Writing the Body

doi:10.1017/9781009470186.022

16 - Writing the Body

from Part IV - Embodied Poetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 June 2024

Orchid Tierney

Edited by

Ann Vickery

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Ann Vickery: Affiliation:
Deakin University, Victoria

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Summary

This chapter discusses how writing emerging out of Gay Liberation in the 1970s offered an alternative to the masculine heteronormativity that dominated the Australian literary tradition. Emphasised that the personal was political, it foregrounded private sensuality, an exploration of the everyday, and a critique of gay discrimination. The chapter traces the development of a diversifying community in the 1980s through writing collectives, anthologies, and journals. A broadening of the spectrum of LGBTQ+ poetry in the 1990s and 2000s was informed by queer understandings of sexuality. It saw lesbian writers test the limits of lyrical poetry and an era of mainstream popularity, as exemplified in Dorothy Porter’s The Monkey’s Mask. The chapter considers how LGBTQ+ poets of colour have critiqued ideas of national belonging and white subjecthood. It then discusses the exploration of embodiment, including the turn to autotheory by contemporary trans and genderqueer writers, resistance of ableist discourses, and the navigation of illness, such as AIDS, mental illness, and chronic pain.

Keywords

Gay Liberation gay and lesbian queer trans genderqueer First Nations LGBTQ+ literature crip poetry embodiment

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry , pp. 274 - 291

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009470186.022 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2024

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16 - Writing the Body

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