* What is the relevance of feminist ideas for understanding women's experiences of disability?* How can the social model of disability be developed theoretically?* What are the key differences between Disability Studies and medical sociology?In answer to these questions, this book explores and develops ideas about disability, engaging with important debates in disability studies about what disability is and how to theorize it. It also examines the interface between disability studies, women's studies and medical sociology, and offers an accessible review of contemporary debates and theoretical approaches. The title Female Forms reflects two things about the book: first, its use of disabled women's experiences, as told by themselves, to bring a number of themes to life, and second, the author's belief in the importance of feminist ideas and debates for disability studies. The social model of disability is the book's bedrock, but the author both challenges and contributes to social modelist thought. She advances a materialist feminist perspective on disability, producing a book which is of multi-disciplinary relevance.Female Forms will be useful to the growing number of students on Disability Studies courses, as well as those interested in women's studies, medical sociology and social policy. It will also appeal to those studying or working in the health and social care professions such as nursing, social work, occupational therapy and physiotherapy.

What is the relevance of feminist ideas for understanding women''s experiences of disability?How can the social model of disability be developed theoretically?What are the key differences between Disability Studies and medical sociology?In answer to these questions, this book explores and develops ideas about disability, engaging with important debates in disability studies about what disability is and how to theorize it. It also examines the interface between disability studies, women''s studies and medical sociology, and offers an accessible review of contemporary debates and theoretical approaches. The title Female Forms reflects two things about the book: first, its use of disabled women''s experiences, as told by themselves, to bring a number of themes to life, and second, the author''s belief in the importance of feminist ideas and debates for disability studies. The social model of disability is the book''s bedrock, but the author both challenges and contributes to social modelist thought. She advances a materialist feminist perspective on disability, producing a book which is of multi-disciplinary relevance.Female Forms will be useful to the growing number of students on Disability Studies courses, as well as those interested in women''s studies, medical sociology and social policy. It will also appeal to those studying or working in the health and social care professions such as nursing, social work, occupational therapy and physiotherapy.

This fully revised and expanded second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies takes a multidisciplinary approach to disability and provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the main issues in the field around the world today. Adopting an international perspective and arranged thematically, it surveys the state of the discipline, examining emerging and cutting-edge areas as well as core areas of contention.

Divided in five parts, this comprehensive handbook covers:

Different models and approaches to disability How key impairment groups have engaged with disability studies and the writings within the discipline Policy and legislation responses to disability studies and to disability activism Disability studies and its interaction with other disciplines, such as history, philosophy, sport, and science and technology studies Disability studies and different life experiences, examining how disability and disability studies intersects with ethnicity, sexuality, gender, childhood and ageing

Containing 15 revised chapters and 12 new chapters from an international selection of leading scholars, this authoritative handbook is an invaluable reference for all academics, researchers, and more advanced students in disability studies and associated disciplines such as sociology, health studies and social work.

Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This fully revised and expanded second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies takes a multidisciplinary approach to disability and provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the main issues in the field around the world today. Adopting an international perspective and arranged thematically, it surveys the state of the discipline, examining emerging and cutting-edge areas as well as core areas of contention.

Divided in five parts, this comprehensive handbook covers:

Different models and approaches to disability How key impairment groups have engaged with disability studies and the writings within the discipline Policy and legislation responses to disability studies and to disability activism Disability studies and its interaction with other disciplines, such as history, philosophy, sport, and science and technology studies Disability studies and different life experiences, examining how disability and disability studies intersects with ethnicity, sexuality, gender, childhood and ageing

Containing 15 revised chapters and 12 new chapters from an international selection of leading scholars, this authoritative handbook is an invaluable reference for all academics, researchers, and more advanced students in disability studies and associated disciplines such as sociology, health studies and social work.

Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This fully revised and expanded second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies takes a multidisciplinary approach to disability and provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the main issues in the field around the world today. Adopting an international perspective and arranged thematically, it surveys the state of the discipline, examining emerging and cutting-edge areas as well as core areas of contention.Divided in five parts, this comprehensive handbook covers:Different models and approaches to disabilityHow key impairment groups have engaged with disability studies and the writings within the disciplinePolicy and legislation responses to disability studies and to disability activismDisability studies and its interaction with other disciplines, such as history, philosophy, sport, and science and technology studiesDisability studies and different life experiences, examining how disability and disability studies intersects with ethnicity, sexuality, gender, childhood and ageingContaining 15 revised chapters and 12 new chapters from an international selection of leading scholars, this authoritative handbook is an invaluable reference for all academics, researchers, and more advanced students in disability studies and associated disciplines such as sociology, health studies and social work.Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book critically compares conflicting perspectives and overlapping themes within the study of disability and illness across recent decades. With fresh interpretation of traditional theory in medical sociology and informed commentary on theoretical debates in disability studies, it is provocative reading for students and scholars in this field.

This fully revised and expanded second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies takes a multidisciplinary approach to disability and provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the main issues in the field around the world today. Adopting an international perspective and arranged thematically, it surveys the state of the discipline, examining emerging and cutting-edge areas as well as core areas of contention.Divided in five parts, this comprehensive handbook covers:Different models and approaches to disabilityHow key impairment groups have engaged with disability studies and the writings within the disciplinePolicy and legislation responses to disability studies and to disability activismDisability studies and its interaction with other disciplines, such as history, philosophy, sport, and science and technology studiesDisability studies and different life experiences, examining how disability and disability studies intersects with ethnicity, sexuality, gender, childhood and ageingContaining 15 revised chapters and 12 new chapters from an international selection of leading scholars, this authoritative handbook is an invaluable reference for all academics, researchers, and more advanced students in disability studies and associated disciplines such as sociology, health studies and social work.Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book critically compares conflicting perspectives and overlapping themes within the study of disability and illness across recent decades. With fresh interpretation of traditional theory in medical sociology and informed commentary on theoretical debates in disability studies, it is provocative reading for students and scholars in this field.

This book critically compares conflicting perspectives and overlapping themes within the study of disability and illness across recent decades. With fresh interpretation of traditional theory in medical sociology and informed commentary on theoretical debates in disability studies, it is provocative reading for students and scholars in this field.

Since it was first published in 1993, Disabling Barriers, Enabling Environments has established itself as essential reading for anyone coming to the subject of disability studies. The book tackles a wide range of issues in numerous succinct chapters written by contributing authors, many of whom are disabled themselves. From the outset, the chapters take a multidisciplinary and international approach.

The third edition is made up of 42 chapters, 15 of which are completely new to this edition, including:

·       Early seminal writings in disabled studies

·       Death and dying

·       Psychology

·       Hate crime and the criminal justice system

·       Sport

·       Psycho-emotional disablism and internal oppression.

This seminal textbook conveys the continuing developments in the lives and experiences of disabled people. It is valuable reading for students and professionals in the fields of social work, sociology, social policy, health and nursing as well as disabled people.

Since it was first published in 1993, Disabling Barriers, Enabling Environments has established itself as essential reading for anyone coming to the subject of disability studies. The book tackles a wide range of issues in numerous succinct chapters written by contributing authors, many of whom are disabled themselves. From the outset, the chapters take a multidisciplinary and international approach.

The third edition is made up of 42 chapters, 15 of which are completely new to this edition, including:

·       Early seminal writings in disabled studies

·       Death and dying

·       Psychology

·       Hate crime and the criminal justice system

·       Sport

·       Psycho-emotional disablism and internal oppression.

This seminal textbook conveys the continuing developments in the lives and experiences of disabled people. It is valuable reading for students and professionals in the fields of social work, sociology, social policy, health and nursing as well as disabled people.

Diane never imagined her life would take such a dramatic turn when she was hired to work with gang kids between the ages of 12 and 17. All she wanted to do was get the experience of working with kids so the University would accept her application to the College of Education. But, she got a different kind of education; one she would not soon forget After she learns the adults in The Program are not what they appear to be, Diane finds herself surrounded by violence and betrayal, and in the company of some unexpected heroes.

