After many months of work, Perspectives, Poetry Concerning Autism and Other Disabilities 2 is finally under construction. The poems have been selected--letters are starting to go out to the poets and we are getting very, very excited!

What you are looking at above is the prospective cover photo for Perspectives II--taken by the origional artist from the first book in the series!

Everything is coming together nicely and Perspectives II promises to be bigger and even better than the first book that made the series what it was! With contributions from 5 continents around the world this will be a book to remember.

Perspectives 2 is right around the corner and we have started a campaign on Indiegogo.com to try and make the newest addition to the series the best yet.  

Click Here to check it out!

I Don’t Know What My
Thoughts Feel Like: A Child’s Experience With PDD  
 
 
By Steven T. Licardi
 
It is a truly strange and curious thing to have to describe.  It is hard to explain the lingering confusion that accompanies every experience I can remember as a child – a
preconditioned air or taste to every memory I have between the ages of five and
twelve.  It was as if they had been filtered through someone else’s mind first before becoming a part of my own; there is something alien about each and every one of them.  I always knew I was different.  A cliché, perhaps, but I always felt dissimilar from everyone else around me, or at the very least felt like I was seeing things differently, experiencing the world differently.  That was something I figured out very early on in my life, but whether I was gifted or cursed was a greater mystery.  Whatever it was that distinguished me from others was clearly self-contained – something within me – yet it evaded my childish analysis and remained a vague kind of plight.  It took many years for me to discover just what it was.

Though I am certain there were manifestations while I was very young, it was around school age that my behavior became disruptive.  Whenever I was presented with a
stressful situation or any experience that elicited an emotional response, I
became inconsolable.  Particularly jarring were situations that caused anxiety, fear, frustration, sadness, or other negative emotions to well in me.  A typical response consisted of bursting into a fit, falling to the floor, muscles tensed, flailing, spitting, crying, screaming, kicking, biting, scratching, and making a terrible scene.  The outbursts were not confined to the classroom setting, either.  
My parents had to put up with many awkward public displays in super markets,
shopping malls, Chuck E. Cheese’s, parks, beaches, and various other locales.
 For me, whenever I was presented with a situation that provoked negative emotions within me – being caught in a fib, solving a homework problem, and, in particular, making decisions – I was flooded with fleeting, self-defeating thoughts that bombarded my mind and overwhelmed my ability to cope with them, and the way I dealt with those thoughts was by buckling into a tantrum.  For a young child, that flood of negative thoughts was quite distressing and incredibly confusing.

 I eventually learned that I was not the only one confused.  I have vague memories of being carted around by my mother to strange places across Long Island, seeing strange people who asked me strange questions and gave me strange things to do.  One particular experience stands out: At some medical center some place on Long
Island, a stranger led me into a big white room with a table in the center and
toys strewn about it – a Power Rangers play set and various other playthings
that currently escape me.  I must have been about six years old at the time.  I had been separated from my mother and instructed by the stranger to simply play with the toys.  I was then left in the room alone. Given the glass mirror that was on the wall, I
knew exactly what was going on: they were watching me. Still, no kid can resist the opportunity to play, especially a six-year-old, so I did, quite happily.  Such experiences were not uncommon and there was a period where school seemed to be suspended for the sake of these wayward visits.  In my short life, I cannot keep track of how many psychologists, psychiatrists, physicians, and medical personnel I have met and who analyzed me in great detail.

 Apparently, the thought was that I was suffering from some kind of seizures.  The
unfortunate thing about being a child is that you are not unlike a sick dog –
you can’t simply ask a dog what is ailing them, likewise you cannot simply ask a
child psychological questions.  I wouldn’t understand what a seizure was, let alone explain that what I was experiencing was not a seizure.  I was eventually taken out of public schools and enrolled in Eastern Suffolk BOCES (Board of Cooperative Education Services).  My peers consisted mainly of children who exhibited social misconduct, suffered from mental handicaps, and learning disabilities: antisocial children, ADD, autism, depression, and so forth. Even among these children, however, I felt different.  It was as if I stood in the divide between a “normal” child and an “abnormal” child – my existence was some kind of no-man’s-land between the two.  The mystery of my diagnosis (as the emphasis now seemed to be on determining) persisted.  It took a weeklong stint at Stony Brook Medical Center when I was eight years old, an EEG (electroencephalograph) glued to my scalp twenty-four hours a day monitoring my brain activity, to finally debunk the theory that I was suffering from seizures.  After that, the intensive doctor visits and psychological tests waned, and I returned to school at BOCES. 
 
