Autism Poetry

It is starting to be noticed that non-verbal autistic people are writing books. There is mine, out for one month, and a few others by teenagers. Why is that the books are written by teenagers? I think it is because we are the from the first generation of autistic people to be taught typing.

I have a good friend, Sydney Edmond, who wrote a book of poems, The Purple Tree, four years ago. Like me, she studied with Soma and was released from her solitude. Like me she has a mom who is trying to give her a fully normal experience in life. But unlike me, she is a poet. I wanted to introduce you to another autistic writer, but with a totally different voice and style. Autistic people are as different from  from each other as anyone else.

Here is a taste of Syd's lyrical poetry.

The Ocean in Winter

As I linger on a thought
looking out to sea
I wonder if a little bit
the sea remembers me.

We wallowed in the summer,
We walked in spring and fall,
Winter's here, and I fear,
It knows me not at all.

It wails upon the shore,
eating up the sand,
angry, loud, and thrashing,
making it's demand.

Teaming waves will tear at you,
some will tear you down,
laughing at your thrashing
until you're surely drowned.

Is this the sea who played with me
beneath a sky of blue;
that tickled at my toes
and lapped my ankles, too?

What is it makes it happen?
I want to understand.
Want my sea that sings to me
to come and take my hand.

And so I'll wait as patient
as the birds up in the sky
for warm  sunny days,
and a sea that plays,
to return.