About The BookFinding Home: Earth, Sky, Ocean SpiritThis book of poems, new and selected, has been years in the making. Nearing a seventieth decade, one is reminded of Leonard Cohens admonition to make a record of ones life. Adrienne Rich suggests that one finds the deepest truths of a womans life in her poetry, poetry that draws from and illuminates her autobiography. Its language is precocious and uncanny in its efforts to explicate the nature of her lived experience. I have taught creative writing in a number of contexts: with troubled adolescents, in colleges and universities, in a womens prison, and with patients and clients in my own private practice in New London, Connecticut. It was always the journaling that revealed and explicated the individuals trauma and allowed them to move to what might be called a quotidian delight, which they had not been able to find beforethat life might hold a quotidian ecstasy was a new and wondrous idea to them, and one they could find access to. The earth, sky, ocean, spirit, and their own embodied and ensouled selves were the means to their own connectedness to the universe. Human language began with womans singing, her music, her natural response to giving life, and perceiving the plenitude around her. A mother murmuring vowels and consonants, soft language of warmth, comfort, and tenderness. There is reason to believe that at one time on the island of Crete, long ago, there was a woman-centered culture in which the values of nurturing, living in harmony with the natural world, using a language that emerged from this matrix. Warriors came, the earlier culture was destroyed, and the language reflected the new and violent warring culture. The new patriarchal lexicon focused on the lived experience of the men. It concerned power, victory, defeat, and death. It was literal, denotative as opposed to connotative; it was didactic, hierarchical, and dismissive of the language and life of the womans perspective. It would seem that in contemporary American culture, the exclusion of what we might call poetic languagethat is, language that expresses the truth and affects of the human beinghas become obsolete, replaced by patriarchal language ubiquitous in the political violence of the day and the seeming waning of what we thought was an American way of life.These poems attempt to illuminate a womans experience of her world. They further attempt to suggest the need for Whitmans notion of the need for an increasingly capacious imagination. Perhaps men are not from Mars and women from Venus. Adrienne Rich suggests, there is hope for a common language more in harmony with the truth, reality, and ambiguity of the natural world. And perhaps after all, even with the angst and anxiety of living in this world, we are all poets, soul-searching people, all of whom experience quotidian ecstasymoments of the pure joy of living, mystery, and incomprehensibleness, bringing delight and clarity, affirming and confirming the wondrous miracle of our lives.

Dr. Thomas holds a PhD in literature and psychology from Union University and Institute, a doctorate in applied theology from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and a master of arts in creative writing and poetry from Stetson University in Florida in addition to a master of arts in psychology from Saint Leo University in Florida. She has taught literature, psychology, and womens studies at the University of Connecticut, Bowie State University, and Cameron University as well as a number of additional universities and colleges. She has also taught creative writing at Gavle University in Storvik, Sweden. During her sojourn of eleven years at the University of Connecticut, she taught psychology and creative writing and enjoyed private practice with Shoreline Psychiatric Associates. In addition, for three years she was also an adjunct professor at Niantic Prison for Women. Her classes resulted in a book of original art and poetry, which was eventually published by the State of Connecticut. Dr. Thomas and her recently retired husband, Dr. Frank Thomas, a surgeon, now reside in Ormond-by-the Sea, where they are inveterate beach walkers, writers, and proud parents of their newly acquired schnauzer, Rocky, who accompanies them on their frequent walks. Including a number of published chapbooks, this will be Dr. Thomass fifth book of poetry.

This book of images and words (defined as haiga in Japanese) blends two different genres and invites a reader to see disordinary kinds of art around us that we sometimes miss. The photographs and haiku in concert offer artistic experiences, everyday art, available as quotidian delight in the world. The group of Tomoka Poets I belong to in Ormond-by-the Sea, are dedicated, innovative poets, seeking ways to mix media in terms of music and poetry, paintings and haiku. One member has initiated a poetry in the parks program wherein poets read their work against the backdrops of Floridas dense native scrub land, winding and inviting forests as well as the nearby Atlantic Ocean as we observe each areas infinite varieties more closely, listen more carefully to original poetry, and perhaps begin to create our own. Many of the enclosed pictures might seem a bit odd.; initially we might miss their beauty at first sight. The whisper of the haiku emerges from its deep source within our emotional lives, hearts, and souls, often emerging from some mysterious spirit within our psyches, our imaginations. In a sense haiku is found poetry, in America the Beautiful, our beloved home, our paradise on earth, just waiting to be written.

