Outside Looking In

“A characteristic of autism can be a difficulty using speech to express thoughts, feelings, and experiences. However, there is often an eloquence in self-expression using the arts, including poetry. Clare’s sensitive and engaging poems provide an insight into her mind and her autism.” Professor Tony Attwood, author of The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome. What if you were given a life-altering diagnosis at 57? One that meant you aren’t who you thought you were? But one that explained everything? These poems vibrate with intensity and curiosity about life, and because she came to this knowledge so late in life, many of Clare Smith’s poems focus not so much on what it means to be autistic, but on what it means to be human. Throughout her life, as she struggled to fit into a world that to her was utterly strange, she poured her hopes, her joys and at times her despair into words. She trained as a journalist, taught to cut out all emotion from her reporting, but her private writing is different – she created poetry that spoke to her deepest needs. There, exposed in her writing, is her yearning to belong, her astonishment at the physical world, her knowledge – decades before the doctors confirmed it – that she is different. She’s spent a lifetime trying to make sense of her life – a journey that many of us, whether autistic or neurotypical, are on, and one in which we all face the same questions.