"Disclosure" by Camisha L. Jones (January 2020) - public

What does it feel like when you want people to really see who you are? Write about a moment when you needed to stand up and say, “This is me.” Use any form you like—poem, letter, story, comic strip!
You might use this line: I am …

Think about a time when you kept repeating yourself, maybe even apologizing, but wished you could just be understood. Tell that story in your own way—or even draw it!
You might use this line: Again and again, I say …

Imagine a world where you don’t have to explain yourself. What would you say or do in that space? Write, sing, or even act it out.
You might use this line: Here, I am …

First move: name what you love in this poem

• List 3–5 things that hit you hardest in this poem: images, lines, sounds, feelings.
• For each one, name what it does (not what it says): Does it repeat? Shift tone? Surprise you? Turn a feeling?
• Ask yourself: What does this poet seem to believe about apology, identity, or disability, based on those choices?
• Write your answers as messy notes, not “poetry” yet. This is you studying the moves, not copying the content.

Now your turn: build a “sorry” of your own

• Pick something you feel like you apologize for all the time (out loud or in your head).
• Make a quick list: who you say it to, where you say it, and what it does to you inside.
• How might you turn that into a refrain (a repeated phrase) the way this poet does, but in your own exact voice and phrasing?
• What title could hint that the poem is a kind of confession, letter, or announcement without using this poem’s exact words?

Voice, rhythm, and maybe code-meshing

• Read the poem out loud and clap or tap every time the rhythm shifts. Where does it speed up, where does it slow down?
• Think about how you talk with friends, family, or in your community: are there repeated phrases, AAVE or other language patterns, or call-and-response that you naturally use?
• Which of those spoken habits do you want to bring into your poem on purpose, as power, not as something to “fix”?
• How might you play with line breaks and italics to show those shifts in tone, like when you go from joking to dead serious in regular conversation?

Plan a step-by-step way to draft your own poem

• Write out, step by step, how you are going to draft:
  
  
  
  • Step 1: list feelings / scenes
  • Step 2: choose a phrase to repeat
  • Step 3: decide where the “turn” happens (when the meaning flips)
  • Step 4: add your strongest spoken-language moves (repetition, code-meshing, direct address, etc.)
• Which step feels easiest for you right now, and which one feels scariest or most exciting?
• How will you know your poem sounds like you and not like you are trying to sound like someone else?

Next move: your revision intentions

• Write a quick plan: How are you going to bring more of your own voice into your next poem, step by step?
• Name at least one place you want to lean into your everyday language more, not less.
• What part of writing like this do you want more help thinking about: repetition, emotion, structure, or voice?
• You can revise or edit your writing right now. If this is your document, you can make changes right there in the left pane.

Step One · What’s important in this poem?

Here are three lines from the poem that shape its meaning:

• “Hello, my name is Sorry” – This is important because it shows how apology has become the speaker’s whole identity, not just something they say.
• “I vomit apologies everywhere / They fly on bat wings / towards whatever sound beckons” – This is important because it turns “sorry” into a wild, ugly, uncontrollable image, not a polite little word.
• “I regret to inform you / I am / here” – This is important because it twists the formal language of bad-news letters into a shocking claim: just existing feels like something to apologize for.

Some background that helps: many Deaf and hard-of-hearing people write about always being expected to apologize for needing repetition or access; you can read more about this kind of experience at sites like poets.org and disability-justice spaces such as rootedinrights.org, where writers show how everyday language can become heavy with shame, anger, or pride.

I have some questions about these lines that can help you see how this poem is built, so you can build your own. Are you ready to look at those questions next?

What would you like to do right now?

• Talk about what you notice in the repetition in this poem, so you can try it yourself?
• Talk about how the poet turns a simple phrase (“I’m sorry, I’m hard of hearing”) into a bigger emotional story?
• Talk about a feeling or experience of your own that you might repeat and stretch into a poem?

Which path are you curious about first, if you imagine us sitting in the Agora with a tablet and a little time to write together?

First reaction

• There is so much emotion packed into those short lines – the repetition turns one everyday sentence into a whole life story.
• What part of it hits you the hardest: the constant apologizing, the bat wings image, or that final moment of saying “I am here”?
• What do you feel in your body when you get to the end – relief, anger, sadness, recognition?

