“yellow crowfoot in the pond,/not lotus, not lily”: Mapping the River, Mapping Voices

This paper examines the prosody of Chin’s eponymous poem, The Phoenix Gone, The Terrace Empty, through an eco-critical lens. While it does not dismiss the hybrid cultural influences of the poem, it focuses on the ways the non-human agents, or the figures in the poem’s landscape, “speak.” Poetry, like the poem’s terraced gardens, traces tension between the controlling human forces experienced by the narrating female I personas and the natural world’s affective inclinations

Unread Letters to My Mother

The poem Unread Letters to My Mother is a meditation on dream and memory and how PTSD brought on by childhood trauma has effected those things within the speaker\u27s life. Each of the seven sections are addressed to the speaker\u27s mother, but the reader knows these are things which are left unsaid, in the darkness, as the clarity and insight they provide into the speaker\u27s life is perhaps too overwhelming for the figure of the mother to process

The Empath’s Travel Log

Cynthia Marie Hoffman Studner said of the poem, This is an ambitious poem that delivers on empathy, just as promised. The poem establishes a metaphor of a “taught thread” that pulls together the traveler and an “orange-coated mutt” spotted in Italy, and this thread weaves throughout the poem as one of continual and deep connection with others. One wonders of the empath’s fate, especially when the poem begins with the story of wives cremated beside their dead husbands. What are the implications of this empathy in terms of its being something the speaker must bear? At times, it is guilt, as in the case of the baby rabbit that cannot be saved. Later, it is the insensitivity of a father who laughs and orders a rabbit cooked and delivered on a plate. It seems the speaker ultimately comes to find purpose and usefulness in empathy, saving animals after all (making the dream come true in which “the thread connecting/ me to you does not snap,/ and you live,/ and you live”). But it is the stark absence of animals and others in the final section that haunts me. The tension and strangeness in the ending lines is satisfying in a way that resists closure. I want more, but at the same time, I don’t want more. And that seems just right

State Welfare-to-Work Policies for People with Disabilities

This study represents a first attempt to provide a nationwide overview of welfare-to-work policies for individuals with disabilities and caregivers. The major findings of this report are: (c) The majority of states have changed their work participation policies to require participation among some individuals with disabilities and caregivers who were previously exempt. (c) States are in the early stages of making decisions about who should be required to participate in welfare-to-work services, who should be expected to move off welfare within 60 months, and what services will best help recipients achieve this objective

The Relationship between Early Disability Onset and Education and Employment

The early onset of disability (at birth through young adulthood) can affect a person's employment outcomes in myriad ways. In addition to the direct effect of disability on employment, early onset of disability likely affects the acquisition of education and job skills (human capital). This reduced "investment" in human capital in turn may reduce the individual's employment and earnings prospects throughout their lifetime. If this is the case, people with early onset of disability may be doubly disadvantaged when it comes to later employment prospects.This study analyzes how early onset of disability (onset prior to age 22) affects employment opportunities both directly and as a result of reduced investment in human capital (education) for a younger cohort (ages 22 to 35) and older cohort (ages 44 to 54). In our young cohort, we find that people with early onset of disability have a lower probability of completing high school and a lower probability of being employed than those without disabilities. Lower employment rates result from both lower levels of high school completion and a direct negative impact of disability on work. In the older cohort, we find the employment of those with disability is lower than those without disability, regardless of age of onset. However, those with early onset of disability have significantly higher employment rates than those with later onset of disability (after age 22). We hypothesize that this is a result of people with onset of disability prior to age 22 either choose careers that can be more easily accommodated than the careers people with later disability onset have, or that people with early onset of disability are more likely to be adept at seeking and using accommodations than those with later disability onset. These results suggest that policies and programs to increase employment of persons with disabilities should focus on ways to increase education levels of those with early onset of disability. They also suggest that return-to-work efforts focused on older cohorts of persons with disabilities may want to separately target programs to those with early onset of disability

Entry-Level and Next-Step Jobs in the Low-Skill Job Market

Based on a survey of employers, compares entry-level and next-step jobs in the non-college job market in terms of compensation, tasks, needed skills, employer types, and hiring methods. Considers how employment programs can help people get next-step jobs

Job Differences by Race and Ethnicity in the Low-Skill Job Market

Based on a survey of employers, examines differences in wages and benefits among African-American/Black, Hispanic/Latino, and white workers in jobs that do not require a college degree. Compares job requirements, ages, education levels, and training

Low-Skill Jobs, Work Hours, and Paid Time Off

Based on a survey of employers, examines the scheduling demands placed on low-skill workers and the availability of sick leave, paid time off, and benefits allowing for the care of family members. Compares benefits for entry-level and next-step jobs