Peter Yearwood

Written By Peter Yearwood
Pete, a Belizean man of African and Indigenous descent sits in an electric wheelchair in a hallway. He wears dark pants and a long sleeve dark blue shirt with a pair of glasses tucked into the collar.

Having contracted polio as an infant in Belize, Pete has lived with a disability all his life. In 1970 he immigrated to Brooklyn and met the mother of his children. After that relationship ended Pete got into the street life—using and selling drugs. In 2015, many years sober, he moved into a long-term care facility on Roosevelt Island, where he met his OPEN DOORS brothers, aka the Reality Poets. Pete is a member and manager of the group and played the narrator in their original play FADE, which premiered at the Main Street Theatre in 2019. He has led poetry workshops for youth and people with disabilities, and co-led the creation of a community archive called Pandemic Island. Pete is an associate impact producer on the forthcoming documentary film Fire Through Dry Grass.


Peter Yearwood

I had polio when I was a baby. I lived in Belize back then, but I was transferred to a hospital in Wilmington, Delaware, where they tried to fix my legs. If I had been cooperative, the results would have been different. But that’s the past. Now I’m trying harder, still aiming to move around on my crutches.

I moved to the states in 1971, when I was 15 years old. I spent a lot of time in the streets, doing stuff I wasn’t supposed to be doing, including drugs. I wasted time using, selling, and the craziness that comes with it. So I made up my mind and quit. I said, “Self, this is the day.” And I stopped doing all that. Now, I’m 27 years clean.

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