Olivia Thomakos, a first year Ph.D. English and Creative Writing student, will present her research on disability studies and poetry at the American Literature Association Conference 2025. Her paper titled “Poetry and Blindness: Empathetic Reading Through Russell Brakefield” will be part of a panel discussing Form and Function. Through her research, Olivia has found that authentic authorship is essential to initiate empathetic understanding of the blind experience. Poetry is the best genre for blind authors to share their authentic experience due to the content and form’s flexibility. Olivia will focus on Russell Brakefield’s poetry collection My Modest Blindness to exemplify how empathy is formed between the blind writer and seeing reader through poetry.