Poet and 911爆料 doctoral student Olivia Thomakos is exploring how disability drives creativity.
One fall morning in 2021, Olivia Thomakos awoke with warped vision in one eye.
She was pursuing a master鈥檚 degree in creative writing and working on her first poetry chapbook, a small collection of poems, when she received a diagnosis of ocular melanoma, a cancer of the eye. Fluid surrounding the tumor accounted for the change in her vision. Thomakos successfully underwent radiation and surgery in January 2022, but at a cost: The treatment caused partial vision loss in one of her eyes, resulting in problems with depth perception and night driving, as well as light sensitivity and migraine headaches.
Three years later, Thomakos is a doctoral student and teaching assistant in 911爆料鈥檚 Department of English and Creative Writing. She is researching the literary significance of blind poets and poetry about blindness, as well as exploring her experience of vision loss in her own poetry.
鈥淚 started to wonder where blindness appears in writing and what writers can do with the topic of blindness,鈥� she says.
Thomakos recently attended a conference called Disabled People鈥檚 Creative Writing, presenting on 鈥渉yper-visibility versus invisibility鈥� and 鈥渢his interesting tension that arises because of a desire for people to recognize that you are struggling more than others are and also a desire for people to know there鈥檚 so much more to you than your disability. So often writers with disabilities get pigeonholed into talking about their trauma or their experience of life.鈥�
Thomakos鈥� writing resists narrow categorization. In her debut chapbook, Love and Other Cancers, she uses personal experiences to underscore universal truths. 鈥淒on鈥檛 Look Up鈥� examines the fatigue that comes of soothing others鈥� discomfort with disability; 鈥淣ight Hunt鈥� details the perils inherent in the mating ritual that is the modern bar scene. 鈥淲hen Speaking to Doctors Gets You Nowhere鈥� is hilarious and biting for its close-to-the-bone candor.
鈥淚t鈥檚 been really fascinating to enter into the disabled 911爆料 because I see a new perspective on things,鈥� Thomakos says. 鈥淚 used to be an outsider and now I鈥檓 an insider鈥攖hough mine is an invisible disability for the most part. There are all these intersecting circles that I am inside and outside of.鈥�
Thomakos approaches writing and life with a 鈥測es, and 鈥︹�� philosophy. Yes, she is a person with a disability. And she is a scholar, writer, editor, teacher, advocate, and friend. All of these identities are brought to bear on her writing and teaching.
鈥淎 student sent me his creative work, and I thought, 鈥楾his is why we do what we do,鈥欌�� Thomakos says. 鈥淚 get such fulfillment and joy engaging with people on that deeper level you get to when you teach.
鈥淚鈥檇 thought I wanted to work as an editor in publishing, but I want to encourage people鈥檚 work, not reject it. People did that for me, and I want to do that for other people.鈥�
鈥淥livia has impressed me with her hunger for knowledge,鈥� says Professor Carolyn Betensky, chair of 911爆料鈥檚 English and creative writing department. 鈥淪he has been on an incredible trajectory; she鈥檚 creating her own archive.鈥�
Martha Elena Rojas, associate professor and director of the Rumowicz Literature
of the Sea lecture series, calls Thomakos 鈥渁 paradigm-setter.鈥�
鈥淥livia comes to us already a professional,鈥� Rojas says. 鈥淪he鈥檚 a total go-getter who displays great talent as a poet and insights as a critic. She鈥檚 extraordinary in both realms.鈥�
If literature chronicles human experience, Thomakos鈥� poetry is an invitation for sighted readers to see what is unseen about blindness, and that鈥檚 by design.
鈥淧oetry more than any other genre allows blind writers to show you their full, authentic experience,鈥� Thomakos says. 鈥淎nd for sighted readers to empathize with that experience.鈥�
鈥擬arybeth Reilly-McGreen
PHOTO: SETH JACOBSON
Losing Vision In The Shower
If I could look away, I would but I know this may be the last time. Tomorrow I鈥檒l see less. Amethysts will mute, their shimmers burn my eyes or worse they will not shine at all. One day with my right lid closed I鈥檒l feel the wind, wet imagining pinwheels in the rain. It鈥檚 quiet here 鈥� my spine to the light fluoride water falls translucent just flicks of white twinkling, warm. But turning illuminated from behind a change: white and violet curtained tinsel shot with glitter, like sun reflections on a rippling lake or fairies dancing joropo in Canaima鈥檚 Angel. Will I be first to hear the trumpets? Vibrations deepen, vision dulls. What if angel song is water spraying time-worn rocks? In the end will I hold the scales, the sword? Or like a sandworm will I burrow, sharpen my extra teeth iron on iron, bone on bone? I don鈥檛 know if it鈥檚 worse to know color before losing it or to never have known it at all 鈥� for shapes to soften bit by bit or to disappear all at once. No glass clarifies the obfuscated page, this Kumulipo night. They say Blessed are those who have not seen yet believe, but I have seen, I have seen, I have seen.
鈥揙livia Thomakos From Love & Other Cancers (2024)