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.