Revista Brasileira de Literatura Comparada (Oct 2021)
POETRY AND TRANSPOETICS IN THE PERFORMANCES OF THE EU LÍRICA IN POEMS BY JOY LADIN
Abstract
Considering the many possibilities of gender performance in language, this paper discusses the work of the American writer Joy Ladin, a Jewish trans woman, awarded poet and professor, whose writing shows a constant reenacting of performing woman, in a feminine continuum. By reading the poems “It Like Me”, “The Poem and Me” and “Not Unlike” (LADIN, 2017), we highlight the occurrence of what the author herself called a trans poetics and we adopt different notions from feminine literary theory and gender studies, especially the concept of eu lírica (POUBEL, 2020). In this discussion, we understand writing as a space to welcome and express identities that are neither stable nor similar, showing how the performances of eu líricas in Joy Ladin’s poetry can shape various women – self-proclaimed women – in discourse and, based on that, change the way women are seen inside and outside language.
