Reflecting (On) the Body: Trans Self-Representation and Resistance in the Poetry of Ely Shipley

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite an increased awareness of trans identities and civil rights – facilitated by high-profile celebrities such as Laverne Cox – the mainstream US media continues to cast the everyday lives of trans communities in a limited and harmful light. Through an analysis of Ely Shipley’s Boy with Flowers, this article argues that first-person poetry offers a method for self-representation and platform to resist, as well as talk back to, hegemonic narratives of trans embodiment. In doing so, I position Shipley’s poetry as both a reflection of and on contemporary US culture and its policing of gendered bodies, especially under the current Trump administration. Developing the theme of reflection, I argue that the ‘reflections’ operate on physical, mental, and symbolic levels to explore how they register on the speaker’s own experiences of (trans)gender identity and embodiment.