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146 pages

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Description

In a long sequence of prose poems, questionnaires, and standardized tests, The Boy in the Labyrinth interrogates the language of autism and the language barriers between parents, their children, and the fractured medium of science and school. Structured as a Greek play, the book opens with a parents' earnest quest for answers, understanding, and doubt. Each section of the Three Act is highlighted by "Autism Spectrum Questionnaires" which are in dialogue with and in opposition to what the parent perceives to be their relationship with their child. Interspersed throughout each section are sequences of standardized test questions akin to those one would find in grade school, except these questions unravel into deeper mysteries. The depth of the book is told in a series of episodic prose poems that parallel the parable of Theseus and the Minotaur. In these short clips of montage the unnamed "boy" explores his world and the world of perception, all the while hearing the rumblings of the Minotaur somewhere in the heart of an immense Labyrinth. Through the medium of this allusion, de la Paz meditates on failures, foundering, and the possibility of finding one's way.

Sujets

Asperger syndrome

Poetry

Informations

Publié par	University of Akron Press
Date de parution	30 juillet 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781629221748
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The Boy in the Labyrinth
AKRON SERIES IN POETRY
AKRON SERIES IN POETRY
Mary Biddinger, Editor
Oliver de la Paz, The Boy in the Labyrinth
Krystal Languell, Quite Apart
Brittany Cavallaro, Unhistorical
Tyler Mills, Hawk Parable
Caryl Pagel, Twice Told
Emily Rosko, Weather Inventions
Emilia Phillips, Empty Clip
Anne Barngrover, Brazen Creature
Matthew Guenette, Vasectomania
Sandra Simonds, Further Problems with Pleasure
Leslie Harrison, The Book of Endings
Emilia Phillips, Groundspeed
Philip Metres, Pictures at an Exhibition: A Petersburg Album
Jennifer Moore, The Veronica Maneuver
Brittany Cavallaro, Girl-King
Oliver de la Paz, Post Subject: A Fable
John Repp, Fat Jersey Blues
Emilia Phillips, Signaletics
Seth Abramson, Thievery
Steve Kistulentz, Little Black Daydream
Jason Bredle, Carnival
Emily Rosko, Prop Rockery
Alison Pelegrin, Hurricane Party
Matthew Guenette, American Busboy
Joshua Harmon, Le Spleen de Poughkeepsie
Titles published since 2010.
For a complete listing of titles published in the series, go to www.uakron.edu/uapress/poetry .
Oliver de la Paz
The Boy in the Labyrinth
Copyright © 2019 by The University of Akron Press
All rights reserved • First Edition 2019 • Manufactured in the United States of America.
All inquiries and permission requests should be addressed to the publisher,
The University of Akron Press, Akron, Ohio 44325-1703.
ISBN : 978-1-629221-72-4 (paper)
ISBN: 978-1-629221-73-1 (ePDF)
ISBN : 978-1-629221-74-8 (ePub)
A catalog record for this title is available from the Library of Congress.
∞The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Cover image: Poetics of Skin . Photography by Rosalyn Driscoll. Cover design by Amy Freels.
The Boy in the Labyrinth was designed and typeset in Minion with Frutiger display by Amy Freels and printed on sixty-pound natural and bound by Bookmasters of Ashland, Ohio. Produced in conjunction with the University of Akron Affordable Learning Initiative. More information is available at www.uakron.edu/affordablelearning/
Contents
Credo
Twenty-Eight Tiny Failures and One Labyrinth
Prologue
Minos
Strophe
Autism Screening Questionnaire: Social Interaction Difficulties
Chorus: Complete the Sentences
Episode 1
Labyrinth
Chorus: Solve for X
Episode 2
Labyrinth
Chorus: Light Is to Dark as Nerve Is to _________
Episode 3
Labyrinth
Chorus: Select an Answer
Episode 4
Labyrinth
Chorus: Complete the Sentences
A Story Problem
Antistrophe
Autism Screening Questionnaire: Abnormal Symbolic or Imaginative Play
Chorus: Select an Answer
Episode 5
Labyrinth
Chorus: Solve for X
Episode 6
Labyrinth
Chorus: Complete the Sentences
Episode 7
Labyrinth
Chorus: Monster Is to Damned as Lariat Is to _________
A Story Problem
Epode
Autism Screening Questionnaire: Speech and Language Delay
Chorus: Mongrel Is to Madness as Fire Is to _________
Episode 8
Labyrinth
Chorus: Select an Answer
Episode 9
Labyrinth
Chorus: Solve for X
Episode 10
Labyrinth
Coda
A Story Problem
One Labyrinth
Acknowledgments
“I know what the Greeks do not know, incertitude.”
—Jorge Luis Borges
“Neither living nor learning was good without order.”
—Temple Grandin
“I have designed my style pantomimes as white ink drawings on black backgrounds, so that man’s destiny appears as a thread lost in an endless labyrinth. … I have tried to shed some gleams of light on the shadow of man startled by his anguish.”
—Marcel Marceau
“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you. I move the stars for no one.”
—David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth
Credo
Twenty-Eight Tiny Failures and One Labyrinth

Before I set out to write something about family or friends, I open with an apology. The apology is similar—“I’m sorry for writing this, but I have to,” or something to that effect, and then it’s deleted with the next line.