* What is the relevance of feminist ideas for understanding women's experiences of disability?* How can the social model of disability be developed theoretically?* What are the key differences between Disability Studies and medical sociology?In answer to these questions, this book explores and develops ideas about disability, engaging with important debates in disability studies about what disability is and how to theorize it. It also examines the interface between disability studies, women's studies and medical sociology, and offers an accessible review of contemporary debates and theoretical approaches. The title Female Forms reflects two things about the book: first, its use of disabled women's experiences, as told by themselves, to bring a number of themes to life, and second, the author's belief in the importance of feminist ideas and debates for disability studies. The social model of disability is the book's bedrock, but the author both challenges and contributes to social modelist thought. She advances a materialist feminist perspective on disability, producing a book which is of multi-disciplinary relevance.Female Forms will be useful to the growing number of students on Disability Studies courses, as well as those interested in women's studies, medical sociology and social policy. It will also appeal to those studying or working in the health and social care professions such as nursing, social work, occupational therapy and physiotherapy.

What is the relevance of feminist ideas for understanding women''s experiences of disability?How can the social model of disability be developed theoretically?What are the key differences between Disability Studies and medical sociology?In answer to these questions, this book explores and develops ideas about disability, engaging with important debates in disability studies about what disability is and how to theorize it. It also examines the interface between disability studies, women''s studies and medical sociology, and offers an accessible review of contemporary debates and theoretical approaches. The title Female Forms reflects two things about the book: first, its use of disabled women''s experiences, as told by themselves, to bring a number of themes to life, and second, the author''s belief in the importance of feminist ideas and debates for disability studies. The social model of disability is the book''s bedrock, but the author both challenges and contributes to social modelist thought. She advances a materialist feminist perspective on disability, producing a book which is of multi-disciplinary relevance.Female Forms will be useful to the growing number of students on Disability Studies courses, as well as those interested in women''s studies, medical sociology and social policy. It will also appeal to those studying or working in the health and social care professions such as nursing, social work, occupational therapy and physiotherapy.

This fully revised and expanded second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies takes a multidisciplinary approach to disability and provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the main issues in the field around the world today. Adopting an international perspective and arranged thematically, it surveys the state of the discipline, examining emerging and cutting-edge areas as well as core areas of contention.

Divided in five parts, this comprehensive handbook covers:

Different models and approaches to disability How key impairment groups have engaged with disability studies and the writings within the discipline Policy and legislation responses to disability studies and to disability activism Disability studies and its interaction with other disciplines, such as history, philosophy, sport, and science and technology studies Disability studies and different life experiences, examining how disability and disability studies intersects with ethnicity, sexuality, gender, childhood and ageing

Containing 15 revised chapters and 12 new chapters from an international selection of leading scholars, this authoritative handbook is an invaluable reference for all academics, researchers, and more advanced students in disability studies and associated disciplines such as sociology, health studies and social work.

Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This fully revised and expanded second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies takes a multidisciplinary approach to disability and provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the main issues in the field around the world today. Adopting an international perspective and arranged thematically, it surveys the state of the discipline, examining emerging and cutting-edge areas as well as core areas of contention.

Divided in five parts, this comprehensive handbook covers:

Different models and approaches to disability How key impairment groups have engaged with disability studies and the writings within the discipline Policy and legislation responses to disability studies and to disability activism Disability studies and its interaction with other disciplines, such as history, philosophy, sport, and science and technology studies Disability studies and different life experiences, examining how disability and disability studies intersects with ethnicity, sexuality, gender, childhood and ageing

Containing 15 revised chapters and 12 new chapters from an international selection of leading scholars, this authoritative handbook is an invaluable reference for all academics, researchers, and more advanced students in disability studies and associated disciplines such as sociology, health studies and social work.

Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This fully revised and expanded second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies takes a multidisciplinary approach to disability and provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the main issues in the field around the world today. Adopting an international perspective and arranged thematically, it surveys the state of the discipline, examining emerging and cutting-edge areas as well as core areas of contention.Divided in five parts, this comprehensive handbook covers:Different models and approaches to disabilityHow key impairment groups have engaged with disability studies and the writings within the disciplinePolicy and legislation responses to disability studies and to disability activismDisability studies and its interaction with other disciplines, such as history, philosophy, sport, and science and technology studiesDisability studies and different life experiences, examining how disability and disability studies intersects with ethnicity, sexuality, gender, childhood and ageingContaining 15 revised chapters and 12 new chapters from an international selection of leading scholars, this authoritative handbook is an invaluable reference for all academics, researchers, and more advanced students in disability studies and associated disciplines such as sociology, health studies and social work.Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book critically compares conflicting perspectives and overlapping themes within the study of disability and illness across recent decades. With fresh interpretation of traditional theory in medical sociology and informed commentary on theoretical debates in disability studies, it is provocative reading for students and scholars in this field.

This fully revised and expanded second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies takes a multidisciplinary approach to disability and provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the main issues in the field around the world today. Adopting an international perspective and arranged thematically, it surveys the state of the discipline, examining emerging and cutting-edge areas as well as core areas of contention.Divided in five parts, this comprehensive handbook covers:Different models and approaches to disabilityHow key impairment groups have engaged with disability studies and the writings within the disciplinePolicy and legislation responses to disability studies and to disability activismDisability studies and its interaction with other disciplines, such as history, philosophy, sport, and science and technology studiesDisability studies and different life experiences, examining how disability and disability studies intersects with ethnicity, sexuality, gender, childhood and ageingContaining 15 revised chapters and 12 new chapters from an international selection of leading scholars, this authoritative handbook is an invaluable reference for all academics, researchers, and more advanced students in disability studies and associated disciplines such as sociology, health studies and social work.Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book critically compares conflicting perspectives and overlapping themes within the study of disability and illness across recent decades. With fresh interpretation of traditional theory in medical sociology and informed commentary on theoretical debates in disability studies, it is provocative reading for students and scholars in this field.

This book critically compares conflicting perspectives and overlapping themes within the study of disability and illness across recent decades. With fresh interpretation of traditional theory in medical sociology and informed commentary on theoretical debates in disability studies, it is provocative reading for students and scholars in this field.

Since it was first published in 1993, Disabling Barriers, Enabling Environments has established itself as essential reading for anyone coming to the subject of disability studies. The book tackles a wide range of issues in numerous succinct chapters written by contributing authors, many of whom are disabled themselves. From the outset, the chapters take a multidisciplinary and international approach.

The third edition is made up of 42 chapters, 15 of which are completely new to this edition, including:

·       Early seminal writings in disabled studies

·       Death and dying

·       Psychology

·       Hate crime and the criminal justice system

·       Sport

·       Psycho-emotional disablism and internal oppression.

This seminal textbook conveys the continuing developments in the lives and experiences of disabled people. It is valuable reading for students and professionals in the fields of social work, sociology, social policy, health and nursing as well as disabled people.

Since it was first published in 1993, Disabling Barriers, Enabling Environments has established itself as essential reading for anyone coming to the subject of disability studies. The book tackles a wide range of issues in numerous succinct chapters written by contributing authors, many of whom are disabled themselves. From the outset, the chapters take a multidisciplinary and international approach.

The third edition is made up of 42 chapters, 15 of which are completely new to this edition, including:

·       Early seminal writings in disabled studies

·       Death and dying

·       Psychology

·       Hate crime and the criminal justice system

·       Sport

·       Psycho-emotional disablism and internal oppression.

This seminal textbook conveys the continuing developments in the lives and experiences of disabled people. It is valuable reading for students and professionals in the fields of social work, sociology, social policy, health and nursing as well as disabled people.

Diane never imagined her life would take such a dramatic turn when she was hired to work with gang kids between the ages of 12 and 17. All she wanted to do was get the experience of working with kids so the University would accept her application to the College of Education. But, she got a different kind of education; one she would not soon forget After she learns the adults in The Program are not what they appear to be, Diane finds herself surrounded by violence and betrayal, and in the company of some unexpected heroes.

