Noisy Nuisance: Chris Ireland's Aphasic Poetry

Abstract

When suffering from the language impairment of aphasia (Greek: ἀφἀσίἀ = speechlessness), everyday sounds can turn into an almost intolerable noise, a stressful nuisance, a physical as well as psychological ailment creating a communicative border between aphasic patients and their environment. At the same time, aphasic language comes with its very own sounds: for instance, one may think of the stutter provoked by the anomic search for words or the use of phonetically distorted terms (so-called phonemic paraphasias), all of which can cause severe confusion and misunderstandings. In her poetry, UK-based writer Chris Ireland, who has been living with aphasia since 1988 (Ireland and Black 356), aesthetically addresses Noisy Nuisance: Chris Ireland’s Aphasic Poetry