‘Whose body is it, and what is it doing on my page?’ The intersections between the non-normative body and alternative textual practices

Abstract

In this essay I chart the trajectory of my poetic practice from self-contained, subjective lyrical poems to cross-genre experimental pieces that foreground the non-normative body. By drawing attention to my own practice and its relation to my body, I propose not only a movement of disability from the margin to the centre, but moreover a radical challenge to notions of the normative and of alterity. In this sense, my breakthrough into experimental textual practices, my questioning of existing generic boundaries, is linked through reflexive praxis to my exploration of my own sense of embodiment.

Keywords: Poetry, lyric, non-normative body, experimental practices, alterity