It was around this time that my mother enrolled me in private art classes. Though my younger brother played soccer and baseball as a kid, I was never one for competitive sports or physical activities.  My mother, seeking something to keep me occupied, signed me up for weekend art lessons run out of my tutors home.  She not only
helped me develop my art skills, but also gave me private tours of New York
City’s many museums and tourist spots.  Art gave me a way of expressing my
erratic emotions and helped establish my sense of self.  It would be the progenitor of a lifelong fascination, passion, and appreciation for art.     


From then on out, I visited a psychologist regularly and was given medication that changed often.  My weight fluctuated and my sleep patterns became very disjointed.  Now an overweight child, I was constantly changing doses; new pills added, old pills taken away; “let’s try this”; “how about this”; “this one is new to the market”; none of which seemed to take away that ever-present alienation.  Depakote-laced ice cream for breakfast is no way to start a middle-schooler’s day, and still the outbursts persisted. By the time I was eleven, I was taking seven pills a day, some multiple times a day, with no change in behavior.It was around this time that I
began to discover poetry and started writing; it became my primary means of
expression.  The summer before seventh grade, my mother, compelled by my psychiatrist’s insistence that we begin to wean me off of my medication, decided to stop administering the pills altogether.  What an influential and horrible decision that was!

 I sank into a deep, mired depression, most certainly spurred on by withdrawal.  For
a few months, I hardly slept at all and most of my waking hours were spent
weeping uncontrollably.  I moped around the house that summer, shut in and hardly eating – even now I can recall that sadness that sat heavy in my chest, preventing me from keeping anything down.  Finally, it was decided I should be given medication again.  Of the seven pills I was originally taking, only one was reinstated.  This was enough to stabilize me.  As distressing as the experience was, life for me changed after that summer.  I returned to a normal weight and was reintroduced to dreams.  Who I was and how I saw the world was never the same again.



Things became clearer for me, and my emotional responses to stressful situations were drastically reduced. An illustration of this came when one day in school, I realized I had misplaced my notebook for history class. Instead of panic, I decided to just tare out a sheet from one of my other notebooks and take notes on that. After class, my teacher pulled me aside.  I thought I was in trouble for something.  He told me he saw what I had done and that a year ago I would have most certainly broken out into one of my fits.  He was honestly surprised by my maturity in the situation.  He told me he was proud of me, though I did not feel as though I had done anything incredible. 

I never really returned to my severe, violent outbursts.  Within a year, I decided for myself that I no longer wanted to take any medication.  Though I remained a relatively emotional person – inclined to cry more often than not – stressful situations no longer gave me ache.  I still felt as though I perceived the world differently, but I no longer felt alienated from it. 

I finished my middle school and high school careers without incident, even returning to “mainstream” classrooms my junior and senior years.  After graduating, I enrolled in college, working to complete my associate degree.  In my twenties, my interest in poetry became more lucrative as I sought out performance opportunities, open mics, and means of publication throughout New York.  I also began reflecting on my
experiences as a child, becoming more and more interested in what it was that
had affected me.  At last, one evening I conjured up the nerve to ask my mother, quite bluntly, “What was wrong with me?”  I remember the somber look on her face as she sat at the foot of her bed and told me.



“It’s called a Pervasive Developmental Disorder,” she said, and proceeded to explain how it took a long time for doctors to figure out what it was.  It eventually took a child psychologist at Stony Brook Medical Center to diagnose me.  PDD encompasses five classes of disorders, all characterized by developmental delays: Autism, Asperger syndrome, Rett syndrome, Heller’s syndrome, and not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS).  My particular manifestation of the disorder (a PDD-NOS) entailed my emotions developing at a far slower rate than my mental state.  This meant that when I was five, I had the emotions of a three year old; when I was ten, I had the emotions of a six year old; and so forth.  In essence, I was beginning to think
things I could not emotionally comprehend.  My outbursts were the result of
frustration from my inability to understand my own thoughts – childish reactions
to mature cognitions.  This would explain the strange alienation I felt within myself; the peculiar way in which the world seemed filtered.  The hope was that as I matured, my emotions would eventually equalize with my physical age.  After I hit puberty,
this is apparently what happened.  My mother than pointed toward a box in
her closet and said that she had kept every test I had ever taken, ever task I
was asked to do, and every medical record, because she knew one day I would come
asking.  Whether or not my withdrawal experience played a significant role is mystery, but I still consider it an important experience. 

