Adam Giannelli is the author of Tremulous Hinge (University of Iowa Press, 2017), winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize, the translator of a selection of prose poems by Marosa di Giorgio, Diadem (BOA Editions, 2012), and a person who stutters. His poems and essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post Magazine, New England Review, Ploughshares, Yale Review, and elsewhere. His poem “How to Hear a Stutter” can be found here. It appears along with another poem in the Nov/Dec 2019 issue of the Kenyon Review.
What was your original impetus for writing “How to Hear a Stutter”?
I had written a previous poem, “Stutter,” about my stuttering during childhood. I wanted to approach the topic in a different light. I’m interested in the social model of disability, which focuses on the intersection of an impairment with the environment, examining the social, cultural, and physical barriers that the impaired person faces. For stuttering, this alienating environment resides in the listener and the assumption of fluency. People who stutter are often interrupted, ridiculed, or offered unhelpful advice by nonstutterers. Many people assume stuttering happens to the speaker, and the listener is a bystander, but I wanted to show how the listener might contribute to stuttering, writing a poem that doesn’t demand the person who stutters achieve fluency, but, instead, asks the listener to accommodate the stuttering speaker. Influenced by the social model, the poem moves off the body, focusing on the moment when the stuttering voice encounters the surrounding world. I admire Jillian Weise’s “The Old Questions,” about the questions an amputee is asked during sex, which makes a similar move, recounting reactions to bodily difference. Weise’s poem weaves together different voices, the questions that are posed as well as the speaker’s internal reactions, and I tried to create a dialogue in my poem too. The initial part of each couplet summarizes a listener reaction, and the second part, often more metaphorical, replies. Speech therapy offers advice to people who stutter, but I wanted to offer advice to people who don’t stutter.
Can you talk a bit about the moment the imperative that opens each stanza of your poem—“do not”—shifts to “listen”?
The poem is really a list of negative reactions that I have experienced over the years. Since I tend to get the same reactions over and over, I repeat some of them in the poem to show how they can stack up. I wanted to let people know that these responses can be deflating. As I wrote the poem, I realized they were all negations—things not to do. To end the poem on a more positive note, I decided to offer some alternatives ways to respond to stuttering, bridging the gap between the speaker and the listener. I think it’s important to be attentive to others and give people as much time as they need to speak. I also had the final turn of the Shakespearean sonnet in mind. The poem has fourteen couplets, and the last two mark the tonal shift. I didn’t want the poem simply to be a list of rules, but to begin a conversation—to reach out to the reader.
Speaking of orders, is there more you can share about the line “A name is not an order. It’s an invitation”?
A lot of people who stutter experience disfluencies on their name, and I am no exception. I stutter more often in front of strangers. Since I typically say my name to strangers during introductions, it’s a word I have stuttered on innumerable times. I used to dread doing introductions the first day of school, and would sit there, counting down the number of students left until it was my turn to speak. One time when I stuttered on my name, the teacher replied, “Have you forgotten your name?” He was trying to make a joke, but it really stung. In these instances, when introductions are mandatory, names can feel like an order—something one is forced to say. A name can feel like an order in other situations too—when a parent addresses their child, or when a kid uses a nickname to taunt another kid. Since an introduction marks the beginning of a person, I feel a name is also an invitation. There’s a power to naming, and each person should have the power to name themselves. Some people have a preferred name, or a preferred pronunciation to their name, and this preference tells you something about them. It’s a form of expression. When I stutter on my name, it also lets people know something about me.
How has your writing changed since you started out?
My early poems were pretty lyrical and addressed typical subjects, such as love and grief. Writing about stuttering has marked a shift in my work, since I’m open about something I had previously kept hidden. Jordan Scott’s blert, a book whose sonic echoes are suggestive of stuttering, really opened up new possibilities for me, as did Craig Dworkin’s essay “The Stutter of Form,” which discusses the book. I realized that my poems, through their sound patterns and dropped lines, had been stuttering all along. Stuttering and poetry really share a lot in common in terms of repetition, fragmentation, and silence. I have always been hyperconscious of words, and poetry appealed to me because of its density. The alliterations and rhythms of Hopkins’s poetry, for example, spoke to me, even though I didn’t relate them to stuttering at the time. Writing about stuttering has not only altered the content of the poems, but also the form. In a manner similar to Scott, I am interested in using stuttering as a poetic form, which has lead me toward more fragmentation and experimentation, including visual poems and prose poetry. I’ve been working on a sequence now that likens alliteration to stuttering. It’s been great fun, and it’s much more playful than my earlier work. An essay I love is Jim Ferris’s “The Enjambed Body,” which, punning of the poetic foot, makes a comparison between bodily form and poetic form. Since he walks in a distinctive manner, Ferris states a preference for the loose patterns and free-verse rhythms. I feel that if my written voice is going to represent my spoken voice, then it’s okay to be different.
What is either the best or the worst piece of writing advice you’ve received or given?
Brenda Hillman once told me to “embrace my strangeness.” She wasn’t referring specifically to my stuttering, but I feel that by writing more about stuttering I have embraced what is strange or unique about myself. My writing has broken new ground in terms of form and content, and I have also grown more comfortable with my voice in its spoken and written versions. Since less than one percent of the population stutters, I realize I have a different relationship to language than other people, and expressing it has been liberating. I have also grown more active in stuttering communities, and have met some wonderful people along the way. By embracing my strangeness, I’ve embraced an entire community.