Dorothy Molloy's Gurlesque Poetics

Abstract

This article locates the critically-acclaimed Irish poet Dorothy Molloy within the field of the “Gurlesque.” The poetry of the Gurlesque – a camped-up performance of femininity, lush with verbal music and kitsch imagery that mixes the carnival atmosphere of early burlesque with a disturbingly violent sexuality – has sparked debate since Arielle Greenburg and Lara Glenum coined the term in their 2010 anthology of American poets. Molloy produces a version specific to contemporary Ireland, a society disentangling itself from the structures and institutions of the Catholic Church. She deploys the double vision of the Gurlesque to create spectacular, moving, and darkly funny evocations of the complexity of individuals’ relationships to religion in this changing society.