About The BookFinding Home: Earth, Sky, Ocean SpiritThis book of poems, new and selected, has been years in the making. Nearing a seventieth decade, one is reminded of Leonard Cohens admonition to make a record of ones life. Adrienne Rich suggests that one finds the deepest truths of a womans life in her poetry, poetry that draws from and illuminates her autobiography. Its language is precocious and uncanny in its efforts to explicate the nature of her lived experience. I have taught creative writing in a number of contexts: with troubled adolescents, in colleges and universities, in a womens prison, and with patients and clients in my own private practice in New London, Connecticut. It was always the journaling that revealed and explicated the individuals trauma and allowed them to move to what might be called a quotidian delight, which they had not been able to find beforethat life might hold a quotidian ecstasy was a new and wondrous idea to them, and one they could find access to. The earth, sky, ocean, spirit, and their own embodied and ensouled selves were the means to their own connectedness to the universe. Human language began with womans singing, her music, her natural response to giving life, and perceiving the plenitude around her. A mother murmuring vowels and consonants, soft language of warmth, comfort, and tenderness. There is reason to believe that at one time on the island of Crete, long ago, there was a woman-centered culture in which the values of nurturing, living in harmony with the natural world, using a language that emerged from this matrix. Warriors came, the earlier culture was destroyed, and the language reflected the new and violent warring culture. The new patriarchal lexicon focused on the lived experience of the men. It concerned power, victory, defeat, and death. It was literal, denotative as opposed to connotative; it was didactic, hierarchical, and dismissive of the language and life of the womans perspective. It would seem that in contemporary American culture, the exclusion of what we might call poetic languagethat is, language that expresses the truth and affects of the human beinghas become obsolete, replaced by patriarchal language ubiquitous in the political violence of the day and the seeming waning of what we thought was an American way of life.These poems attempt to illuminate a womans experience of her world. They further attempt to suggest the need for Whitmans notion of the need for an increasingly capacious imagination. Perhaps men are not from Mars and women from Venus. Adrienne Rich suggests, there is hope for a common language more in harmony with the truth, reality, and ambiguity of the natural world. And perhaps after all, even with the angst and anxiety of living in this world, we are all poets, soul-searching people, all of whom experience quotidian ecstasymoments of the pure joy of living, mystery, and incomprehensibleness, bringing delight and clarity, affirming and confirming the wondrous miracle of our lives.

Dr. Thomas holds a PhD in literature and psychology from Union University and Institute, a doctorate in applied theology from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and a master of arts in creative writing and poetry from Stetson University in Florida in addition to a master of arts in psychology from Saint Leo University in Florida. She has taught literature, psychology, and womens studies at the University of Connecticut, Bowie State University, and Cameron University as well as a number of additional universities and colleges. She has also taught creative writing at Gavle University in Storvik, Sweden. During her sojourn of eleven years at the University of Connecticut, she taught psychology and creative writing and enjoyed private practice with Shoreline Psychiatric Associates. In addition, for three years she was also an adjunct professor at Niantic Prison for Women. Her classes resulted in a book of original art and poetry, which was eventually published by the State of Connecticut. Dr. Thomas and her recently retired husband, Dr. Frank Thomas, a surgeon, now reside in Ormond-by-the Sea, where they are inveterate beach walkers, writers, and proud parents of their newly acquired schnauzer, Rocky, who accompanies them on their frequent walks. Including a number of published chapbooks, this will be Dr. Thomass fifth book of poetry.

This book of images and words (defined as haiga in Japanese) blends two different genres and invites a reader to see disordinary kinds of art around us that we sometimes miss. The photographs and haiku in concert offer artistic experiences, everyday art, available as quotidian delight in the world. The group of Tomoka Poets I belong to in Ormond-by-the Sea, are dedicated, innovative poets, seeking ways to mix media in terms of music and poetry, paintings and haiku. One member has initiated a poetry in the parks program wherein poets read their work against the backdrops of Floridas dense native scrub land, winding and inviting forests as well as the nearby Atlantic Ocean as we observe each areas infinite varieties more closely, listen more carefully to original poetry, and perhaps begin to create our own. Many of the enclosed pictures might seem a bit odd.; initially we might miss their beauty at first sight. The whisper of the haiku emerges from its deep source within our emotional lives, hearts, and souls, often emerging from some mysterious spirit within our psyches, our imaginations. In a sense haiku is found poetry, in America the Beautiful, our beloved home, our paradise on earth, just waiting to be written.