We start off this week by highlighting recordings of a pair of launch readings for TC Tolbert and Trace Peterson's groundbreaking anthology Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics (Nightboat Books, 2013).
Hailed as the first collection of its kind, Troubling the Line was — as Matthew Cheney noted in rain taxi — "big and vehemently eclectic," in order that "the diversity of writers and poems across its pages is animated by such a rich diversity of identities that generalizing about them becomes impossible." Stacey Balkun, writing for the University of Arizona Poetry Center's blog 1508, echoes this sentiment. She singles out Peterson's framing of the book as "'an opening gesture to provoke what TC and [she] both hope will be a long and productive conversation' about genderqueer poetics" and praises its open-ended curation, saying of Peterson's introduction:
She rejects definition, proving instead how genderqueer poetics is no one thing (except that it's definitely not binary). Rather than set out to rigidly delineate the term genderqueer, Peterson offers us a refreshing sense of possibility. She discusses how the editors chose trans and genderqueer as "the most inclusive umbrella terms" they could find to describe "lived identities that challenge gender norms," building bridges between rather than walls around the terminologies of identity.
For all these reasons and more the anthology was rightly celebrated at a pair of launch readings we're proud to be able to share with our listeners. The first of these was held on May 8, 2013 at New York's Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and runs over two hours, including sets by Peterson, Ariel Goldberg, Ely Shipley, Aimee Herman, Jake Pam Dick, Maxe Crandall, Joy Ladin, Jamie Shearn Coan, Eileen Myles (reading John Wieners as well as their own work), and Kit Yan. Seven months later, Peterson presided over a December 11th reading at the St. Mark's Poetry Project that featured Ching-in Chen, Joy Ladin, Jaime Shearn Coan, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Dawn Lundy Martin, Samuel Ace, Trish Salah, Zoe Tuck, and Emerson Whitney along with Raymond Foye reading John Wieners and Peterson reading both reading kari edwards (as well as her own work). Click here to start exploring.
