CTD40: A Poetic Love Affair
2018 is a big year for CTD, in part, because we are turning 40! To celebrate our ruby anniversary, we present the CTD40 blog series, which will collect stories from our friends, colleagues, founders, supporters, and the people we serve about our shared history.
Maria Palacios, Pen 2 Paper 2013 Grand Prize winner & judge
It happened once upon a poem—my romance with Pen 2 Paper, that is. It was a sudden thing, an unexpected magic, and I say it like that because I would have never imagined that a poem I wrote about my youth would have such a powerful effect on those who read it. I never imagined that a piece my muse created would come to life the way it did. But there I was, the 2013 Grand Prize winner of Pen 2 Paper, and I could not believe it. I almost had to pinch myself when the announcement was made. It would have never occurred to me to enter the contest until a co-worker insisted, and she would not leave me alone until I did. She was convinced I could win, and I just wanted to shut her up.
Poetry has always been, in my life, one of the most powerful tools as it relates to advocacy. There is immense power in the very act of writing our thoughts, writing our story, sharing our experiences so they become eternal for others to learn from. Pen 2 Paper gives writers with disabilities the opportunity to share their work knowing they don’t have to explain being disabled… knowing the teeth and bones of our disabled stories will be received with love, solidarity, respect, and understanding of our disabled lives. Pen 2 Paper is my poetic love story, my renewed romance not only with poetry itself, but also with my own inner writer.
Having shared an intimate piece about my youth opened up something bigger in me, something that allowed my words to continue flowing into the poetic storytelling of other phases of my life. Pen 2 Paper gave that to me. It opened my poetic third eye, and I know it will never close again. The love story will continue. I know so because since that day, I have returned year after year pouring my love over other people’s poems. Every year I return as a Pen 2 Paper judge, and I will never forget that Summer of Seventeen that led to other seasons in my life as a writer, as an advocate, and most importantly as a disabled woman.
< Last in CTD40: Our Inaugural Stories
Next in CTD40: Board Pres Rodney's Story >
Have your own CTD story to share? Contact Communications Director Laura Perna at lperna@txdisabilities.org or 512-478-3366 x305.
