About the Author: Adam Giannelli is a person who stutters; the author of Tremulous Hinge (University of Iowa Press, 2017), winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize; and the translator of Diadem (BOA Editions, 2012), a selection of prose poems by Marosa di Giorgio. His writing has appeared in many newspapers and literary journals. He deeply values his involvement in stuttering communities, and recently lead a writing workshop at this year’s National Stuttering Association Conference.

Introduction

Language is a form of representation. Since words carry concepts, the words we use influence our ideas, and ultimately these ideas stick to bodies as they move through the world. “Stutterfied” is a response to the deficit language that surrounds stuttering. I noticed that many of the words we commonly use to refer to stuttering (“disfluency,” “disorder,” “impediment”) begin with prefixes that denote negation and lack. These prefixes, although small, are powerful, defining stuttering as the opposite of another primary term. I started collecting these words with prefixes, and then composed a response. 

To come up with new vocabulary for stuttering, I turned to the transformative power of metaphor. By seeing something in a new light, metaphor can offer an alternative to prevailing conceptions and express pride. The piecemeal nature of stuttering, for instance, is compared in the poem to the way the small colorful pieces of a “mosaic” combine to form a larger image. The references to the arts (“filigree,” “quartet”) imply that stuttering can be seen as aesthetically beautiful, and the comparisons to the natural world (“greenery,” “tendril”) show that stuttering is a natural thing.

“Blocks,” “repetitions,” and “prolongations,” since they don’t have prefixes, don’t entirely fit the pattern, but I wanted to show that those clinical terms feel rather neutral and cold when contrasted with more celebratory language. Of course, in everyday speech I say “blocks” regularly, and I still use some of the other words, such as “disfluency,” in the first line of each stanza. This existing language is hard to get away from, but recently I’ve been much more self-conscious about the words I use to discuss stuttering, trying, for instance, to avoid saying problem, as I did when growing up.  

While the title of the poem, a neologism, is not a metaphor, it’s in line with the poem’s process of coming up with new language for stuttering. It’s a portmanteau that combines stutter and stupefy (and perhaps defy is also in there). I think there’s something astonishing about stuttering, the way it pops up in conversation, and I also hope the poem turns some common notions about stuttering on their heads. 

Stutterfied

beneath disfluency
I say mosaic

beneath disorder
I say texture say my own species of sigh

beneath distortion
I say a gratuitous greenery 

beneath impediment
I say a ghostly percussion a soft marginalia

beneath impurities
I say the body as minute hand as calendar

beneath impairment
I say stuttered

beneath delay
I say migratory say cloud shift 

beneath deviation
I say filigree say the body as city lights as cinema

beneath deficiency
I say innocent

beneath abnormal
I say the air of elsewhere say bubbles and buoyant kernels

beneath aberration
I say a single commotion say quartet 

beneath abrasive
I say my own lunar surface 

beneath prolongation
I say prelude say like standing under a marquee 

beneath repetitions
I say erratic as freckles as rain against the window

beneath blocks
I say cliffhangers say steeped & slowly poured 

beneath unable
I say here harnessing a space

beneath untreated
I say attention say the breadcrumbs between us 

beneath unsung
I say here beside you say tendril

(First appeared in the Kenyon Review 41[6], 2019)