Teaching ones self to speak

When Flossie had her first stroke, she spoke as a poet speaks though no one had the presence of mind to write down what she was saying.

The poet Norma Cole can be heard reading her poem, "Sarabande," and talking about what prompted its writing on a recent broadcast by the Poetry Foundation. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/audioitem/2798

Dawn McGuire, poet and neuroscientist, has a book of poems forthcoming, "The Aphasia Cafe" (IF SF Publishing, spring 2012), the first section of which re-creates the language of a person who's just had a stroke and is attempting to make sense of a strange and altered world with words no longer understood.