ZOEGLOSSIA - a Community for POETS with Disabilities

Nov 29

About Zoeglossia

Zoeglossia is a literary organization seeking to pioneer a new, inclusive space for poets with disabilities. Much like its forbearers Canto Mundo, Kundiman, Cave Canem, and Lambda Literary, Zoeglossia strives to create an open and supportive community that welcomes and fosters creativity. Through the creation of an annual retreat, poets from all backgrounds will have the opportunity to learn and develop from prominent, established writers, who also have disabilities. These retreats, which individuals will attend over a period of three years, will promote professional development among this shared creative community.

Their vision for the retreat centers around emerging writers coming to campus for three days of intensive work. The three-day retreat will admit approximately eight poets, who will be mentored by two prominent poets with disabilities. A third writer will be responsible for delivering a keynote lecture and panel participation. All attendees—teachers and students—will present their literary writing at a series of readings open to the public. Teachers and returning poets will provide panel discussions on professional and literary issues, as well as one-on-one conferences with the emerging writers. Much like Canto Mundo, writers, once admitted will be encouraged to attend three times over the following year to earn the prestigious title of "Fellow."

Their POEM OF THE WEEK section

Throughout the year, Zoeglossia invites a poet to curate the Poem of the Week. If you would like to guest curate, have questions, or want more information about POTW, please email poemoftheweek@zoeglossia.org.

Their Board Members

**Michael Davidson** is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. He has written extensively on poetry and poetics (*The San Francisco Renaissance, Ghostlier Demarcations, Guys Like Us, On the Outskirts of Form*) and more recently on disability issues: *Concerto for the Left Hand* (University of Michigan), *Invalid Modernism* (Oxford University Press), and *Distressing Language: Disability and the Poetics of Error* (New York University Press, 2022). He is the editor of *The Collected Poems of George Oppen* and has published eight books of poetry, the most recent, *Bleed Through: New and Selected Poems* (Coffee House).

Deaf, genderqueer poet **Meg Day** is the author of *Last Psalm at Sea Level* (Barrow Street, 2014), winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award. A recipient of the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship and an NEA Fellowship in Poetry, Day’s recent work can be found in *Best American Poetry 2020* & *The New York Times*. Day teaches in the MFA Program at North Carolina State University. www.megday.com

**Orchid Tierney** is a poet and scholar from Aotearoa New Zealand, who now lives in Gambier, Ohio. She is the author of the collection *a year of misreading the wildcats* (The Operating System, 2019) and six chapbooks, including *my beatrice* (above/ground press, 2020) and *ocean plastic* (BlazeVOX Books, 2019). Her scholarship, reviews, and poetry have appeared in *Jacket2*, *Venti, Fractured Ecologies*, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Y22 Individual Artist Excellence Award. She is an assistant professor of English at Kenyon College and a senior editor at the *Kenyon Review*. orchidtierney.com

Donate?

Zoeglossia is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization seeking to help writers with disabilities explore and nurture their creative spirits through poetry. As a non-profit, all of our funding comes by means of grants and donations.

They are grateful for their most recent funders: Poetry Foundation ($15,000), Ford Foundation ($25,000), Amazon Literary Partners/Academy of American Poets ($5,000) and Mellon Foundation ($25,000).

If you would like to express your commitment to strengthening the voices of poets with disabilities, please consider donating via the donation button below.

Back

Benne van der Velde

After thoroughly enjoying the Dutch slam poetry scene in the early and mid 2000s (with wins in 7 cities and eventually a place in the Nationals of 2012) and performances at the Lowlands-, Uitmarkt- and Parade festivals a/o, Benne successfully made the transition from the stage to paper by signing his first publishing deal in 2005. Since then 4 publishing houses (kleine Uil, Douane, Nadorst and Stanza) released volumes of his poetry. For a 5th (Passage) he co-edited an anthology of satirical/pamphlet poetry with fellow poets Daniel Dee and Alexis de Roode.

As a member of the artist movement ‘Het Ongeboren Idee’ he helped to organize (and was part of/presented) cultural lo-fi festivals, exhibitions, making a movie, monthly poetry stages in his hometown of Vlaardingen (Poezie in De Steeg), Rotterdam (De Poetsclub) and Nijmegen (Late Letteren Live) + a talent show for bands.

In 2002 and 2003 he studied ‘writing for performance’ at the vocational university of the Arts in the city of Utrecht (HKU) and as a result saw 3 of his theater plays make it to a stage. Writer Hiekelien van den Herik and he co-wrote a knight spectacle play complete with real choreographed sword fights, men in heavy plate armor and more great stuff like that. Theater-/enactment group Ridderspoor performed said play in 2004 and 2005 at Het Archeon, during De Kasteeldagen and at an Elfia-fantasy fair. He also gave numerous poetry and rap workshops at schools and other institutions. There were a lot of collabs too, for example voice-over work for a Rock Opera, a monumental art project for which he partnered up with the artist Erwin Adema and thrice alongside the R.J.S.O (The Rotterdam Youth Symphony Orchestra).

Benne has been an editor for several literary magazines (Krakatau, Renaissance and Op Ruwe Planken), at one time he and his wife owned a secondhand bookstore, he’s been the official poet laureate for his hometown of Vlaardingen and released his first and only Dutch rap-EP in 2011. In 2012 he rapped his way into the finals of Art Rocks. An EP with songs in English followed in 2021. A year later he started translating Dutch musical and lyrical classics from Dutch into English, and vice versa. Some of his short sci-fi and fantasy stories have found their way to medium related websites, magazines and anthology’s.

According to the poet himself rewriting his own poetry, lyrics and prose in English somehow feels like the next logical step in his career, a way to open up to the world at large. Which is both exhilarating and terrifying. So far several of these translations have been published in Bebarbar, Hare’s paw, Festivalforpoetry, Punt Volat, The Dewdrop, The Dillydoun Review and Months to Years a/o.

In everyday (some claim real) life he worked as an industrial tank cleaner, in pest control, on a garbage truck, driving a forklift, in a chemical waste facility, on a Ferry and 10 years as a bartender in a cannabis bar. At the time of writing this resume he can be found at home or in the hospital battling throat cancer. He’s been off the Herb since 2008, has a wife, 2 dogs, mild anxiety issues and likes to read every sci-fi and fantasy classic he can find.

www.linkedin.com/in/benne-van-der-velde-8b17a7296

The poet/lyricist and author Rob Chrispijn: ‘Benne writes sentences that stick; clean, dark and intense. This way a poem lasts!’

The poet Philip Hoorne on the website Poetry rapport: ‘There’s a genius hiding in Benne van der Velde, those are the Good Tidings of today. Amen.’

https://www.doubledutchmagazine.com