Today, I am an active poet on Long Island who still thinks he experiences the world differently.  I write often and still find the time to create art, both on the page and on canvas.  I consider PDD a part of who I am and the experiences I had as a child dealing with the disorder as important to my development as a person.  Ironically enough, I am currently attending Stony Brook University, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in psychology to become the kind of professional that has always played a part in my life: A clinical psychologist.  I can still feel the strangeness, dissimilarity between myself and the world around me. Perhaps that is every man’s plight –not just my own.


I recognize that my story is not a typical one and that many people experience autism and similar disorders throughout their lives.  My hope is that sharing my story will give others the confidence and sentiment to realize that their experiences are important and a unique gift to the world.I refrain from using the term
“suffer” because most of the people who I have met in my life, predominantly
through my experiences and education at BOCES, would hardly seem to me to be
suffering.  Many have struck me with such awe and grace that I stand in wonder of their abilities and personalities.  I truly believe that growing up among them and with them has proven to be the single most influential and inspiring part of my life.  These children continue to hold a fond place in my heart as I recall the beauty of many of them, but that is for another story.

   Remembering Matt: My Autistic Best Friend.

       by James P. Wagner

I met Matt when I was in the 8th grade.  Alright, so his name wasn't really Matt—but for the purposes of the story,  that's what we will call him. I had just transferred
to a new school because of  hard times at my old one and it was difficult enough
coming in the last year of  the 3 year middle school when everyone else had
known each other for at minimum  2 years already (and many of them had
connections going back to elementary  school). I think I was drawn to Matt
because he, like me, seemed to be an  outsider who had barely anyone to talk
to.

 Although not too many people talked to him,  everyone knew him, as he was a very hard to forget kinda character. First off, he was huge—about twice the size of the rest of the kids. Secondly, he would walk through the hallways completely in his own world, repeating things he had heard from television shows to himself while twiddling his fingers completely oblivious (or perhaps purposefully ignoring) the other kids who would laugh at him for this behavior. 

To be totally honest, getting his attention atfirst wasn't particularly easy for me either—but my young mind tried very hard to get to know him because him and his one friend Joe were the only two kids I felt I had a chance of connecting with. I was ignored quite a few times, other times I managed to get his attention for brief moments before being disregarded and one time I was even thrown across the cafeteria into a giant pile of backpacks when Matt thought I was talking to his friend Joe more than he was and  had gotten a little bit jealous. But in the great days of youth, you can be thrown across a room by someone one day and be their best buddy the next day. After the backpack incident that resulted in both of us being sent to the time out room, Matt and I started talking—mostly about pointless things like
  television shows, video games we played, and how much the teachers annoyed us.
  One thing we both had in common was being in special ed classes. And one thing
  that annoyed us both was how the teachers talked very, very slowly while at the
  same time conveying absolute no information to us whatsoever. 

It became very obvious to me early on that Matt had no need to be in the special needs classes. Not only was he able to reach mathematical calculations faster than the teachers could with their calculators,  but he had every date memorized in history class and the entire periodic table  committed to memory. So why did his grades end up slipping enough for him to be  put in these classes? Me and him shared something else in common—we both refused  to do the homework. (Both of us had found it a complete waste of time—honestly  my opinion on this hasn't changed much over the years.) and Matt, like myself,  found the teachers monotone lectures and slow speech to be completely and  utterly boring. In fact, we had quite a lot in common in our
approaches to  school when we were that age. The only major difference between
us was that I  didn't walk around twiddling my fingers or talk with much of a
lisp as he did.  That's probably why when we got sent to the counselors and the
labels came—I was  only slapped with ADD while Matt was hit with the label of
being fully autistic. 

The thing that shocked me the most was how differently Matt, myself and those other kids who had labels were treated than the rest of the children. In fact, after a schoolyard fight that Matt was involved in with another student (to which I might point out, the other student started) Matt was assigned a teacher aid to follow him around, this tradition followed him from 8th grade until 10th grade despite the  fact he changed schools. (Whereas my label of ADD left me shortly after  9th grade
thanks to my mother's absolute refusal for me to be put on  drugs which sparked
many doctor visits, blood tests and evaluations until I was  finally given a
crack back in the regular classes. And wouldn't you know it, I  shortly after
got pushed into advanced classes—go figure!) 

