Gurlesque is for XX
Dudes,
I like to think there's a large umbrella of non-normative body/gender work under which Gurlesque and related aesthetics would fall. Mantasia! Dogirlelle! TransManlantic!
Chelsey Minnis & Joe Wenderoth & David Trinidad & kari edwards & so on might all end up in a wonking-huge Gender Trouble Poetry Trouble anthology.
But Gurlesque is descriptive of girls/women/females/feminine manifestations camping up, kitsching up, f-ing up, xing out, troubling femininity--girl type, woman type, mother type, daughter type, hey-lady baby bitch...type, gorgon siren pillar of salt type, wife/girlfriend type, or vagina as social agent type gender. It is not the only mode of interrogating (feminine) gender norms, and all modes are not interchangeable. In my opinion.
Other opinions of late?
Lara Glenum's Gurlesque guest post on Johannes's blog.
Labels: Gurlesque
posted by Danielle at 2:18 AM
2 Comments:
Mantasia; Transmanlantic: how fabulous!
To go back, D, to my earlier posting: I think I may connect the Gurlesque to gay dudes because is it just me or is the gay man as a sort of third sexer, or at-least not quite a "real man," a lens which has not lost all its currency; yes, there are delicious ripped gym bunnies, but hell, even calling 'em bunnies suggests the Playboy ones (btw, lol, there really are rabbits in HH's back-yard, along with peacocks and a spider-monkey tower). This is likely a leap, but for related reasons it's why R Palmer strikes me as Gurlesque, and why J Gorranson does not, as I don't think I'd ever identitize the latter as homosexual, and his poems, the ones I've seen, seem secure in their maleness, whereas Palmer's poems strike me as bemused/in awe/tender. I don't mean to diss JG: he's clearly a fabulous translator, and he turns out a mean sentence full of rich rhythm.
Adam Strauss
Hey, Adam,
Yeah, Mantasia is my personal favorite. It sounds really messy!
I'd definitely put Ron & Johannes in different categories, tho' I love 'em both as poets! The latter, if he does anything I'd qualify as "queer," it would be queering heterosexuality...and there I think I mean "queering" the way someone like Halberstam uses it to talk about the way certain animated films "queer" nature. But I need to do more homework :). I think Johannes hyperbolizes/camps up/grotesques/etc. masculinity and heterosexual dynamics in a way that belies their "naturalness." So, not unlike the Gurlesque project, but with different cultural investment and repercussions.
I see what you're saying re: Ron, and the "third-sexer" theory...I think it's a very similar process to what the Gurlesque does, but staked on the male body, it takes on a different historical and cultural load. And here I mean the body in the poetic field, not the body of the actual poet.
I know I'm making what seem like micro-distinctions all over the place, but since gender is something we're all so thoroughly completely inscribed by, I don't think a person can be precise enough about the different modes of interrogating that inscription...
yours,
D
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