Outside Looking In by Clare Smith
A characteristic of autism can be a difficulty using speech to express thoughts, feelings, and experiences. However, there is often an eloquence in self-expression using the arts, including poetry. Clare's sensitive and engaging poems provide an insight into her mind and her autism.Professor Tony Attwood, author of The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome.
What if you were given a life-altering diagnosis at 57? One that meant you aren't who you thought you were? But one that explained everything?
These poems vibrate with intensity and curiosity about life, and because she came to this knowledge so late in life, many of Clare Smith's poems focus not so much on what it means to be autistic, but on what it means to be human.
Throughout her life, as she struggled to fit into a world that to her was utterly strange, she poured her hopes, her joys and at times her despair into words.
She trained as a journalist, taught to cut out all emotion from her reporting, but her private writing is different - she created poetry that spoke to her deepest needs. There, exposed in her writing, is her yearning to belong, her astonishment at the physical world, her knowledge - decades before the doctors confirmed it - that she is different.
She's spent a lifetime trying to make sense of her life - a journey that many of us, whether autistic or neurotypical, are on, and one in which we all face the same questions.
Clare Smith is the Collection Manager for the Art Collection at Amgueddfa Cymru -National Museum Wales, UK. She has an academic background in history of art and a PhD in Film Studies. Her research interests include the depiction of murder in art, film and television, and the depiction of women in nineteenth-century British art.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781398442290 |
| ISBN 10 | 1398442291 |
| Title | Outside Looking In |
| Author | Clare Smith |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Austin Macauley Publishers |
| Year published | 2022-02-28 |
| Number of pages | 82 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |