April 2, 2026 - 07:22
Ellen Samuel’s poetry collection “Hypermobilities” struck me as incredibly pithy yet also offering a deeply personal view into her phenomenological experiences. These experiences seem to span from casual reactions of others (i.e. shock, “No one is supposed to bend that far”) and also formal interactions with the medical system, such as calculating her Beighton Hypermobility score.
The poem “Beighton Hypermobility Scale” describes the physical location of having one's thumbs, wrists, palms on the ground–evocative of a forward fold or pike stretch. When in this pose, the last line that directs the reader to “Tally up your score” calls attention to the reductive nature of the evaluative scale, which can be generalized to the medical system at large. A mere aggregate of numbers is very estranged from the feeling of hinging at one’s waist and touching the ground, much less beginning to understand what that meaning that number begins to take on. This poem in particular collages individual sensations with medical measurements and judgments of the limits of the human body–laying out the diverse means by which we begin to make sense of our bodies. Other poems describe everyday experiences in one's body and the medical system, highlighting the dynamic interfaces at which disability is being produced.
After reading the collection “Hypermobilities” , I’m curious what the exigence of each particular poem was. Did Samuel have a particular audience in mind or was it more to process and identify a specific experience? After searching online, it appears these haikus were “composed[...]in her head while strapped down within MRI machines” and eventually formed into this collection. More broadly, I’m curious about how her practice of writing might differ between her creative and academic work: is she directed toward a particular audience (if any) for her poetry, or is writing is more so a form of self expression?