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A tennis
fanatic (who now has an artificial hip), house renovator,
disability activist, and connoisseur of Italian food,
I live in a small town in south-central Iowa with my
wife, Emily, and son, DJ. We have a 14-foot indoor
trampoline that we all jump on religiously. Emily is
finishing her PhD in inclusive education at the University
of Iowa and overseeing DJ’s inclusion at our local middle school.
Not only is DJ a straight “A,” honor-roll
student, but he recently scored at the college level on
the Iowa Test of Basic Skills—though he’s
only been reading for four years! He’s an incredibly
smart, sensitive young man who writes exquisite poems
and speaks with the aid of a computer. He has taught me
more about courage and perseverance than anyone I have
ever met. Having written the final chapter of my forthcoming
book, he has decided that he wants to become a writer
when he grows up. As the book demonstrates, he’s
the one with the extraordinary literary talent. Look in
the future for a book by my wife about how to include
a non-speaking child with autism in a regular classroom,
no matter what the child’s deficits (an awful
word) might be. We all look forward to future challenges:
DJ wants to be on the cross country team, I want to
learn how to cook ethnic food, and Emily wants to finish
her dissertation!
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Ralph
James Savarese is the author of Reasonable
People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption (Other
Press 2007). A chapter from this book was selected by
Robert Atwan as a "notable essay" in the Best American
Essays series for 2004. He is also the 2003 winner
of the Herman Melville Society's Hennig Cohen Prize
for an "outstanding contribution to Melville scholarship"
for his essay "Nervous Wrecks and Ginger-nuts: Bartleby
at a Standstill." He has been a finalist for Poet
Lore's narrative poetry competition and Southwest
Review's new poets prize. As an undergraduate at
Wesleyan University, he was co-winner of the Irene Glascock
National Intercollegiate Poetry Competition. (Seamus
Heaney and Amy Clampitt were the judges.) His poetry,
translations, and creative non-fiction have appeared
in ACM (Another Chicago Magazine), American
Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal,
Cream City Review, Edge City Review,
Flyway, Graham House Review, The
Guardian, Modern Poetry In Translation,
New England Review, New York Times,
Poetry International, Poet Lore, Poetry
Motel, Poets Against the War, The
Poker, Seneca Review, Sewanee Review,
Southern Humanities Review, Southern Poetry
Review, and Southwest Review. His criticism
and reviews have appeared (or are about to appear) in
A/B: Auto/Biography, American Book Review,
American Disasters (NYU Press), Disability
Studies Quarterly, Leviathan: The Journal of
Melville Studies, Politics & Culture, and Prose
Studies: History, Theory, Criticism. He
teaches American literature and creative writing at
Grinnell College, with particular attention to the areas
of modern poetry, non-fiction prose, and disability
studies. He is presently finishing a manuscript of poems
entitled Republican Fathers and beginning a
book on speechlessness in American literature.
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