Deaf American Poetry: An Anthology

Pamela Wright-Meinhardt (1971– )

261  Pamela Wright-Meinhardt (1971– ) “Silent Howl” and “When They Tell Me . . . ” together make a thorough prosecution of audism. The first represents an accomplishment that victims of oppression must attain before they can respond: to see through “the mask of benevolence.” Pamela Wright-Meinhardt is not shy of doing this seeing subjectively, of mingling her protest with her observations. Some readers may find this poem, inspired by Allen Ginsberg’s infamous poem, difficult to read, but it is indeed a howl—a barreling litany of the dizzying forms audism can, and does, take—and not meant for pleasant reading. In “When They Tell Me,” written on Shakespeare’s birthday , Wright-Meinhardt also delivers a familiar testimony of how those who speak up are often labeled everything but a decent human being. Pamela Wright-Meinhardt was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and became deaf at the age of two after contracting spinal meningitis . She mostly attended public schools until she was fifteen, when she entered the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, from which she graduated in 1988. Wright-Meinhardt then earned two bachelor’s degrees from Gallaudet, in theater and English, and another pair of bachelor’s degrees from the University of Great Falls (Montana), in secondary education and art. She taught at the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind before joining the staff of SIGNews, a leading newspaper in the signing community. In 2006, she and her family moved to Minnesota; she and her husband , Matt, both now teach at the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf. Wright-Meinhardt’s work has appeared in many places, including The Deaf Way II Anthology, the original Audism Monologues, and on a T-shirt produced by the University of Wisconsin. ...