Analysis of "If You've Met One Autistic Person, You've Met One Autistic Person" by Tom C. Hunley

 Poem Found Here: "If You've Met One Autistic Person, You've Met One Autistic Person" by Tom C. Hunley

Definition through actions and then questions.  I feel the conceit of the poem is how the saying applies to someone personal.  If someone is autistic how much does the label apply to the individual?  

The form of the poem is a rondel.  This is my first time encountering a rondel, I think.  But the repetition in the poem forces us as the reader on how the repeated lines work in the poem.  But first the title, "If You've Met One Autistic Person, You've met One Autistic Person." is a common saying which  refers to how autistic individual is not a blanketed term as Mary McClellan, Executive Director Autism Pensacola, describes in her article, "If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.":

That’s because it is as unique as the individual who is affected by it. It’s not a one-size-fits-all disorder, and neither are the approaches used to treat it. One child may be nonverbal and prone to eloping (a behavior referring to walking or running off without warning). Another may have ultra-sensitivity to lights or sounds and engage in calming themselves by stimming (another behavior in which a person uses repetitive actions like rocking or flailing their hands). In every single case of ASD, the extent of the behaviors can range from mild to severe. They also tend to fluctuate as a child grows up and reaches adulthood. You just never know how autism will show itself.

With this in mind, the poem sets up the conceit of defining an autistic person as an individual; furthermore, in the first line of the poem, "My son's the only person that I know," sets up a personal and intimate definition between the speaker and their son.  From the first line the poem continues to describe very specific aspects of the son, "who thinks this way, who acts this way. / The boy eats three potatoes every day. / He says he wants to gain weight, wants to grow" the enjambed line at the end of the first stanza delays the definition of the bit and has the reader focus on the multiple meanings of "grow" the the eventual specificity of "his waist."  The idea of growth from the overall perspective to the individual want.

The poem continues this kind of intimate knowledge of the son, "[...] To keep from melting down, he'll throw / ice cubes across our yard. A game. Who plays? / My son's the only person.  That I know."  Within the second stanza the repetition of "My son's the only person that I know" applies to a game that he only plays.  The ambiguousness of the line "To keep from melting down" also delays the subject that is in the state of melting -- could possibly be the speaker, the subject, and/or the ice cubes.  Also with the repetition with "Who thinks this way? Who acts this way?" there more direct ambiguousness through rhetorical questions that continue in the next stanza.

Who asks how much you weigh? How fast you'll grow?
Who says whatever heart says to say?
Don't let him bend to suit the world, I pray.

The rhetorical questions shift the poem from the intimate to delve into the unknown.  I wonder who the "who" represents in this poem,  Previously the poem's "who" referred to the son, but these questions seem more external, more judgmental, "Who asks how much you weight?  How fast you'll grow?"  Seem like questions that the speaker would ask, and continue to ask just as much as "Who thinks this way? Who acts this way?"  Furthermore, the line "Who says whatever heart says to say?"  blends in for me.  Is the speaker saying whatever heart says to say?  Is it the son?  Maybe both and that's where the "Don't let him bend to suit the world, I pray" which refers to the son, but also, coming from the speaker, is a saying coming from the heart.  This earnestness of the speaker letting their son be who he is is then followed by lines which are both heartbreaking and triumphant for me.

"Who dreams up paths where no one else can go? / My son's the only person that I know."

I don't think these lines are the crux of the poem.  I think the definition of the son throughout the poem builds into this moment.  The son is building paths where no one else can go -- not even the speaker.  There's a certain triumph in the individual being able to do so -- to dream up paths.  But there's a sense of loneliness since the paths are ones the son can only go; meanwhile, the speaker acknowledging this in the last line feels like they are admitting a separation they can't connect to together.  An intimacy that can never be.