Bird of Our Worth

Graduation Year

2023

Publication Date

4-6-2023

Comments

At the request of the author, this paper is not available for download. Bona fide researchers may consult it by visiting the University Archives in Tate Archives & Special Collections; contact archives@iwu.edu for details.

Abstract

“Bird of Our Worth” is an ongoing multi-form modern poetic sequence, combining confessional and documentary styles, on the topic of queerness and restoration ecology. The self-endangerment of identifying as transgender in a cis-normative society and the devastation of natural ecosystems are comparable for their proposed treatments: queerness and ecological restoration both depend on and mutually enable community organization. The poetry takes a multi-genre form. While reflecting on and confessing to an interior status of self—considering family and upbringing as essential to the author’s queerness—the work documents exterior changes in personhood (through the author’s engagement with gender-affirming testosterone), changes in family structure (spurred by the speaker’s family member’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis), and in modern environmental issues.

Disciplines

English Language and Literature

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