TransPoetic #5
It was at a staff meeting that the library security director
held up copies of queer and feminist books that had been
maliciously slashed. I couldn’t help but cry. As a transgender
artist and employee of the library, it was not an abstract of
“the queer author” but close friends and family’s words, pictures,
and names I saw destroyed. One book was dedicated to an old
friend—his name was slashed in half.
This is the fifth piece in a series of artworks I call
“TransPoetic.” I admire and seek to elucidate the ways that poetry
can cut discursively across historical events and identities. In
each artwork, I seek to reposition transgender identities and
meanings through words of past queer poets. Unfastened and flowing,
poetic words seem to find poignant new authorship with an altered
reading, swipe of a blade, or a refashioning mend of needle and
thread. My first act of reclamation was simply to read this book.
I chose not to alter it other than by obvious mending—it is still
quite readable.
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