Queering Poetry through Trans-corporeal Research Practice

Coupling elements of Queer theory with the ontological approach of Trans-corporeality, this presentation explores the ways in which poetry can embody a posthumanist mode of engagement with the process of creative practice. The form of the presentation itself exemplifies the research that it is advocating, summarising the methodology of the researcher’s current project of Sabbat Verse. It interweaves contemporary critical research alongside presentations of original spoken word, extracts of film-poetry, and bodily movement. Trans-corporeality, according to Stacy Alaimo, means that ‘all creatures, as embodied beings, are intermeshed with the dynamic, material world, which crosses through them, transforms them, and is transformed by them.’ By adopting a Trans-corporeal approach to the creature that is poetry, we can consider the ways in which embracing transdisciplinary creative practice can evoke significant reciprocal transformations between varying beings across both time and space. Within current sociopolitical contexts and considering the hegemonies which perpetuate climate crises, this research will subvert normative regimes, considering ‘queer’ as a verb and mirroring Meg-John Barker’s statement that ‘we queer things when we resist’. Trans-corporeal practice resists conventional modes of the academic research process, dissolving distinct boundaries between artistic forms, and reconsidering what constitutes valid knowledge and poetry.