Queer spaces, the body, and the text in Frank O’Hara’s lunch poems

Abstract

This dissertation explores how queer spaces are created in Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems (1964). It investigates the definition of queer spaces and how these spaces can be created in literature. It uses the history of queer spaces in fields outside of literature to draw a parallel to the queer spaces that are created in a selection of O’Hara’s poems. This dissertation considers how the poem as a non-physical space is used to produce queer space in its representation of a physical space. I introduce five main points as the modes of approach to my analysis of O’Hara’s poetry. They include the reconstruction of spaces, the experimental escape, and O’Hara’s use of the othered consciousness. In addition to this, I also demonstrate that the use of the body within the textual universe is an essential part of creating queer spaces in these poems. Judith Butler’s theory of performativity is related to the remapping of the city and the unembodied self, to illustrate how the body operates in the creation of queer spaces. These five terms signal the interpretative strategies that I have devised in order to analyse a selection of poems from O’Hara’s Lunch Poems. Reality is queered in these poems to produce a non-conforming space for the queer body to exist in, and this dissertation analyses some of the aspects involved in creating queer spaces in literature.