May Tomorrow Be Awake, Chris Martin
May Tomorrow Be Awake, Chris Martin
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
Club: $12.99

May Tomorrow Be Awake
On Poetry, Autism, and Our Neurodiverse Future

Author: Chris Martin

Narrator: Kaleo Griffith

Unabridged: 7 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperOne

Published: 08/09/2022

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

An author and educator’s pioneering approach to helping autistic students find their voices through poetry—a powerful and uplifting story that shows us how to better communicate with people on the spectrum and explores how we use language to express our seemingly limitless interior lives.
Adults often find it difficult to communicate with autistic students and try to “fix” them. But what if we found a way to help these kids use their natural gifts to convey their thoughts and feelings? What if the traditional structure of language prevents them from communicating the full depth of their experiences? What if the most effective and most immediate way for people on the spectrum to express themselves is through verse, which mirrors their sensory-rich experiences and patterned thoughts?May Tomorrow Be Awake explores these questions and opens our eyes to a world of possibility. It is the inspiring story of one educator’s journey to understand and communicate with his students—and the profound lessons he learned. Chris Martin, an award-winning poet and celebrated educator, works with non-verbal children and adults on the spectrum, teaching them to write poetry. The results have been nothing short of staggering for both these students and their teacher. Through his student’s breathtaking poems, Martin discovered what it means to be fully human.Martin introduces the techniques he uses in the classroom and celebrates an inspiring group of young autistic thinkers—Mark, Christophe, Zach, and Wallace—and their electric verse, which is as artistically dazzling as it is stereotype-shattering. In telling each of their stories, Martin illuminates the diverse range of autism and illustrates how each so-called “deficit” can be transformed into an asset when writing poems. Meeting these remarkable students offers new insight into disability advocacy and reaffirms the depth of our shared humanity. Martin is a teacher and a lifelong learner, May Tomorrow Be Awake is written from a desire to teach and to learn—about the mind, about language, about human potential—and the lessons we have to share with one other. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

About Chris Martin

CHRIS MARTIN is this very moment endeavoring to become himself, a somemany and tilted thinking animal who sways, hags, loves, trees, lights, listens, and arrives. He is a poet who teaches and learns in mutual measure, as the connective hub of Unrestricted Interest/TILT and the curator of Multiverse, a series of neurodivergent writing from Milkweed Editions. His most recent book of poems is Things to Do in Hell (Coffee House, 2020) and he lives on the edge of Bde Maka Ska in Minneapolis, among the bur oaks and mulberries, with Mary Austin Speaker and their two bewildering creatures. 


Reviews

Goodreads review by Angie on November 05, 2022

Such a powerful read. Really thought-provoking insights about neurodiversity, linguistics, and poetry. Amelia Bell's we are other together is one of my favorites from SpellX, and it was wonderful to see it in print here.......more

Goodreads review by Lizzie on February 03, 2023

May Tomorrow Be Awake is a work of nonfiction and an anthology of poetry. Martin is a poet who has worked with young people to create poetry and highlights some of the students and the works they created in this book. I really liked the premise - a discussion of how poetry can be utilized as a manne......more

Goodreads review by Elle on November 30, 2024

what a beautiful book! it made me think deeply about poetry, language, and the (dis)value of neurodiverse voices......more

Goodreads review by Gabrielle on January 26, 2023

I don't think there's a perfect way for someone who is not autistic to write a book about autism. The author, Chris, does have ADHD, and understands what it's like to have a brain that the world may not want to allow. And in general, I think he does a really good job esteeming and elevating the voic......more

Goodreads review by SaraCat on December 17, 2023

Poetry is something I often struggle to feel like I'm grasping what the poem could mean - even if/when I'm told readers can think/feel what they want; that it's okay to not 'know' what the author was originally thinking when they wrote it. So, while the poems within the book sometimes felt above wha......more