INTERDEPENDENCE IS GOLD
“I was inspired to write this poem after I read about gymnast Simone Biles and her twisties. It sounds like she has what I so often feel. Proprioception can be a tricky thing. I hope you will enjoy this poem and keep going for gold. Thank you Brian for coaching me. Thank you for listening. This is our Olympics.”
1.
Simone had a brain freeze
Autistics like me have brain freezes all the time
We rarely know where we are in space
Her dangers are the judges
Ours are everyone
Apparatuses are easy to fall off
Falling out of life is something I do
As a person who has permanent twisties
I am a twisty nonspeaking autistic
I should get a gold medal
2.
Swimming is the most autistic sport I know
It is repetitive and exclusive
How come swimmers are heralded
As heroes?
When autistics are repetitive
And exclusive
We are scorned
I am giving gold medals to autistics
3.
Coaches are everywhere
At the Olympics
All athletes have at least
One coach
And yet we call athletes independent
Autistics have coaches
And we are called dependent
Perhaps we are
All interdependent
Would there be any gold medals
Without coaches?
4.
Rowing in an eight is an amazing feat
Coxswain in the back calls the shots
Maybe we all need life coxswains
Even without pulling their weight
Coxswains earn gold medals
5.
Skateboarding is on the rails
It makes me go pale
Mistakes and falls
Should get their own point value
Autistics make mistakes and fall like boarders
I want a gold medal
For getting back on the board of life
6.
Shooting is an Olympic sport
Why is accuracy with a deadly weapon celebrated?
Boxing and fencing
Are close deadly forces
Autistics do not understand
The sports that glorify hate
Do we want to give hate
a gold medal?
7.
Opening and closing ceremonies
Are spectacular
Music, stories, dancing
All worth gold medals
“I am proud to use a letterboard to communicate,” in front of 50 people, Joel spelled to advocate that nonspeaking need to be recognized as intelligent human beings. He is persistent. His words and actions remind others to be kind and useful. Every day advocating for the spelling community, Joel Nyland was a “spellibrity ambassador” in 2020, performed at Boards & Chords, featured in “Friends Forever” blog, and surely more to come.
The mission of I-ASC is to advance communication access for nonspeaking individuals globally through training, education, advocacy and research. I-ASC supports all forms of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) with a focus on methods of spelling and typing. I-ASC currently offers Practitioner training in Spelling to Communicate (S2C) with the hope that other methods of AAC using spelling or typing will join our association
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