Matt's label followed him for his entire high school career. Mine however, did not. This always struck me as unfair. Matt and myself shared the same stubbornness, our same refusal to do work, our same negative views of the way the schools were ran. We had similar problems with other children, and similar approaches in our academic performances. So what separated me from him? His lisp, and the fact he would twiddle his fingers seemed to me, to be the only major differences that set us apart. Of course that  wasn't true—as I learned later on when studying the differences in our
  abilities. Matt for example was far better at calculation than I was—not that I
  was slow, in fact I was above average—but he was far greater. I became aware
  very early on that I had a selective photographic memory—that is a memory that
  would retain even the slightest detail of things that caught my attention. I
  used to think this was the same thing with Matt, until I realized that he would
  remember things I had no memory of—his lack of interest in these things was
even  greater than mine, because he remembered them, but chose not to
acknowledge them  whatsoever! One of the skills I seemed to have a better
concept of than he did  however, was being able to read people and talk to them.
And that made my time  slightly more bearable than his. He was treated like an
alien—a being from  another planet. Someone who logic and reason, or even
compassion wouldn't work  on. Of course, this wasn't always the case. In fact,
several teachers has very  different approaches to how they handled him. Three
in particular come to mind: Mrs. F, Ms T and Mr. L.

Mrs. F. was a very strict middle-aged teacher. Not only was she in fact middle-aged but she had the draconian mentality of the middle ages. She was the  one who would hand out a journal and grade it—the one who would insist on an  hour of homework every night for her class alone even though you had 7 other classes at least. The one who would give you arbitrary tasks insisting they were  essential to learning. She was the type who would even insist you held your pen  a certain way. And you ALWAYS had to use a BLACK pen, NEVER a blue pen because  BLUE pens were less professional than BLACK pens. She not only insisted on a  journal every week, great grades on the tests and about a bagillion homework  assignments. But three days a week she would make us sit there and read silently  from the book and if we were even the slightest bit distracted she would scream  at us. Needless to say, Matt already got good grades on all the tests in this  class. It was history—he knew the dates backwards. But that didn't matter to  Mrs. F. So you can imagine the fit she threw when she found him doing work for  another class during the free reading period. Matt found himself in constant  trouble in that class for not following the arbitrary rules she set forth. In  fact I think he was the only one in the entire class to
somehow end up with a C- despite getting 100's on all the tests. This of course,
thanks to the constant  participation points she would deduct or take away
because of his refusal to “follow the rules.” 

Ms. T. was in many ways the exact opposite of Mrs.  F, very compassionate and very understanding, but also very coddling. Too coddling. She didn't have many hard set rules at all in this English class—in fact, when it came to Matt, she seemed to have none at all. He could miss the homework and she would give him an extra two days, three days, week to get it to  her. (Although when I missed the homework I got it marked off right away!) Matt  got extra time on not only the tests as was part of his IEP but on all the quizzes and even some in class assignments! If he didn't participate in discussions or didn't contribute to the analysis of the books, or the reading
he  still got credit for doing so. In fact, I can't recall him doing much of anything in this class at all. Other students who did more work than him, somehow ended up with C's and B's—Matt? An A-. I guess in a cosmic sense this makes up for the crap he got in Mrs. F's class—but the rest of the students sure  didn't like it—and they had a point. 

Mr. L. was the middle ground between these two teachers. In math, there were no two ways about it—he has the syllabus for the class laid out, the two tests a month and the homework assignments. The journal was optional, class participation with problems on the board were more for encouragement and help with the subject matter. The in class problems and the practice quizzes were all optional—some students did them religiously, Matt did none of them—but still passed every test with flying colors. He knew of Matt's “disability” and still expected the same results. But how Matt got there was his own business. And it was only in this class that Matt seemed to thrive and have the best time. (I should point out that other students who didn't participate in  the in-class help and extra problem solving time didn't fare as well as Matt.  Mr. L. didn't care if you held your pen one way or the other or what ink
you  used but if you didn't perform at the levels he expected, you failed—and it
  didn't matter who you were.)


I honestly wish I could remember more teachers like Mr. L, but in my time in school at least until later college, they were very few and very far between. And students like Matt, and myself, had a hard time of it because of their scarcity. 

