AustLit

'Poet Andy Jackson begins his collection Human Looking with a poem titled ‘Opening.’ This signals not only the opening of his book but an ‘incision’ which begins ‘below the back of the neck / and ends just above the coccyx’ (3). Jackson, who has Marfan syndrome, is referring to one of numerous surgeries conducted on his body which leave ‘a thick scar – a blurred, insistent line. / As each layer of skin dies, it whispers to the next / the form and story of the wound. / This is how I continue, intact.’ The word ‘intact’ suggests that the wound’s ‘form and story’ are sealed. They are stitched up and closed over by medical professionals who deem disabled people broken and in need of fixing. As Jackson ‘strain[s] to lift this too-heavy object, / the long suture ruptures / in my head’ (3). The burdensome narrative of his condition – one which has been imposed upon him – has sprung apart. He then addresses the reader, ‘You might think this visceral confession / only an image of mine. But you are becoming / this unstitching, this sudden opening’ (3). The transition in Jackson’s address from first person to second person, and the shift from a noun (‘image’) to a verb (‘becoming’), directs the attention away from his appearance to the reader, who now has a role to play not in staring at Jackson’s image, but in participating in the construction of what his story can be. It is an invitation to be open to all that disability engenders: not stereotypical stories of deficit, but creativity, ingenuity and possibility.' (Amanda Tink, Jessica White : Introduction : Writing Disability in Australia : introduction)