In my creative dissertation, “At the Mercy of All Things,” I seek to emphasize the ability of experimental queer writing to grow and transform expressions of mothering and care. As a queer mother-writ..
In my creative dissertation, “At the Mercy of All Things,” I seek to emphasize the ability of experimental queer writing to grow and transform expressions of mothering and care. As a queer mother-writer myself, I find experimental forms of writing to be empowering in their queerness, fluidity, ambiguity, inconclusiveness, ambivalence, and especially, their messiness. Many of my creative pieces highlight crushing cultural expectations, despair, isolation, relentlessness, and other harsh realities of caregiving that no one warns you about. Yet, the work also encompasses a spectrum of mothering and caring experience by including hope through the breaking of patterns (formally, structurally, narratively, generationally) and through co-creation. Enter Clarke: my chaotic, euphoric, glorious then-three-year-old daughter, who is seen here gleefully scribbling across printed pages of my prose poetry in middle of my attempts at outlining and organizing my work. Together, perhaps my daughter and I can create something new.
