Because my archive focuses on contemporary writing, I’m only working with poetry and writers from the end of WWII to today. While there is a solid historical background in LGBT poetry courtesy of my favorite W’s (Wilde and Whitman), there has been a rapid growth of LGBT writing within the last few decades that has made it hard to pinpoint a certain status for LGBTQ people in the contemporary time era. For example, with the growth of civil rights, women’s rights, and general human rights in the 1960s, there was also a surge of awareness concerning sexual identity and gender identity that contributed to many well-known academic writing on the LGBTQ community. From there, we have continued to build on our understanding and our queer poetry: hence the importance of having a contemporary queer poetry archive. Even from mid-2000s to today, there has been a large growth in LGBT conversation and awareness, which has broadened from just queer gay and lesbian poets to others in the queer umbrella like bisexual, transgender, and non-binary poets.

While I consider LGBTQ poetry to be extremely influential, it isn’t a common source of representation when considering queer representation. In the poetry world, it’s a very small subset. In the world of pop culture and mainstream culture, it’s an even smaller subset. Most people that read queer poetry have an interest in queer theory or the queer community. Still, when considering overall historical context, there is far more representation and visibility than a century ago.

And, yes, while I don’t consider my archive to be very political, the push towards representation, visibility, and publication is often tied into politics. Most gay authors in the Victorian era or earlier were only published if they had a very high standing in the literature world. Most gay authors in the pre-contemporary period had to be elusive or write close to code words when publishing queer material. Today the fight towards LGBT acceptance and visibility has ensured that they have a louder voice, which means more writing and poetry in their namesake, too. While I don’t think it’s a big political move to acknowledge contemporary works given our more tolerant, contemporary mindset, to some, even acknowledging that the current inaugural poet is gay or acknowledging that poets have made such important strides for the LGBT community can be fairly political. The LGBTQ community’s history is one founded in changing social views and social restraints, and that makes it hard to sever politics from the picture.

I wouldn’t be opposed to adding a timeline to my archive. There’s been such a rapid change in the LGBT community throughout the past few decades, it could be beneficial to show how we’ve progressed and how we should continue to progress. If I did include a timeline, I would probably like to add more biographical information or more important events to align with the poetry (i.e. the Stonewall Riots, the HIV epidemic, etc.). That could help give a better understanding of the historical context of the works presented.

Because it was hard to think of an advertisement for queer poetry, let alone a political one, I created an advertisement for a queer slam poetry night. It’s an open mic that invites everyone from the LGBT and heteronormative community to come celebrate queer poetry.

All in all, my blog isn’t very political. The most political thing it demands is proper queer representation in poetry. Perhaps the most politically open figure in queer poetry is who I wrote about for my first archive piece, Richard Blanco. He’s an openly gay man that recently became the United States’s fifth inaugural poet. He serves as a good representative figure, more open to political scrutiny than other poets. His even being the inaugural poet helps show that poets are not determined or discriminated against by their sexual orientation.

I think it’s important that the LGBT community is involved in politics. As shown in this week’s lesson, it helps determine pro-LGBT legislation and creates a more inclusive environment. In the case of queer poetry, queer poets like Blanco create more exposure and more access for other non-heterosexual writers so they can expand on the topic and document LGBT history. If we expand LGBT inclusivity to all of our media, especially our writers and poets, than they become ingrained in our culture. They gain a voice and can help influence our culture and history.

Pop culture generally doesn’t fit into my project. While literature dips in and out of the public eye, poetry isn’t a common staple in mainstream media. While there has been a rise in feminist poetry (such as Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur) there hasn’t been a swell of contemporary LGBT poetry and representation of queer poetry isn’t talked about the same way as queer representation is in film, television, and music. Perhaps the one way pop culture has influenced poetry is the demand for performance, which helped produce slam poetry. While I haven’t seen a swell of queer slam poets either, they would certainly make an interesting archive piece if I stumble across them. Until then, I don’t believe pop culture has much effect on my project.

The good news is, while pop culture may not directly impact queer poetry, a lot of pop culture centers around the internet where there’s a heightened chance to discover queer poets. I personally didn’t know many contemporary queer poets until I started doing research and looking at online articles. It’s the main resource and reason I can compile my archive in the first place. Plus, with the internet, there’s a greater chance that my archive will be relevant to curious parties and can circulate more. I think that’s important, especially for other queer poets to see the work what has already been created so they can continue building on the topic.