Later in life I lost contact with Matt. And with much regret, his label ended up getting the best of him both internally and externally. (That however, is a much longer story for another time.) But I always remember how capable he was and what great feats he might have accomplished if there was more people within the system who could see that his differences were not weaknesses but merely alternatives.

The Editors' picks are designed to share some of the wonderful poetry from the Perspectives Anthology with the general public. The poems displayed here are chosen not only for their power but for their importance and relationship to relevant autistic and disability issues.

This poem, with its frantic, rushed, and yes, even overwhelming style, depicts its subject matter well.  Not only does it capture all the misfires and backfires of a sensory overload in its descriptive language, but even the way the poem itself is structured perfectly for bringing the experience to life.

~Marc Rosen
 
 
 
Sensory Overload

by

Laura Zaffos
 
The fuzziness
The confusion
Of the maze of convention
The chirps and screeches
Sucking cognition like leeches
Little by little
Weighing you down
Till you explode
It’s called overload
What I go through each day
No matter what I do
No matter what way
I try to go by
Expecting the unexpected
So I don’t jump
There’s no method perfected
To stop the pain
That’s going to come
Like a jolt of electricity trying to get to my brain
Through my ear
That’s what I get when all these sounds I hear
The sounds you ignore
That most can filter out
To me a whisper can sometimes sound like a shout
Especially when there are hundreds of whispers all around
Millions of different types of sounds
All at the same time
Without a rhyme
Just a mumble jumble
Of sounds all around
Nowhere to escape
Not knowing when the final blow
Will go
And knock you off the rim
And when you explode and have complete overload

 The Editors' picks are designed to share some of the wonderful poetry from the Perspectives Anthology with the general public. The poems displayed here are chosen not only for their power but for their importance and relationship to relevant autistic and disability issues.


This sensitive and powerful poem by Lisa Zimmermann is not about autism, but about disability in general. Straightforward and to the point, Peace does a wonderful
job of conveying the internal struggle by those who undergo the hardships of
being disabled. The back and forth of depression and happiness, the changing
moods can be a day to day reality for those in tough situations. There is quite
a bit of focus on depression coming from external factors--but sometimes it is
the inner demons that hurt the most. Ending on a powerful note,Peace does a fine job of staying true to the hardship without giving up hope. A wonderful, genuine and relevant poem all around. 

~ James P. Wagner



Peace
 by
 Lisa Zimmermann

 How do you continue your life after being derailed?
 How do you gather the shattered pieces and move on, still smiling?
How do you gain self-acceptance and not become depressed?
 I am moving towards brighter sunsets and happier tomorrows
 With each step of my unbalanced walk.
 And yet, that feeling,
 That wonderful sense of joy
 Slips from my fingers
 When self-doubt invades my thoughts,
 When I am drowning in my misery,
 And when my glimmer of hope turns to despair.
 Those moments of paralysis
 Wear me thin;
 I am my own prisoner.
 But when I am free, oh! What a feeling. 
I become empowered, fearless, and am myself again.
 If only that can pulsate through my veins,
 I would not need to pretend.
 Tomorrow I will become
 The person I intended to be,
Yesterday.

The Editors' picks are designed to share some of the wonderful poetry from the Perspectives Anthology with the general public. The poems displayed here are chosen not only for their power but for their importance and relationship to relevant autistic and disability issues.

   As a certified teacher himself, Nick Hale recognizes the seriousness of institutionalized misunderstanding. The very first line of this poem “He's not normal” hits the very core of this issue. It has been proven time and time again by psychological and sociological study that normal is a concept invented by human society—and yet it is a concept that people are so often judged against—despite the fact there is no operational definition for the word. 
  We see through this poem the ignorance, arrogance and rudeness of teachers concerning their students and are forced to remember that these lines are not just poetry and are not just fiction—they are said every day by ill-equipped professionals whose personal biases enter into the system and can have a drastic impact on the course of a young individual's life. 
  The poem does a wonderful job of bringing the confusion individuals in such a position feel to the reader and forces us to face the truth that the idea of forcing people into a cookie cutter cut-out that the institutions and society tries to mold us into is not only unethical, but also harmful.

