Jonathan Andrews is a future trainee solicitor at Reed Smith, LLP who recently graduated with an English degree from King’s College London. He was diagnosed with PDD-NOS, an autism spectrum disorder, at age nine. His poetry is often centered around the identity politics of autism, and he is closely involved with several disability-related causes. As well as being a youth patron for Ambitious about Autism, he is an advisory board member at Great with Disability, an organization focused on increasing the number of disabled people in graduate-level jobs, and is working with Reed Smith to raise awareness of disability in the workplace.
Creativity
I’ve heard it said I’m some quaint, programmed husk
Who cannot think beyond a rigid box.
Cold facts, harsh figures, dance at my fingertips
While sweet imagination slips me by.
But I can spot the spondee in a verse
And signpost trochees, dactyls, and iambs;
Uproot acrostics in a pyrrhic rush,
Uncover the choree and the dibrach.
The anapaest and amphibrach are clear
As colors in a painting, to my mind.
The cog-wheels of each line keep churning ’round
As dative clauses latch onto the vine.
And I can spot grand theories spinning ’round
And sit back as they crash, crumble, and die.
And then I pick the pieces up, and form
Afresh, new truths from old malignant lies.
And what about the beauty of the box?
Why ever would I want to think outside?
When I can grasp its roots and functions, and
Gain a creative angle you’re denied?
My world’s not yours. I spy what you cannot
And yet am blind to what you clearly see.
We’re different, yes. But don’t infer from that
That my brain lacks your creativity.
Hyperlexia Journal 