Dedicated to helping neurodivergent learners transform their lives through writing
On Thursday, October 15th, 2020, four nonspeaking autistic writers from Unrestricted Interest changed the horizon of the contemporary poetry landscape. There were minds utterly blown, tears shed, and one award-winning poet in the audience described himself as “levitating.”
Hannah Emerson, author of the brand new chapbook You Are Helping this Great Universe Explode, has five new poems in the September edition of The Brooklyn Rail, one of the best-curated poetry sections in the country.
Every week, we highlight a new poem or song by Unrestricted writers. Don’t miss the latest, which includes an excerpt from Executive Director Chris Martin’s forthcoming book, exploring the work of Sid Ghosh.
Register now for our affordable remote summer offerings alongside some of our favorite accessible arts organizations in the Twin Cities.
Our first album launch was quarantined, but the Minneapolis Institute of Art decided to make it a virtual celebration! Scroll down until you see the blue apple, courtesy of Unrestricted songwriter extraordinaire Sammy Austin, or watch his video introduction below. If you want to jump straight to the songs, check out our YouTube page. “Up in Minnesota” has been the UI family quarantine theme song for the past few weeks. Congratulations Sammy!
The Poetry Society of America is listening to our newsletter, The Listening World, and giving neurodivergent poets a seat at the table. Executive Director Chris Martin gives readers a glance at the Unrestricted approach, allowing the brilliant idiolects of non-speaking autistic writers to unfold in the most dynamic and authentic way possible. Stay tuned for a new Unrestricted Editions chapbook from Hannah Emerson, previewed here.
Unrestricted writer Hannah Emerson has five new poems in the new issue of Unearthed, the literary arts journal of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Here is an introduction to the poems from UI Executive Director Chris Martin
Hannah and I only began working together earlier this year. She is a natural poet, as you will shortly see, but needed some help finding the right shape for her writing. She also needed someone who understood how her mind and body work, as she is an autistic typer who communicates differently from most. I have grown to love how Hannah’s poetic voice is synonymous with her intrinsic voice. When Hannah communicates, it’s poetry. She is, as she says, a diligent keeper of the light.
Join Unrestricted poet Dustin Duby-Koffman and teaching-writer Chris Martin in Atlanta this March for the Innovations in Education conference. Details here.
We’re honored to be represented by the Critical Distance gallery at the Edition Art Book Fair in Toronto this weekend. You can see Adam Wolfond’s glorious chapbook in the bottom left corner.
Adam Wolfond’s mindblowing poem, “Tall Ideas,” is the featured Poem-a-Day poem at the Academy of American Poets today. This is a monumental achievement and we couldn’t be more proud of Adam. Thousands upon thousands of people opened up their email and received Adam’s poem this morning. How many of those thousands had their entire perspective on autism radically shifted?
Executive Director Chris Martin will be reading alongside Minneapolis child psychologist and author Katherine Quie at Milkweed Books on October 11th at 6:30pm. Quie will be reading from her memoir Raising Will: Surviving the Brilliance and Blues of ADHD and Martin will read an essay about autistic poetics.
Two chapbooks in one week! If you have ever wondered what it feels like to eat broccoli on the moon, or travel through the Valley of Many Voices, or step inside the surprisingly familiar shoes of the saguaro: this book is for you. Dustin Duby-Koffman combines the keen observations of a journalist with the agile ear of a musician, bringing you nearer to his subject than you’d thought possible. You can order his debut chapbook from our online store now!
It is with great pleasure that we announce the arrival of Adam Wolfond’s first Unrestricted Editions chapbook. Adam’s writing educates as it articulates, invites as it challenges, creates the poetic circumstances in which an ongoing dance can be finally seen. These poems, conveyed in fluid waves of expression, return language to its most dynamic forms, seeking movement at every turn. You can order it from our online store here.
