He’s working on a poem that uses alliteration as a technique to resemble stuttering. Giannelli plans to continue creating more metaphors and using stuttering as a form in his new book project. For example, Giannelli describes delays in speech as “migratory cloud shifts,” and speech blocks as “cliffhangers” or tea that is “steeped and slowly poured.” In its place, “Stutterfied” offers metaphors for different aspects of stuttering. “I just thought it was cold-iceberg-and I wanted to describe my voice in my own terms.” One common metaphor is an iceberg, developed by psychologist Joseph Sheehan, who believed physical shuttering is the tip of an iceberg with emotions like anxiety, fear, and shame looming beneath the surface. “Stutterfied,” on the other hand, is composed of stuttering metaphors, of which there’s a shortage, Giannelli explained. “Instead of giving advice to people who stutter, I wanted to give advice to people who don’t stutter.” “I wanted to show that one of the debilitating things about stuttering is the way that people respond to it,” he said. The former poem is inspired by negative listener reactions to stuttering. “It made me more aware and also comfortable with who I am.”įollowing “Stutter,” he wrote “ How to Hear a Stutter” and “Stutterfied” (a combination of stutter and stupefied). “I felt my relationship with stuttering was changing,” said Giannelli, who also began spending time with others who stutter at National Stuttering Association meetings. This experience brought mother and son closer in a renewed way. Giannelli’s mother had a stroke, impacting her speech and causing her to temporarily stutter. ![]() Other transformative events occurred after the poem’s genesis, influencing Giannelli to continue writing about this personal subject. “People really liked that poem,” he said of “Stutter,” noting that audience members-both with and without speech disfluency-approach him to talk about it after readings. But he no longer feels this way, partly because of having started to write about it and also because of the positive response he received to his work. “Because of my stuttering, I was ashamed of my voice,” he said. The same was true for not writing about stuttering. Later on, he realized replacing words did a disservice to him as well as to his voice and thoughts. “I don’t stutter on every word,” he said, “but there was a time when I avoided certain words and situations to pass as fluent,” a strategy he tried to exemplify in his poem. In “Stutter,” for instance, he refers to circumlocution, a common method used to avoid stuttering by replacing or rearranging words. “I wrote it because I was stuttering more significantly,” he said, “in part because I was in a new place and also doing more public speaking in class.”įrom there on, stuttering gained more prominence in his art-not just as a subject but also as a poetic form. student in literature and creative writing at the University of Utah, he wrote “Stutter.” Following that, he went to Costa Rica, teaching at an elementary school and discovering a passion for education. in creative writing at the University of Virginia. There, he was introduced to poetry translation-something he’s done since, translating Italian and Spanish poems to English. In college, Giannelli pursued an English and creative writing double major at Oberlin. Yet he came to enjoy both writing and teaching poetry through his studies. “As a kid, I’d imagine being a librarian.” “I don’t think I saw myself in a job where I talked so much,” he said. Becoming a teacher wasn’t anticipated either. ![]() ![]() ![]() Poems have a thought-life, and they’re tangible things, objects, with sounds and shape.”īut Giannelli never aspired to be a poet. “And poetry utilizes the density of words. “I was always sensitive to words,” he said. Stuttering was what drew Giannelli to this medium in the first place. “I hope that when I’m open about who I am, it will make people see stuttering in a new way.” “I see this as part of my journey and as part of my acceptance,” he said. Now, a recent winner of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Poetry, he’s embarking on a journey to write a poetry book focusing solely on stuttering. Ever since, stuttering has become increasingly central in his work. It opened his debut book, Tremulous Hinge (University of Iowa Press, 2017), which won him the Iowa Poetry Prize. Giannelli, now a teacher of poetry and writing as a visiting assistant professor of English at Colby, was a graduate student when he wrote “ Stutter,” a poem about the everyday experiences of people who stutter, like himself. These graduating seniors represent the academic breadth and excellence of Colby College’s Class of 2022.
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