~ James P. Wagner


What the Teachers Said [Annotated]

 by 

Nick Hale


 “He’s not normal.”
 “That’s not normal.”
 “He’s so weird.”
 “He scares me” [This, to his mother]
“You’re such a slob!” [Staring down
 pointed nose through thin-rimmed
 glasses as she tips the desk over.
 It’s contents litter the floor.]

 “Clean this up.  It’s a mess.”
 “Why can’t you keep your things neat
 like normal people?”
 [And, with an angry growl:]
 “Get organized!”

 “Be yourself.”
 “Why do you always do this?”
 “Why can’t you be more like
 your friend?” “Look, he’s doing
 it the right way.  Why can’t you?”
 “What’s wrong with you?
 “Why do you have to be different?” 
“Be yourself.”
 “Grow up!”  “Act your age”
 “Act like an adult.”
 “You are still just a child.”

 “He’s lazy” [unmotivated]
 “He’s weird” [different]
 “He always has an excuse” [reason]
 “He’s not like the others.”  
“Has he been tested for X?”  
“Is he on Y?”
 [pills will solve everything]


 

The Editors' picks are designed to share some of the wonderful poetry from the Perspectives Anthology with the general public. The poems displayed here are chosen not only for their power but for their importance and relationship to relevant autistic and disability issues.

While at first glance, it may seem as though "Masked Hysteria" refers to a facade used by autistics or other disabled people in order to adapt to the world around them, it's actually a rather powerful observation of how others wear a "mask" to avoid exposing who and what they are.  The tendency towards uninhibited honesty (or bluntness) displayed by many with disabilities is portrayed as a welcome relief from a world of masks, paranoia, and lies.  Like some others in the Perspectives series, "Masked Hysteria" actively rejects those who might seek to sympathize, instead forcing the reader to question just how much of their own life is hidden behind various masks...

~ Marc Rosen
 
 
 
 
Masked Hysteria
 
by

Stanley W. Shura


I may not see your mask,
but I know that it's there
when I have to struggle so ever hard and long -
longer than convention or trite manners allow -
to see YOU.

I labor to overcome your labored illusion
to see what's behind it,
what's real,
what's concealed
from my deaf eyes.

I pain to transcend
your front,
your want,
your facade,
your ulterior exterior.

I have no qualms
with the meek who bear arms.
These shields being not prestidigitation
but self-preservation,
these that are borne out of fear and uncertainty.

These are infinite and eternal:
they come from before the beginning,
they extend beyond the end.
These are crystal clear:
their honesty IS their flesh!

But those disguises worn
in vain and petty slight of hand,
for gain, that others should embrace
a false and transitory face,
do so that they can spin lies afresh.
 
These that are a feigned and shallow modest,
these that cry their own opaque and crocodile tears,
they are worth nothing in the exchange.
It is a false intercourse, with or without words.
But a lingual offering is at least concrete and impeachable.
 
And, I have no qualms with those who are of the stuff
to speak up and speak true.
But alas, then the mask is essentially dissolved.
Yet as for those who would so labor still to masquerade,
it is for naught as now it is the farce rendered so mute.
 
These masks are just opaque enough
to render them, though indistinguishable,
alas not quite invisible.
And so the silence is likewise transitory,
as we who listen most and hardest know.
 
An articulated front eventually becomes
not a front at all, but such an enigma.
And this is okay, for with my faithful ears I do not fear.
For although we listeners' eyes are deaf to your masks' stigma,
the truth does speak, and we hear it loud and clear.

The Editors' picks are designed to share
some of the wonderful poetry from the Perspectives Anthology with the general
public. The poems displayed here are chosen not only for their power but for
their importance and relationship to relevant autistic and disability issues. 
 
  

  An Odyssey to Maturity does a wonderful job of presenting the hardships of not only growing up autistic but of raising an autistic child. The inspiring part of this poem is how well Maria conveys the difficulties without ever giving in to depression. In fact, the poem requests and requires no sympathy for the plight of those with autism themselves and instead maintains that the hardest troubles she and her daughter have faced came from other people who did not understand their differences. 
  Although the poem doesn't spare the ignorant outsider who would treat those with autism differently there is no sense of victimization—quite the opposite. The author is thankful for the lessons that her own daughter taught her about herself and uses
the lessons she learned in raising her child as a metaphor for a society that
only finds its own flaws when looking at the flaws of other people. There is a
deeper wisdom to the poem reminding us to always look at everything from both
sides. 
  Maria Iliou is an inspiring figure all around. 