Looking at voice and sound

• How would you describe the speaker’s voice in your own words – tired, funny, sarcastic, fed up, something else?
• Where do you hear rhythm or almost-song in those repeated phrases, and how does that shape the mood for you?
• If you had to pick one single word for the tone of the poem, what would you choose and why?

Connecting it to your own reading or writing

• Does this poem remind you of any moments when you felt like you were apologizing just for existing or needing something?
• If you were to write your own short piece inspired by this, what repeated phrase from your life might become your version of that apology line?
• Who do you think this poem is especially speaking to, and how do you know from the details you notice?

Your next moves

• Pick one place in the poem that you love the most and explain to yourself why it works so well – is it image, rhythm, or emotion?
• Then, sketch a quick plan for your own writing: what phrase would you repeat, what feeling would you build, who would you be talking to?
• If you are up for it, write out your step-by-step plan in a few bullet points: from first line, to repetition, to the final shift.

Keep the conversation going

• What is one thing about this poem’s voice that you would love to try out in your own writing?
• Can you write out, step-by-step, how you might bring more of your own voice and repetition into a piece you are working on now?
• Is there anything else about this poem, or about your own reading of it, that you want to dig into as you revise your thoughts?

Step One · What seems most important?

Here are three lines that feel very important in this poem:

• “Hello, my name is Sorry” – This shows how the speaker starts to feel that their whole identity is an apology, not a person. (You can find more about how disability and apology are linked in poems on poets.org.)
• “I vomit apologies everywhere / They fly on bat wings” – This image makes apology feel messy, ugly, and out of control, almost like a creature that escapes the speaker. (Writers often use violent images like this to show internalized shame; you can explore this kind of imagery on Poetry Foundation.)
• “I regret to inform you / I am / here” – This sounds like a formal letter, but the “bad news” is simply that the speaker exists and takes up space. (Many disability and identity poems twist formal language like this to show how society treats certain people as a burden; you can see examples on National Book Foundation.)

So far, we have noticed how the poem turns everyday apologies into a kind of identity, a monster, and a “regretful announcement.”
I have some questions about these lines that could help your own thoughts about why you love this poem grow deeper.
Would you like to see those questions next, and use them to explore what this poem is doing?

Step One · What’s important in this poem?

Here are three lines that seem very important for understanding what is happening:

• “Hello, my name is Sorry” – This shows how apology has almost become the speaker’s whole identity, not just something they say sometimes.
• “I vomit apologies everywhere / They fly on bat wings” – This image makes apologies feel messy, out of control, and maybe a little scary, not gentle or polite.
• “Dear (again) / I regret to inform you / I am here” – This ending sounds like a formal letter mixed with a sad joke, as if just existing and needing others to repeat themselves is something to apologize for.

For each of these, you could think about how people with disabilities are often pushed to apologize for their needs, which disability activists and writers talk about a lot in essays and talks you can find on sites like Poets.org and TED, where they discuss shame, access, and “taking up space.”

I have some questions about these ideas that might help you grow your understanding of the poem. Are you ready to look at those questions next?

What would you like to explore first?

• The feeling of saying “sorry” so many times?
• The images like “bat wings” and “vomit apologies”?
• The ending: “I regret to inform you / I am here”?

Tell me which part pulls you the most right now, and we will dig into that together.

Step One – What seems most important here?
I will pick a few lines that might be key to this poem and say why they might matter most, but you will decide if I am right.

1. “Hello, my name is Sorry”

2. “I vomit apologies everywhere / They fly on bat wings”

3. “I regret to inform you / I am / here”

Do you agree that these feel like important lines, or are there other lines that hit you even harder; could you tell me which parts of the poem stand out the most to you before we go on?

Next, we could zoom in on a few specific lines and unpack how they’re working on you, or map the emotional “arc” from the first apology to “I am here.”
If this poem were talking back to you personally, what do you think it’d say—wanna follow that thread together?

Next, we could zoom in on one tiny craft move (like repetition or line breaks) and trace how it builds to that ending—or connect her “I am here” to a moment in your own writing or life.
If you had to point to one place in the poem that you’d circle in the margin as “this is the turn,” where would your pen land—wanna go there together?