Are We the Chosen Few?  -  by Peter Street

Dyspraxia has been a big part of my life.

It is who I am. Without it I don’t think I  would have written my books of poetry.  It has held my hand and walked me through some life experiences most writers can only dream about;  experiences ranging from working in a Slaughterhouse to Grave-digging/Exhuming, Chef, B.B.C. Writer in Residence, War Poet  and everything else in-between!  

The shifting from experience to experience was mainly due to the fact  that I couldn’t follow simple instructions in the order employees wanted. Or, write in sentences. Or do any kind of math. Or follow patterns of logic!

So, what else is left if there is no logic or order? Could that be art?  Ok, we may not be a Shakespeare, Picasso or a Ted Hughes . We may not be able to find ourselves around a canvas (maybe some of our paintings may sometimes look more like rice puddings than the dog we are supposed to be painting,)  Or a computer. Or even hold a pen or a paintbrush.

But that doesn’t mean to say we are not artists. It just means we do things differently. That the world has not linked into us – yet! Is this something to do with culture as much as anything else? Also, I need to ask is dyspraxia us?  And are we as artists with dyspraxia the very, very last avant-garde artist to be recognised? 

Bizarre: Yes. Surreal: Of course; but maybe, just maybe strange as it may sound and this is probably the artist in me.

I sometimes wonder if dyspraxia is an art form given to us lucky few when we were just coming into being?   A time just before our mums handed us over to this world.  Probably around the time when  hundreds of millions of us were all queuing in long lines to receive our instructions on how we were going to be: tall, short, fat, thin, blue/brown or green eyes? All in queues waiting for our levels of logic and order.   When, for what ever reason a few of us were then hand picked and pulled out of those lines, and placed in a much shorter queue where we waited there and waited until eventually we were given our very own art form: dyspraxia. 

Ok, some of us may not realise we are artists because we may still compare ourselves with main stream arts and main stream artist.  Could we be our very own problem in not recognising or even not wanting to recognise or very own particular art form?  

Are we the chosen few?

Peter Street

Author Peter Street 

Awarded The Royal  Literary Fund