MENTAL VARIATIONS: Three poems in constraints for Disability History Month

James, what does Disability History Month mean to you?

A time for sharing, and reflecting both history and progress. I usually make a blog or podcast for Disability History Month. This year, as most of my writing and teaching has been poetry, I’ve written a short poem sequence. 

For the ‘history’ in Disability History Month 2022, I want ‘Mental Variations’ to reflect and refract the word ‘mental’ in flux.

Where did the idea for ‘Mental Variations’ come from? 

This year I’ve noticed the word ‘mental’ used more and more as an expression, both by neurodivergent and neurotypical friends. I personally have no problem with that. It lets me feel, amongst other things, a new kind of empathy. And in the poems, as you’ll see, I need the word ‘mental’ too. 

As a neurodivergent person, I’ve sometimes been called ‘mental’ in the past. I want to experiment with the properties of this word in a spirit of play. ‘Mental’ as a word has power. It may also have beauty.

Tell us about the constraints in ‘Mental Variations’

As both an autistic person and a poet, I’m fascinated by language itself as a gigantic and possibly infinite pattern. Poem one and poem three are lipograms: their content uses only the letters of their titles, MENTAL and MENTALIST. 

The second poem, (PARA-MENTAL), is a half-silent piece, made of the first halves of selected words ending in ‘mental’. I’m intrigued by how the sounds and meanings of these halves make building blocks.

‘Constraint’ is a term and a concept that may relate to disability – but I want to show and celebrate how constraints in language can, paradoxically, create new expression. I’m currently finishing a book of poems called Autistic Figurations, in which I do not use the letter ‘M’. In Mental Variations, I switch off some of those constraints, allowing myself to write in what is, for me, ‘the key of M’.

ONE: MENTAL

mental

meant lament
meant lame          meant lent
meant late

meant latent mate
a tame team ate
a metal meal

        a meme
a tele name tell
met a meta mental me

tell me a tall nettle tale
let me late at neat ale
à la Manet

lean antennae
at an elemental talent
late meet late all mental

TWO: (para-mental)

environ funda
govern        orna
senti      

docu        monu
incre        ele
detri       

rudi        regi
testa        tempera
linea       

firma        sacra
supple        judge
depart        develop

THREE: MENTALIST

still mental
I mean at least
I am less silent
sittin imitatin listenin
at a slate in a state
at a SLAM

time is a list
same as a statement
sent seminal
a sentient alien
tall as a talisman

less me in TEAM
I sit in satin eatin illness
lie in linen
set sail in a steam lane
steal an LA Times in Milan

email as assistant 
a saint
seen at sea in Seattle

an assailant smelt smitten
till I lit a title
Atlas testin at last
at a salient sentiment

mental meant 
late lent lament
la la latent

I mean         lets meet later
settle still 
as a simile

let smile
amen