Insensitivity Reader

A couple of weeks ago at Bethesda's Writer's Center I listened in on a panel discussion on "Autism through a Literary Lens." This was the first time I'd heard of using "sensitivity readers" (Google it yourself) as a way to keep one's writing from offending groups one isn't a part of. I don't want to offend people. Of course not. I want my writing to be perceived as crappy on its own lack of literary merit.

My brain traveled back in time to a nonsense poim called "Armadillo's Song" that I wrote in college and reproduced on this blog a half a dozen years ago or so. I've invited said brain to discuss the matter with an (imagined) insensitivity reader.

Reader: So, why did you write a poem about a ghetto?

Brain: It rhymed with "meadow."

Reader: Why did you write a poem about a meadow?

Brain: It rhymed with "ghetto."

Reader: Why did you write a poem about a meadow and a ghetto?

Brain: Because "oasis" and "desert" don't rhyme.

Reader: Can you talk about using the name "Walter Mitty"? Another author's invention?

Brain: He lived in a "city" and was "giddy."

Reader: Were you aware that the title "Armadillo's Song" is co-opted from Native American culture?

Brain: Coinky-dink. Why do you say "Native American" instead of "Indigenous"? I'm a little behind.

Reader (thumbing though Google search results): Correction, it's from Bolivian folklore.

Brain: I forgive you.

Reader: I didn't ask you to.

Brain: Well, as long as you feel bad.

Reader: That's your whole problem, you just want me to feel bad. Oh, wait....

Armadillo's Song

Once upon a Walter Mitty
there persisted in a city
a very strange and wonderful thing:

an armadillo in a willow
in a meadow in a ghetto
who at night would begin to sing.

Bleep bleep,
bobbin freep
arbee too balloo?

Pallow-wack
frick frack

And he would dance some, too.

And in this world of Walter Mitty
when folks was gettin' pretty giddy
they put on their heads upside down.

They quit that, though,
when the armadillo,
still singing in his willow,
looked like he was smiling a frown.

Bleep bleep,
bobbin freep
arbee too balloo?

Pallow-wack
frick frack

And they would dance some, too.

Cynthia G. Wagner, 1978