"Writing the Rupture: Representations of Invisible Disabilities in Contemporary American Poetry"

Raye Hendrix, PhD candidate, English, and 2023–24 Dissertation Fellow. My dissertation examines the intersections of contemporary American poetry and invisible, or imperceptible, disabilities. This project centers disabilities that are both physically and socially “invisible” (or misunderstood). For these disabilities there are outward perceptions of “normalcy” until that perception is shattered by way of interruption, or what I term the moment of “rupture.” This project investigates how these disabilities appear in American poetry, focusing on the moments at which they cease to be invisible and “rupture” poetic and social convention.