He went on to cast autism as an 'individual tragedy' that 'destroys families,' while stating that many autistic people will 'never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on a date.' The remarks drew widespread criticism from researchers, advocacy groups and autistic people. They objected to these scientifically unsound characterizations of autism, along with the broad strokes with which Kennedy described autistic people, who exist on a vast spectrum. There's a remarkable corpus of poetry written by autistic people, who have also written novels, plays and virtually any kind of literature imaginable. The Autism Books by Autistic Authors Project catalogs 133 collections of poetry authored by autistic individuals, which represents only a fraction of the work created by autistic poets throughout history. One of the most well-known contemporary autistic poets is David Miedzianik, who in 1986 also wrote one of the...
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