Jessica Kingsley Publisher. The film and audio works commissioned include performance dramas, dance, comedy, spoken word poetry and animation, with the majority of artists highlighting aspects of the disabled experience of living through the pandemic.The video by Amanda Baggs, ‘In My Language’ always moves me. I identify with the rich textural language in the film. Everything speaks, but not necessarily in the verbal or linguistic sense. The work of philosopher Erin Manning on autistic perception has been fundamental to my artistic practice, and has helped me to see that my innate understanding of process philosophy is inseparable from the way in which I understood the experience of being autistic. I could also recommend the books, ‘Autism and Sensing: The Unlost Instinct,’ by Donna Williams, and ‘Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness’ by Melanie Yergeau.

Pellicano, E., & den Houting, J. (2022). Annual Research Review: Shifting from ‘normal science’to neurodiversity in autism science. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 63(4), 381-396. Each of the commissioned artists will be assigned an Executive Producer from digital support agency The Space, in partnership with Unlimited, an arts commissioning programme that enables new work by disabled artists to reach UK and international audiences. The Executive Producer will mentor and support the artists throughout production and delivery of their work to BBC platforms this summer.We were not really mainstream sort of people. Maybe we’d get called odd, weird or quirky by others, but in the open mic nights above pubs, at the tents in festivals or drama studios in arts centres, we found somewhere we could connect with others and feel a sense of power and choice. A space we could truly express the word-passion and other interests we had. We would be accepted, heard and understood in ways that resonated deeply with our loneliest core and which healed the parts of ourselves that had always felt alone- isolated – like we didn’t fit in. Hen Night, a short film by award-winning theatre and screen writer/director Vici Wreford-Sinnott, inspired by the writing of award-winning journalist Frances Ryan. Jessica has just had her hen night - a last night of freedom but not in the ways she, or any of us, might have imagined. The Cat, The Mouse And The Sausage, an animation of a Grimm’s Brothers fairy tale by award-winning filmmaker Joel Simon.

Dara McAnulty’s book Diary of a Young Naturalist was published in 2020. Written as a teenager, the book charts a year in the author’s life: ‘This diary chronicles the turning of my world, from spring to winter, at home, in the wild, in my head’ (p7). I started to judge myself for these responses and wished that I was different or more ‘normal’. But through writing poetry, I’ve learned to – at times – love how finely tuned and sensitive my senses are. Ford, T., John, A., & Gunnell, D. (2021). Mental health of children and young people during pandemic. British Medical Journal, 372. Opal Whiteley (1976). The Story of Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart. Adapted by Jane Boulton. Tioga Publishing Company. Recommended reading and listening from other neurodivergent writers and artists About: Jon is both a contemporary Artist and researcher. He works in many differing media including sound, drawing and performance, often referencing his autism, synaesthesia and dyslexia, all interwoven with history, science, time and his past experiences.In fact, I never thought you could write poetry about these things at all – besides, I was too busy and self-conscious to write poetry as a teenager, struggling every day to just get through school and survive. Martin shared his concept for Multiverse with his friend and mentor Daniel Slager, Milkweed’s publisher. It took only one conversation for Slager to decide that Milkweed would be an ideal home for the series. Milkweed has taken a careful and robust approach in bringing the Multiverse books to the marketplace, working to hire neurodivergent consultants for the series.