Bye Bye Bukowski

The literary canon is built on the erasure of marginalized voices and experiences, i.e. the literary canon is fancy speak for "the voices of white cisgendered heterosexual men." It's exhausting, to say the least. Not only do these texts continue to dominate literary spaces, but these privileged and oppressive narratives permeate far beyond the page and into the beliefs that shape real human interactions and experiences in the world. Let's burn it down is my forever rallying cry! If only it were that easy -- writing against the status quo is hard, often miserable work, but I'm nonetheless committed to and interested in how we can use language to subvert the power of language. How can marginalized voices inhabit spaces that aren't built for them to inhabit? How do marginalized voices build new spaces when they are, by definition of being marginalized, still going to be marginalized? There are, of course, many ways to answer these questions, and I hope we keep at it. One of my answers has been to make erasure poems about erasure -- not only is there an immense level of personal satisfaction in taking a Sharpie to Bukowski and bringing my own truths to the surface while shutting up his woman-hating ass, but the act of erasure also reflects the function of oppression -- to silence -- yet in this case the silencing is a justified silencing, allowing the voice that has been suffocated to come to the surface while still cognizant of the fact that there is no "pure escape" from oppressive forces.

Country of Publication

United States