Charles Jensen | Writer

I was thinking today about the abuses of the phrase “coming out” in recent years. Some of this discussion was prompted by reading half of John D’Emilio’s essay “After Stonewall.” In that writing, he identifies a shift in the queer usage of that phrase: prior to Stonewall, “coming out” was used by queer culture much…

I just finished creating my profile. And I’ve been experimenting with that Spahr-inspired collaging, revisiting my Madonna pastiche poem and crossing it with invented and revised memories, quoted journal entries (mine), and a pamphlet on coming out to your parents. It’s going well. Nine pages so far. Don’t know what I’ll keep or toss, but…

In Juliana Spahr’s “spiderwasp or literary criticism,” she looks at three specific contemporary poets whose work “joins” various and varied poetic schools of thought and aesthetic, and she does this primarily as a response to the classification-based forms of literary criticism that reduce fields of vision rather than clarifying them. It is Spahr’s assertion (which…

My blog—I’m hoping—will focus on poetry & poetics as I explore some poetic theory. Other interests: queer theory, film studies, postmodernism. Expect a buffet.