I have been writing the same sequence for almost eight years. I suppose that’s not too long as far as works in progress go. But sometimes I feel like I’m chasing someone down a twisting pathway.

I grew up with allegory as a way to understand. This story can stand for this. This person is wicked. This person is good. This choice is flawed. This is a wise choice.

Two of my sons are on the autism spectrum. This pervades my daily life. We are supposed to “write what you know,” and what I know and have known my ten years of fatherhood is that writing what I know is hard.

Meredith and I must’ve filled out at least a dozen questionnaires assessing this and that. We both found ourselves baffled at one point or enraged at another point. The questions felt somewhat accusatory. Like the boys were some case. Some project.

Labyrinthian. The paperwork was labyrinthian.

When I delete my apologies, I can imagine the words are still ghosted in the pixels of my screen.

When we co-slept with L he would dig his fingers right into our eye sockets.

I do not know what having total creative freedom looks like. I give myself tasks—duties. My rituals involve organizing my sensory planes, and lately organization has been impossible.

Human interaction is such a complicated thing. It is this complication which baffles my sons. Sarcasm. Subtlety. All the coded nods and micro-gestures of day-to-day interaction. A knowing glance. A smirk. An off-color joke. Labyrinthian.

My sons are having trouble making friends at school. They are each other’s best friend and because of this they speak their own language to each other. N will pull L closer and loudly exclaim this or that about a video game. L will smile. They have an audience, and I’m pleased they have each other.

And how to articulate this as a writer and as a father? But as a father first?

L’s obsession with eyes continued until he was four. I had been called in to his daycare a few times because he had poked one child or another in the eye.

I apologize for writing about you, L. I apologize for writing about you, N.

[
]

Alicia Ostricker punched me sharply in the arm after I told her I wasn’t writing about my kids.

Since 2013 I have been writing a sequence of poems loosely based around Theseus and the Minotaur myth. I do not name the wanderer of the maze. The wanderer of the maze is simply “the boy.”

I realized that I had been writing about my sons for several years in the form of this allegory.

This is unclear to most readers.

Sometimes it’s important to keep secrets.

You don’t have to “see” to know.

Here’s a fact: I have written 100 “Labyrinth” poems. Here is another fact: I wandered in their maze without understanding them for almost six years.

Here’s a fact: I am getting older and my wife is getting older, and we acknowledge that our sons may not be able to care for themselves when we are gone. Here’s another fact: that understanding keeps me awake at night.

I remember rubbing my eyes after a fitful sleep. I remember looking at Meredith and seeing cuts from fingernails on her lids.

I’m writing what I know.

I also know this—I don’t want to be the person who fixes this version of my sons to the page. This understanding keeps me awake at night.

I wanted to understand my sons as well as a neurotypical parent with his own limitations and his own biases can understand a neurodiverse child. I am full of flaw and misconception. I am full of error.

And so is the language at my disposal to articulate an experience not mine.

I apologize for writing about you, L. I apologize for writing about you, N.

[
]
Prologue
Minos
Soft, the summer air. Another August’s dark-ale sunset.
The stillness is unanswered in the temple, despite the woven garlands,
the grains, the gems, the crates of fish strewn about the polished floors.
Perhaps the voice of the god is quiet like a bowstring drawn tight
or as a love which is secret. Perhaps the voice is the inarticulate sound
of water on rock. Still, the bull’s horn shines bright and clean
like a spinning needle. The beautiful sons and daughters of Athens
are before the king, chained ankle to wrist, ankle to wrist, and
in the descending sun are bolts of yellow silk. The great halls
of Cnossus are rimed with a nimbus of flies but the marble stays unbloodied.
There is something the king had forgotten—something as unbearable as grief
upon which nothing was written. His mouth is not a delicate scroll
nor the sting of a black wasp with an unfurled paper nest. Just below
his watery eyes, the shadow of the maze and of the beast, for a single
breathless moment, held still between candlelight. The past is a shawl in a storm,
tangled in the branches of a willow. The scrims of light a remnant fear.
Blacker than the earth&#x2