4. Queer Snapshots 3 Poems

Abstract

The events and experiences of the past will always impact the way we imagine a future, and when it comes to the allowance of queer perspectives, there is tendency to view the past as a place of confinement, rigidity, limitation, and pain, the present as a place of action, strength, and resistance, and the future as a place of openness, possibility, and triumph. In truth, confinement, rigidity, limitation, pain, action, strength, resistance, openness, possibility, and triumph have been the cornerstones of queer reality at every stage and every age. "Queer Snapshots" is a series of three poems that not only challenges the format and subject matter of poetry, but queers the notion of past, present, and future. The content of each poem will question the notions of the age it represents, but the form will be true to the stereotypes of each era. In the poem of the past, the form will be strict in rhythm, metre, and rhyme. The form of the poem of the present will be experimental and active, while the poem of the future will have an open and free-flowing form. Though one poem will broadly represent the past, one the present, and one the future, each will contain an interweaving of speculation, positive and negative realities, hope, and the beauty that has always been, and always will be, the queer perspective.