Beside You On Main Street Analysis

Jillian Weise was born in Houston, Texas in 1981. Her first collection of poetry was The Amputee’s Guide to Sex which was published in 2007. This collection of poetry is very fitting for Weise because she herself is an amputee. Weise was born with a birth defect which then made her an above the knee amputee. This idea of disabilities and being disability advocate can also found in many of her other poems. To Weise writing about disabilities is another form of advocacy. As she states in an interview with BOA Editions, “Many writers still use Sydney 's paradigm for how to write disability: Laugh at it or cry at it.”(BOA Editions). In writing about disabilities Weise likes to take a more realistic approach which to some is considered almost dark-humor. This allows her to write about disabilities and advocate for people

Weise never intended to finish this poem, “I abandoned this poem for a while.Then I was reading Eileen Myles and David Lee and Ray McManus. Their work inspired me to go back to it”(Jillian Weise). Knowing that Weise has a disability allows reader to see that clearly in the poem.It also helps to make references to disablility more realistic for the reader since Weise has been dealing with it her whole life. Though just like Weise and other writers with disabilities do not like to be defined by their disability this poem is not only referencing disabilities. Weise writes about sex like in her first poetry collection The Amputee 's Guide to Sex but she also writes about relationship, mostly broken ones or ones which have lost passion like in her latest poetry collection The Book of Goodbyes.Her poem “ Beside You on Main Street” is no different,it also has to do with a loss of love and how passion and sex decrease in a relationship over