A New Approach to Disability Narratives

Threads of Us redefines the landscape of disability poetry by weaving together fragmented individual narratives into a cohesive, communal tapestry. This experimental series embraces the braided form-a poetic structure where multiple voices intertwine line by line, stanza by stanza-to mirror the complexity of shared disabled experiences. Unlike traditional solo-authored works, this project centers collective creation, amplifying often-silenced perspectives to challenge monolithic portrayals of disability.

The Braided Form: A Metaphor for Connection

The braided poetic structure, characterized by alternating lines or sections from different voices, serves as both a technical and symbolic choice. Each strand represents a unique lived experience, yet together they form a unified whole, resisting the isolation imposed by societal ableism. The interplay of repetition, contrast, and dialogue within the braid reflects the duality of individuality and solidarity inherent in disability communities. By rejecting linear progression in favor of interwoven narratives, the series mirrors the nonlinear realities of navigating chronic illness, neurodivergence, and bodily difference.

Collaborative Creation: Breaking Authorship Norms

The series dismantles traditional authorship hierarchies by treating every contributor's words as equally vital. Participants-spanning diverse disabilities, ages, and cultural backgrounds-engage in guided writing workshops where structured prompts foster organic connections. Lines are not attributed to specific authors in the final works, dissolving individual egos to prioritize communal resonance. This process combats the trope of the "inspirational disabled individual," instead highlighting how systemic barriers and collective resilience shape community identity.

Themes: Anger, Joy, and the In-Between

Recurring motifs in Threads of Us defy the tropes of suffering or triumph that dominate mainstream disability representation. Poems explore the raw exhaustion of readjustment, the unapologetic rage against inaccessible spaces, and the quiet joy of disabled intimacy. One piece juxtaposes a mother's hospital wait with a queer artist's meditation on pain, their voices converging on a shared line: "This body is not a problem to be solved." Another weaves Medicaid forms, memory fragments, and sensory triggers into a meditation on interdependence.

Intersectionality at Its Core

The project explicitly centers disabled voices at the margins-Black, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, low-income, and multiply-disabled contributors. A poem titled "Three Strands" layers a Deaf nonbinary parent's bedtime ritual, a wheelchair user's rage against clinician bias, and a chronically ill scholar's analysis of care labor. By refusing to separate disability from other axes of identity, Threads of Us critiques both ableism and the erasure of intersectional struggles within broader disability discourse.

Expanding Accessibility Through Form

The series extends its commitment to inclusivity beyond content to its creation and dissemination. Workshops accommodate sensory needs and communication preferences, while published works feature alt-text descriptions, audio recordings, and plain-language summaries. The braided form itself becomes an accessibility tool-even if a reader engages with only one strand, the piece offers meaning, respecting varied attention spans and reading practices.

Looking Forward

As Threads of Us continues, it seeks to grow through global collaborations, incorporating non-English voices, tactile poetry, and digital interactivity. By reimagining poetry as a collective act rather than an individual expression, the series reclaims storytelling as a space of resistance, kinship, and possibility. In a world that often isolates the disabled, Threads of Us insists: our struggles are shared, our joys are valid, and our voices are stronger together.