The Beauty of Autistic Knowing
The way of learning pace
was how I learned to string
words the way language paths
and makes meanings the way
jar of thinking was really
bathing in brine wanting to
for readers to understand
but the management of
language at ABA schools
was demanding speech and
because I couldn’t speak
I was going to the lines of
watchful therapists that tried
the same words over and
over again so I wasn’t
able to express myself
in the ways they thought
I should and that was awful
for me so I want the world
to know that autistic language does a bathing talking feeling
and seeing that immerses
everything and the bathing is
the beauty of autistic knowing.
From The Wanting Way (Milkweed Editions, 2022) by Adam Wolfond. Copyright © 2022 by Adam Wolfond. Reprinted with the permission of the Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Milkweed Editions, milkweed.org
Adam Wolfond
Adam Wolfond is the author of the poetry collection The Wanting Way (Milkweed Editions, 2022). He is a non-speaking, autistic artist, poet, and university lecturer whose work has been featured in multimedia exhibitions, documentary films, academic journals, and philosophical treatises. He is also the author of two chapbooks: There Is Too Music in My Ears and In Way of Music Water Answers Toward Questions Other Than What Is Autism, both published in 2019 by Unrestricted Editions.