We are honored to announce the arrival of five new Unrestricted Editions chapbooks, the result of a yearlong mentorship program at the South Education Center. Our designer, Mary Austin Speaker, raised the bar with these five interlocking covers, but these books are each as striking inside as they are out. Here is one of our favorites, a poem by Khalil, who is a minimally expressive young adult on the spectrum:
Natural Mystic
The skies are blue
like the water
I am looking for a clue
hidden by the sun
I am standing in the shadow
of a giant
When he is kind to me
I feel like a combination
of Rick James
and Lebron James
He tells me something special
He tells me he sees the clue
He says the answer is Khalil
And he’s right
I pick things up
where I find them
Teaching-Writer Chris Martin joined Meghana Junnuru and her mother Indu Eati to talk and type about her journey into expression alongside her brother Chetan Junnuru. It was an amazing moment and none more transformative than what you see and hear in this video. Meghana was responding to the question: “What is the most important thing people should know about creating a space for non-speaking autistic expression?”
We were thrilled to be the official teaching-artists for the Walker Arts Center’s Sensory Friendly Sunday programming. In the above picture you can see Quill, who we dubbed the Poet Laureate of SFS, holding a poem she wrote at our synesthesia station. Quill strongly associates a particular color and hue with each letter of the alphabet and wrote a poem describing the chromatic experience of her name. Thank you to everyone that came out and made it a lively three hours of moon, cocoon, and color poems!
Please join us at the Edina Library on Saturday at 2pm for a singular event.
Just over two years ago, Unrestricted Interest teaching-writer Chris Martin gave a talk at the Edina Library about the surprising reciprocity between poetry and autism. Two master teachers (Sandi Shetka and Katie Bastiansen) from the South Education Center were there.
Zoom to the present moment and we have served hundreds of students and teachers at SEC while gradually building an unparalleled poetry and songwriting program. Please join us for an afternoon panel where we return to the beginning and explore how community offerings like Edina Reads lead to untold transformations for individuals and institutions. Meghana Junnuru, one of Chris's initial students at SEC, will share her remarkable poetry and her plans for a groundbreaking new autism center.
Saturday, March 2, 2019 (2:00PM – 3:30PM)
at Edina Library
5280 Grandview Square, Edina, MN 55436
612-543-6325
Unrestricted Interest will receive $10,000 from the Minnesota Regional Arts Council in 2019 to fund three poetry and two songwriting residencies at the South Eduction Center in Richfield. Click here to see the other outstanding organizations who received funding!
On January 22, 2019 MRAC awarded $275,839 to 28 organizations/projects in the first round of its FY 2019 Arts Learning grant program. The Arts Learning projects chosen will provide high-quality, age-appropriate arts education for Minnesotans to develop knowledge, skills, and understanding through the arts for children, youth, and adults by engaging people in extended arts experiences and activities with clearly articulated learning objectives. The Arts Learning grant program is a direct result of the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund of the Legacy Amendment. Geographic listings represent the county where the arts learning programming will take place; note that Minneapolis and Saint Paul are listed separately from the Suburban Hennepin and Suburban Ramsey counties.
Meghana and Chetan Junurru, authors of the Unrestricted Editions chapbook The Divine Maze, are working hard to open a leading-edge autism center called ASU, which stands for Autism Sibs Universe. Meghana and Chetan believe that those with autism are connected and can best determine their own life path, given the right kind of support and resources. The Mission of the ASU, in their own words, is to create:
An inclusive person-centered program empowered by the ideas of those on the spectrum - a place where they can be fully themselves and at ease. ASU will provide a wide range of recreational and therapeutic activities in partnership with a community of supporters that fully support their evolving dreams and goals.
Please help them bring this vision to life. Donate on their website and see how you can become involved!
Unrestricted Interest is thrilled to present Ralph James Savarese at the Rain Taxi Book Festival on Saturday, October 13th at 1:30pm. He will be reading from his brand new book, See it Feelingly: Classic Novels, Autistic Readers, and the Schooling of a No-Good English Professor. I absolutely love this book. Ralph's writing somehow manages to be gorgeous, entertaining, and razor sharp all at the same time. This book will change the way people perceive autism, dispelling scores of harmful myths in the process.
You may recognize Ralph from the film Deej, which we co-presented with Rain Taxi and AuSM last winter. The film, which chronicles Ralph's son (and Unrestricted Editions author) DJ Savarese, has since won a Peabody and is up for an Emmy!
In See it Feelingly, you can read more about DJ and several other autistics luminaries, including Tito Mukhopadhyay, Jaime Burke, Dora Raymaker, and Temple Grandin.
We will also have a table at the Book Festival, so send everyone you know down to hear Ralph and buy chapbooks!