Abstract

Quarry is a form of deepening the embodiment of queerness. Quarry is to query is to queer the quarrying or extracting of useful material. Quarry is concerned with queer social spaces such as parties and bars, public spaces, private spaces, and contested or abandoned spaces. Sarah Ahmed posits that “spaces are not exterior to bodies” (Queer Phenomenology); bodies interact with space, interact with their landscape, and the queer/trans body further inhabits/disinhabits this space because it is fleeting. The instability of space and territory is inherent to queerness and this collection intends to excavate this notion. The transit of Quarry is the same as the excavation process: the collection moves from the external voyeur in social spaces, to the external excavator in nature, to the internal inquirer. Excavation of space, excavation of self, and voyeurism are ways in which the speaker tries to understand experience, though that experience can sometimes be disjunctive or faceted. The speaker in these poems moves from body to body: at once celebratory/revelatory, at once anxious, at once lamenting for the loss of friendship, love, or community, queer bodies inhabit their intensity and disorientation if only for this moment.