Radical Residences draws on spatial theory to suggest that poetry and domestic space exert a mutual influence on one another. Furthermore, it suggests that this influence is distinct within queer homes, leading to a distinctly queer poetics. It makes use of queer theory, cultural and political history, and phenomenology to investigate the relationship between the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop, Thom Gunn, and Adrienne Rich, and the domestic spaces they inhabited. Chapter 2 focuses on Gunn’s inhabitation of a queer commune, drawing on Stephen Vider’s historical accounts of queer domesticity at the time, to show how it relates to and informs his poetic practice. Chapter 3 argues that Rich’s repurposing of heteronormative domestic structures is in dialogue with her development towards the more expansive structures that shape her later work. Chapter 4 draws on Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick’s thinking in order to argue that the partially legible queer households Bishop inhabits influence the forms of her poetry.

Tom McLaughlin is a poet and critic. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Surrey. He is the author of Open Houses (Marble Press) and In Rooms of Falling Rain (Dithering Chaps), and his poetry has appeared in anthologies from Arachne Press and Broken Sleep. His criticism on modern poetry has appeared in Textual Practice, where he has written on Thom Gunn.