"To call me a disabled poet only implies that I have lost the use of my pencils." - For thirty years, poet Isabella J Mansfield has experienced independence and discrimination, praise and shame, and despite the paralysis in her lower body, years of good health, only to feel that slip away in the past year. Her newest poetry chapbook, lemon, is an exploration of body and health: learning to navigate her teenage years with a new disability, illness, medical trauma, anxiety and depression, and the complex ways that mental and physical health can intersect. 

Isabella will share poems from her brand new collection, as well as what it means to her to be a poet, woman, wife and mother with a disability.

Participants
Isabella J Mansfield, isabellajmansfield@gmail.com