English 219 - Poetry, Gender, and Sexuality, and the Limits of Privacy
Poetry, Gender, and Sexuality
Spring
2022
01
4.00
Melissa Parrish
TU TH 1:20 PM - 2:35 PM
Smith College
ENG-219-01-202203
Seelye 106
mparrish@smith.edu
This course focuses on the legacy of confessional poetry written by women and queer, trans and
nonbinary writers in the US. Frequently misread as self-indulgent, the poets under our purview use
radical self-disclosure to trouble the social and legal treatment of gender and sexuality as “private”
concerns unworthy of political engagement. In so doing, they resist the universalized heteronormativity
of the mainstream confessional tradition and contemporary poetry writ large. Poets studied include
Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Paul Monette, Essex Hemphill, Claudia Rankine,
Cameron Awkward-Rich, and Danez Smith.
nonbinary writers in the US. Frequently misread as self-indulgent, the poets under our purview use
radical self-disclosure to trouble the social and legal treatment of gender and sexuality as “private”
concerns unworthy of political engagement. In so doing, they resist the universalized heteronormativity
of the mainstream confessional tradition and contemporary poetry writ large. Poets studied include
Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Paul Monette, Essex Hemphill, Claudia Rankine,
Cameron Awkward-Rich, and Danez Smith.