  ~ James P. Wagner (Ishwa)

Note:The Athena mentioned in the poem is Maria's wonderful daughter.
 



Odyssey To Maturity


 My journey, 20 years as a mother
 Caring, loving, protecting, advocating and supporting
 With unexpected turns, not norm
 My daughter, autistic
 Uniquely rewarding

 Looking back, black spots in my memory
 Of life as a child, growing up autistic
 Not knowing, nor did anyone else

 Only through Athena, did I learn
 That the difficulties sprang from
 Ignorance of autism

 Back then, if the knowledge was available 
The truth might have been seen instead of
 Misinterpreted

 But now, the hardest thing isn’t her autism or mine
 Now the difficulties come from others, only this time
 Not teachers, but peers, siblings and family

 Never feeling truly wanted, because people
 Were so comfortable with their ignorance
 Uncomfortable within themselves
 Not trying to understand who we are, what
 We are, and how human we really are

 Left no room in their hearts for accepting 
Our differences with love, blinded to our
 Intelligence, abilities, and wisdom 
And the ignorance they accuse us of
 Is really their own
 
Listening…we want to be taken seriously
 Instead of hearing our words disappear

 It’s funny…with lots of humility, how much we
 Can learn from our children about ourselves
 Solving missing pieces of my journey
 With so much more understanding
 Of the mystery of growth

 My daughter as a teacher, helped me moved up
 The spectrum to Asperger’s Syndrome,
 Inspiring me to explore my capabilities 
So much more than anyone had ever
 Encouraged me to do or be


 As a team, helping each other, we move
 Forward…with vitamins, changing diet,
 Visualizing amazing results, and lots of
 Love, we both conquer many obstacles

 The positive side of autism, our gifts of talents
 In arts, science, math…unique variations
 Visualizing our unusual strengths improves
 The economy, bringing forth new technologies

 Redefining autism, reeducating all
 The wisdom of a brighter future
 Acceptance with compassion
 An odyssey to maturity

Why, with all the writing about Autism out there, should a book of poetry about this
subject have any value? Autism, and disabilities in general, touch the lives of
many people. While awareness of autism and other disabilities is on the rise,
and the enormous amount written about the subject helps raise that awareness,
much of the writing is done by professionals. That is, a large part of the
  writing in heavy circulation on the subject comes from scientists researching
it, therapists, social workers, and other credential-laden experts in the field.
Also, most of the writing out there comes in the form of essays, articles, case
studies, scientific studies and the like. Their heavy focus is on presenting
facts and figures, statistics and conclusions. While on one level this is a good
and necessary thing, on another level it can be
problematic.

 Autism is a subject that is often misunderstood. Part of reason for
that could be that buried deep within the medical jargon, the psychological
profiling, the battles with the insurance companies, and all the other issues
that rise up concerning this and other disabilities, the emotional and
compassionate element—the human part of the equation—is too easily overlooked.
That’s where Perspectives, and poetry itself comes in.

 What exactly is poetry? Well that definition has eluded people for thousands of
years, but most would agree that good poetry involves a deep emotional
expression or journey. Poetry itself was the first form of storytelling, and by
extension, one of the first and most powerful ways for people to share their
thoughts and, more important, feelings. Poetry—the reading and the writing of
it—has great therapeutic value, and many people in public or private turn to
  writing in attempts to express their feelings to other people or, sometimes, to
themselves.

 The first Perspectives showcases more than fifty poets. Some are well-known,
established poets using their craft to comment or express their own views on the
complex issue of disabilities. Others are primarily autistic rights advocates,
bloggers, and writers who are using poetry as another medium to reach people.
And still others in this book are just ordinary people who are not invested in
poetry or the autism or the disability rights movement professionally, but yet
  have a deep emotional tie to the subject of autism or disabilities, either
because they themselves are affected, or they have family, friends, or loved
ones who must deal with a neurological, psychological, social, or communicative
disability (or disabilities). Perspectives is filled with works from people all
over the world who, after all is said and done, wished to express, through the
art of poetry, their emotional investment in the topic at
hand.

 So why a book of poetry for this important topic? Simple: The poetry in the volume
is the voice and words of the people, directly from the minds of the people who
are being most affected by these subjects—and what better source is there to
know the plight of the people, than directly from the people
themselves?


--
James P. Wagner