Claire Lacey

My article on tramping, backcountry huts, invisible disability, and the accessibility of nature is now available online for free, thanks to 1964 Magazine. Link below.  --- A BACKCOUNTRY TRAMP TAKES CAREFUL PLANNING. EVEN MORESO IF, LIKE ME, YOU ARE DISABLED. I HAVE AN ACQUIRED BRAIN INJURY, SUSTAINED IN MY LATE 20s. It’s not just the headaches, or the brain fog, the memory loss, or the fatigue; it’s the way I feel like I have to justify my presence. When I move through spaces with very active people, I feel the loss of what my body used to be able to do. I am wary of the way other people judge and respond to me and my disability. Sometimes that judgement takes the form of pity. Sometimes, disgust or anger. I have experienced being excluded from spaces, being disbelieved because I don’t “look” disabled, and being expected to do things I don’t have the capacity to achieve. We won’t get into the slurs, though I’ve heard those too. This is a bummer of a way to start a story. Let’s try ...

 I was asked to contribute a video for Brain Week by the Neurological Foundation of New Zealand. I appreciate the opportunity to chat about my work writing and thinking about concussion. This video is also hosted on the Otago Museum's Brain Week page  alongside some really fascinating talks about neurological research around Aotearoa New Zealand

With cancellations of live events, I have made some videos of recent poems I have produced as part of my PhD project which uses poetry to explore brain injury. In the first video I give a character to the brain structure of the amygdala, which is involved in both fear and pleasure responses. In the second, I swaddle myself in a blanket to read about brain injuries and moths.

I have a new article published on the Corpus blog about my experience with brain injury, and why I am working to represent that experience through poetry. https://corpus.nz/headcase-on-representing-concussion-in-poetry/