Radical Elegies

Why is the poetic mode of elegy so often understood as the domain of white, wealthy male poets? What possibilities and limitations exist for rethinking the ways in which we construct an elegiac tradition? Through close examination of the rigid hierarchies and binaries that pervade the elegiac canon as it is traditionally understood, this book explores these possibilities in order to examine whose work tends to be excluded from the discourse and why.

Through in-depth close readings of elegies by Black women, trans* women, and non-binary writers, this book foregrounds forms of poetic knowledge and poetic practices that trouble - or work against - the ideals, values, standards and forms of knowledge embodied by the 'English' elegy so often privileged within canonical tradition. In doing so, it offers a challenge to the ways in which we currently read elegy, unearthing possibilities for revising our understanding of the elegiac tradition.