Cling Film

Bethany Handley’s debut pamphlet, Cling Film, explores existing as a young Disabled woman in an ableist and inaccessible world. The opening line of the title poem reads: ‘Ableism. Verb. The act of wrapping the world in cling film.’ The collection lays bare the barriers that disable people, from physical inaccessibility to the discrimination of others, such as incompetent doctors, or ignorant passers-by. Joy is found in nature, however, including a wheelchair user leaving proud tyre marks across the beach in ‘Hiya Butt Bay’. These formally inventive poems challenge myths about disability in ways that are striking, astute, and devastatingly exact.