AUTISM: A POEM

This blog has been created as an open experiment of poetry composition, perhaps a glimpse at an emerging manuscript as it matures. This working manuscript should not be considered as complete or published. Instead, this should be viewed as merely an early stage in the process of creation.

I have placed below some of the pages from an isolated venture in one of my typescript loose-leaf folders. The contents here represent portions of an ongoing personal project with a particularly narrow focus intended to eventually develop toward a book-length poetry sequence with the tentative working title of Autism.

The poem will grow as new sections are added. The individual posts are designed so that they may be viewed as independent items; however, I have consciously carried themes, images, and similar language through the extended sequence with the hope that connectivity and continuity will be preserved among numerous sections of the long poem.

Readers are asked to regard this piece as a work in progress, a partial or rough draft rather than a finished product (even if some selected segments previously may have appeared in print), and I request everyone realize various edits, emendations, or expansion may be made to the posts at any time in the future. Moreover, at some point the entire sequence will be removed to undergo a complete revision.

Therefore, I urge visitors to become followers of the blog by clicking the link in the sidebar, as well as to follow on Twitter for updates. Readers are also invited to browse my personal web site for additional information.

Indeed, a significant part of this experiment involves a certain amount of transparency that includes the possibility for readers to communicate responses and offer constructive suggestions, both of which I welcome through post comments or e-mail messages.

Also, I advise that the order of the numbered sections is not meant to be at all definitive since the long poem’s sequence will certainly be reorganized as the work in this temporary format starts to resemble a completed manuscript and begins to assume a more formal shape that might eventually be suitable for publication. In fact, I welcome interest from book publishers as well.

Thank you for taking the time to examine this trial stage, a test which I perceive as a preliminary process in the composition of a possible poetry manuscript. —Edward Byrne

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

AUTISM: A POEM


. . . . . XXXV. New Construction

In the distance, construction workers
. . . . . hammer for hours at a new house

taking shape. Alex sits on our porch
. . . . . and listens, softly nodding his head

under the slant of morning sunshine,
. . . . . as if remembering steady drumbeats

of an old song or offering a private
. . . . . signal of approval. When we walk

to watch the walls of the home rise
. . . . . in late afternoon light, the second

floor nearly done, he shades his eyes
. . . . . to peer up toward one of the higher

cut out places, as though he knows
. . . . . a son like him will some night look

off from that bedroom, in the same
. . . . . manner he does at times, and might

wonder about people passing below
. . . . . or view the brighter stars far above,

attempting to gauge ways of worlds
. . . . . always forming outside his window.
Posted by Edward Byrne at 12:08 AM

2 comments:

  1. TeachingMomOctober 28, 2011 at 2:32 PM

    Thank you so much for doing this project. As a mother of a child with autism and a huge fan of poetry it really did my heart well to see this project. I look forward to following your work.
    Kindly,
    Rhoda Sutton
    http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=68078102&trk=tab_pro

    ReplyDelete
  2. GametrenderOctober 29, 2011 at 2:10 AM

    Thank you Edward both for carrying on what many regard as a lost art and making the world more aware via your writings. I'm also in some small way in the last few days making people more autism aware and thanks to CNN's brilliant video have dedicated this blogpost to all sufferers and families of sufferers : http://gametrender.blogspot.com/2011/10/smartphone-apps-for-autism.html

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)