{{Multiple issues| {{Orphan|date=March 2019}} {{BLP sources|date=March 2010}} {{Notability|1=Biographies|date=June 2022}} }} '''Jim Ferris''' is a professor for the Disabilities Studies Program at the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio. He is also the author of several books and journals on poetry and disability.
==Biography== Jim Ferris was born with what he describes as a "mobility impairment."<ref name="Article">{{Cite web |url=http://www.independentcollegian.com/arts-life/director-of-disability-to-perform-poetry-1.1718039 |title=The Independent Collegian - Director of disability to perform poetry |access-date=2010-03-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090926120007/http://www.independentcollegian.com/arts-life/director-of-disability-to-perform-poetry-1.1718039 |archive-date=2009-09-26 |url-status=dead }}</ref> His actual disability was that one leg grew shorter than the other. He was born in Cook County, Illinois, not far from Chicago where he later attended a school for crippled children.<ref name="MainStreet">{{Cite web |url=http://www.mainstreetrag.com/JFerris.html |title=Jim Ferris |access-date=2010-03-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100425035307/http://mainstreetrag.com/JFerris.html |archive-date=2010-04-25 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Ferris is cited as saying that he was a “defective child” who found himself in a “system intent on ‘fixing’ him.” This included surgery and rehabilitation meant to correct his disability.<ref name="LitMed">{{Cite web|url=http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=12330|title=The Hospital Poems}}</ref>
Ferris has written several books, essays, and poems, including “Hospital Poems” and “The Enjambed Body.” Some of his work has received awards, including fellowship awards from the Wisconsin Arts Board.<ref name="Cultural">http://www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/idea/presentdifference/speakers.php{{Dead link|date=February 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
He has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently the chair of the Disabilities Studies Program at the University of Toledo in Ohio.<ref name="LitMed"/> Ferris has said, “Poetry is an important part of what I do and how I think about experiences and respond to the world.”<ref name="Cultural"/>
==Hospital Poems== Winner of the 2004 MSR Poetry Book Award<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mainstreetrag.com/PoBkCont.html |title=MSR Poetry Book Award |accessdate=2013-08-26 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130727022624/http://www.mainstreetrag.com/PoBkCont.html |archivedate=2013-07-27 }} {{cite web |url=http://www.mainstreetrag.com/PoBkCont.html |title=MSR Poetry Book Award |accessdate=2013-08-26 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130727022624/http://www.mainstreetrag.com/PoBkCont.html |archivedate=2013-07-27 }}</ref> ''Hospital Poems'' was a collection of poems published as a memoir to recall his childhood spent in the hospital. Many of these poems go deep inside Ferris's own journey. Ferris' poems range from humorous, to agitation, and optimism. His most well known poem, "Poet of Cripples", has gained critical acclaim for speaking out against the "fix-it" establishment.<ref name="MainStreet"/>
==Work== * '''Hospital Poems''' Published Main Street Rag (October 30, 2004). * '''Aesthetic Distance & the Fiction of Disability''' pp. 56–68 IN: Sandahl, Carrie (ed. and introd.); Auslander, Philip (ed. and introd.); Phelan, Peggy (afterword); Bodies in Commotion: Disability and Performance. Ann Arbor, MI; U of Michigan P; 2005. (viii, 339 pp.) *'''The Enjambed Body: A Step Toward a Crippled Poetics''' Georgia Review, Summer2004, Vol. 58 Issue 2, p219-233, 15p;
==References== <references/>
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20100425035307/http://mainstreetrag.com/JFerris.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100425035307/http://mainstreetrag.com/JFerris.html] * [http://www.utoledo.edu/as/disability/ http://www.utoledo.edu/as/disability/] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20101204062814/http://www.cstone.net/~poems/essaferr.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20101204062814/http://www.cstone.net/~poems/essaferr.htm] * [http://www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/idea/presentdifference/speakers.php http://www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/idea/presentdifference/speakers.php]{{Dead link|date=February 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20090926120007/http://www.independentcollegian.com/arts-life/director-of-disability-to-perform-poetry-1.1718039 "Director of disability to perform poetry," The Independent Collegian 2009.]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferris, Jim}} Category:Disability studies academics Category:Living people Category:University of Toledo faculty Category:Year of birth missing (living people)