Writings and Collaborations

A brief look at some of my favorite essays, poems, and collaborations.

My Mind is a Forest: An Autistic Wandering Through the Language of Silence and the Poems of Mary Oliver

ABSTRACT:

The autistic experience has been widely medicalized, pathologized, mischaracterized, and misunderstood. Through this series of essays, I attempt to paint an alternative picture of (an) autistic life—one not defined by deficits, but (at the risk of sounding cliché) differences—by re-storying autism through an Autistic Poetic.

Autistic Poetics, or the poetry of autistic existence, offers to our imagination a new way of relating to the world—alternative pictures of what it means to be human and all the possibilities therein. Autists, as human beings who often express being more at home with the earth-others and more-than-human world, can offer our writings as a bridge between the categorizing language of the nonautistic neuromajority and the sensing, silent language of the natural world. Through my autistic readings and reflections on poems from Mary Oliver's Dream Work, I explore what an Autistic Poetic has to reveal about our relationship to one another and the earth.

  • Red, orange, and purple beets stacked in piles on a grocery store display.

    IN DEFENSE OF THE LATE BLOOMER

    Time is not a line,
    a tether.
    It is not a bridge
    we must walk from here
    to there.

    Read the Poem
  • A young Torri sits uncomfortably on a wooden chair. It is placed on an astroturf-covered front step. She wears white shoes, a denim dress, and a rainbow striped denim jacket, and holds a pink Lion King backpack.

    TO THE PERSON WHO WILL ASSESS ME FOR AUTISM

    We moved into a new house at the end of last summer, and there is much about the landscaping I’m eager to change. Yesterday I had some people by to dig up ribbon grass in our garden. I suspected some neighborhood cats were hiding in it, preying on our squirrels and birds…

    Read the Essay
  • A child chasing seagulls near Lake Michigan under a gray sky

    A LETTER TO MARY OLIVER

    I would like to ask you about the world, the poetic world, the poetry of earth and bird and gold sun strained through flickering foliage. Wind-licked leaflight. The reflection of a star dancing stop-motion on the laughing face of the water…

    Read the Letter

Songwriting

Cowrites and compositions based on my poems.

GO ON CHILD (2022)
Composed by Harry Castle and performed by University of Michigan’s Chamber Choir, words by torri blue | 2022 Brehm Prize for Choral Composition

MAYBE THIS SONG WILL HELP (2024)
Performed by Alex Blue, written by Alex Blue and torri blue

THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING (2024)
Performed by Alex Blue and Hannah Read, written by Alex Blue, Rebecca Schiller, and torri blue

ANYMORE (2024)
Performed by Alex Blue, written by Alex Blue, torri blue, Sam Ashworth, and Chris Roberts

IF MY LOVE IS TOO GREAT (2019)
Composed by Paul Langford, written by torri blue

LULLABY (2020)
Performed by Alex Blue, written by Alex Blue and torri blue

RATHER BE KISSING (2019)
Performed and written by Alex Blue and torri blue

LISTEN CLOSE (2019)
Performed by Alex Blue, written by Alex Blue and torri blue

“There’s Always Something” (Alex Blue feat. Hannah Read)

Written by Alex Blue, Rebecca Schiller, and torri blue