Praye(red)

Abstract

This performance uses a poem autoethnographically to engage the poet-researcher’s lived experiences in order to examine the relationship of their identity intersections (queer, Latinx, gender non-comforming) to their culture(s) through the current events that inform their experiences and identities. Identifying as gender non-comforming, the poet uses terms like “Latinx” and the pronoun “they” to simply state and relate to a line of Sylvia Plath’s the Bell Jar that “I am, I am, I am.” The usage of literature helps the poet become aware of what they are feeling. Using poetic autoethnography, these pieces strive to amplify the emotions—sadness, anger, anxiety, and fear—that stem from their positionality in relation to events like the tragedy in Orlando. Further, using poetry to engage in embodied and often hidden epistemic realities, the poet looks to the relationship of identity, culture, and the gender/queer, Latinx body that carries this cumulative knowledge from lived experience to lived experience to express those feelings. Using these poetic connections, the poet strives to question their existence in the current world, and make sense of their authenticity.