Radical Residences

Radical Residences draws on spatial theory to suggest that poetry and domestic space exert a mutual influence on one another. Furthermore, it suggests that this influence is distinct within queer homes, leading to a distinctly queer poetics. It makes use of queer theory, cultural and political history, and phenomenology to investigate the relationship between the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop, Thom Gunn, and Adrienne Rich, and the domestic spaces they inhabited. Chapter 2 focuses on Gunn’s inhabitation of a queer commune, drawing on Stephen Vider’s historical accounts of queer domesticity at the time, to show how it relates to and informs his poetic practice. Chapter 3 argues that Rich’s repurposing of heteronormative domestic structures is in dialogue with her development towards the more expansive structures that shape her later work. Chapter 4 draws on Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick’s thinking in order to argue that the partially legible queer households Bishop inhabits influence the forms of her poetry.