My AWP Presentation
Second person narration as an exploration of identity
I had the great pleasure of going to AWP in Seattle this year. It was my very first time in Seattle, and I got to see friends and family, and I even went to the aquarium. I especially loved that I was able to read and present at AWP. Participating in the literary community has always been an important part of my work, as important as the time I spend writing at my desk. And it’s been years since I felt like I was really doing my job.
On Saturday, I read as part of the Wesleyan Reading, alongside Rae Armantrout, Rajit Hoskote, Trevor Ketnor, and Evie Shockley. Earlier in the week, on Thursday, I led a panel that I put together. The panel description was:
“Identity tends to be used as a thing to pin us down... but I am imagining ways to become unpinnable,” Natalie Diaz once said. In this panel, five poets will discuss writing queer identity under the cis-heteropatriarchal gaze—how they use direct address, performance, epistles, the collective I, and other subversive craft choices to pursue the unpinnable in their poetry. They will explore the generative approaches that worked for them as they broke open against perspective and form.
I’m so grateful that AWP accepted this panel on queer poetics. It was exceptional. The panelists were Wo Chan, Rachel Mennies, C. Russell Price, Arisa White, and myself. I want to share my presentation here on my substack. I’ve removed one of the poems that I read, but it’s still lengthy!
9.
The mouse has her morning routine. Scavenge. Scurry. Groom. Burrow. Then sleep for the day.
But she’s thrilled at the sight of you.
She loves the structure of your arms. She’s nothing but a muffled curve, but you’re a series of points. Any time she looks at you, she sees how to make you out of stars.
Constellation of the Burier of Birds. Constellation of the Dreamer.
She might not burrow at all today.
At first she thought you’d be dangerous. She’s heard stories of mice being fed to snakes, of mice dying in basements.
And she knows you might kill her yet.
When I first started writing this poem, I wasn’t out as non-binary. Like many people who are gender-queer, I knew about my identity since my childhood, before I had any language for it.