John Lee Clark – författare

Born Deaf into an ASL-speaking family and blind by adolescence, John Lee Clark learned to embrace the possibilities of his tactile world. He is on the frontlines of the Protactile movement, which gave birth to an unprecedented tactile language and a way of life based on physical connection.In a series of paradigm-shifting essays, Clark reports on seismic developments within the DeafBlind community. In “Against Access”, he interrogates the prevailing advocacy for “accessibility” that re-creates a shadow of a hearing-sighted experience. In the National Magazine Award–winning “Tactile Art”, he describes his relationship to visual art and encounters with tactile sculpture. He advocates for “Co-Navigation”, a new way of guiding that respects DeafBlind agency, and offers a brief history of the term “DeafBlind”. As warm and witty as he is radical and inspiring, Clark welcomes readers into the exciting Protactile landscape and celebrates the hidden knowledge that can be gained through touch.

Formally restless and relentlessly instructive, How to Communicate is a dynamic journey through language, community, and the unfolding of an identity. Poet John Lee Clark pivots from inventive forms inspired by the Braille slate to sensuous prose poems to incisive erasures that find new narratives in nineteenth-century poetry. Calling out the limitations of the literary canon, Clark includes pathbreaking translations from American Sign Language and Protactile, a language built on touch.How to Communicate embraces new linguistic possibilities that emanate from Clark’s unique perspective and his connection to an expanding, inclusive activist community. Amid the astonishing task of constructing a new canon, the poet reveals a radically commonplace life. He explores grief and the vagaries of family, celebrates the small delights of knitting and visiting a museum, and, once, encounters a ghost in a gas station. Counteracting the assumptions of the sighted and hearing world with humor and grace, Clark finds beauty in the revelations of communicating through touch: “All things living and dead cry out to me / when I touch them.”A rare work of transformation and necessary discovery, How to Communicate is a brilliant debut that insists on the power of poetry.

Born Deaf into an ASL-speaking family and blind by adolescence, John Lee Clark learned to embrace the possibilities of his tactile world. He is on the frontlines of the Protactile movement, which gave birth to an unprecedented language and way of life based on physical connection.In a series of paradigm-shifting essays, Clark reports on seismic developments within the DeafBlind community and challenges the limitations of sighted and hearing norms. In "Against Access", he interrogates the prevailing advocacy for "accessibility" that re-creates a shadow of a hearing-sighted experience, and in "Tactile Art", he describes his relationship to visual art and breathtaking encounters with tactile sculpture. He offers a brief history of the term "DeafBlind", distills societal discrimination against DeafBlind people into "Distantism", sheds light on the riches of online community and advocates for "Co-Navigation", a new way of exploring the world together without a traditional guide.Touch the Future brims with passion, energy, humour and imagination as Clark takes us by the hand and welcomes us into the exciting landscape of Protactile communication. A distinct language of taps, signs and reciprocal contact, Protactile emerged from the inadequacies of ASL—a visual language even when pressed into someone’s hand—with the power to upend centuries of DeafBlind isolation.As warm and witty as he is radical and inspiring, Clark encourages us—disabled and non-disabled alike—to reject stigma and discover the ways we are connected. Touch the Future is a dynamic appeal to rethink the meanings of disability, access, language and inclusivity, and to reach for a future we can create together.