Despite This Flesh

Despite This Flesh is a book of poetry and short stories by and about people with disabilities. Vassar Miller, a woman with cerebral palsy and a Pulitzer Prize nominee, compiled this book to draw attention to the various atitudes and perceptions about people with disabilities.


Intended for adults, the works take an unflinching look, sometimes dark, sometimes humorous, at life with a disability and society's treatment of people with disabilities. Compiled in 1985 but still relevant today, the book leads one to reflect on progress made by the disability rights movement, and how many of the prejudices it examines remain.


From the book's jacket:
"Killed by kindness, stifled by overprotection, choked by subtle if sometimes unconscious snubs, the physically handicapped are one of the world's most invisible minorities...Ranging from optimistic to embittered and from sentimental to realistic, [the works] portray the handicapped and the family; the handicapped and society; the myth of the holy idiot; the handicapped as human being, good, evil, and indifferent; the handicapped as unique."


University of Texas Press, 1985 (Reprinted 1990). $8.95. Edited by Vassar Miller.


Updated: 08/03/2010