Two Poems
— Joyce Chong
the [disabled] body is always closest to machine
in its dysfunction most fixable
when it is furthest from human
Today I have two fantastic poems for you by Torrin A. Greathouse published in Third Point Press. Both poems take on the form of academic texts, the usage of footnote citations building a clinical, almost detached and objective structure. ‘Self-Portrait as Medical Model of Disability’ is an inquiry into health psychology as it applies to disability. Under the Medical Model, the body becomes a pivot point, a fulcrum carrying the weight of all assigned limitations. A machine perpetually seeking repair, and other states of being.
Greathouse asks what becomes of the person in this model, the body as machine, reduced to cost and repair. We turn the body to object in order to manipulate it better, but never consider manipulating objects, or the structures beyond that, to better accommodate the variable body.
how the body reduces
like a fraction¹ to an object/icon of pity?
In ‘Self Portrait as Economic Model of Disability’, Greathouse dissects the Economic Model, the notion of the body’s worth as defined by its ability to work. Value as not inherent, but externally attributed, only valid as far as it functions within a system of constant production. How many ways can we say that a body is not a body through the lens of biology? How we try to separate physical form from person with a scalpel, try to piece apart a whole. How the body becomes object, becomes numbers, fixed costs and fixed incomes.
how much weight⁸ can the [disabled] body exert
[on society] before the net worth is zero