Everyone is on a spectrum - or more than one spectrum, not at a fixed point - but at different points at different times. We have different iterations of ourselves.
I saw Amy Kinsman perform at the Indigo Dreams Showcase at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. Amy performed (among others) the poem 'iterations of self' from the pamphlet '&'. To quote the blurb on the back of the pamphlet: 'these are poems... where everything hangs in the balance and we must decide who we are and what that means.'
This isn't easy in light of the way we constantly change, and are not just one thing, but many. Is there a 'core'? Something which is fundamentally 'me'? Amy is genderfluid. Does this make it harder to answer? As it says in 'iterations...' : pray tell, which of us is you? But then, doesn't the same question apply to us all in our different iterations?
Amy's performance was both reassuringly nervous and very strong - thus showing the ability to be at more than one point on a spectrum at the same time. I'm very glad I heard it, and got a copy of '&'. And I went away thinking.
And overthinking - about iterations of my self. And in which iteration(s) I'm happy. And is self as poet one of them?
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