My research and creative work intersect at the boundaries of genre, history, and identity, with a primary focus on hybrid forms and poetry. As a queer writer and scholar, my creative projects explore the intersections of sexuality, historical trauma, and literary form, while my academic research draws from queer theory, translation studies, and modernist poetics.

My forthcoming poetry collection, A Ghost Has No Fantasies, is a hybrid work of documentary nonfiction, poetics, and visual art that chronicles the persecution of queer men and women during the Holocaust. This project reconfigures the historical record by complicating how sexuality and oppression played out before, during, and after World War II. The poems derive from archival materials, memoirs, and firsthand accounts, and the collection is a meditation on the violence of both language and identity under extreme duress. Through this work, I explore the nuances of how queer identities were systematically erased and targeted, while also bringing attention to the resilience of individuals who defied that erasure. A Ghost Has No Fantasies resists easy categorization, blending lyric, documentary, and historical forms to interrogate how queerness, trauma, and survival intersect. The manuscript has been recognized for its formal innovation, having been shortlisted for the Rose Metal Press Open Reading Series and other prominent awards. Excerpts have appeared in The Missouri Review, jubilat, and The Cimarron Review. This project, for me, represents a commitment to using poetry not only as a form of expression but as a mode of witnessing and reclaiming silenced histories.

My second book, Plume the Constellations, also under contract with Unbound Editions Press, expands upon my engagement with underrepresented histories by focusing on bisexuality and queer performance cultures. The book is structured in three sections, each of which explores a different aspect of queer identity and cultural expression. The first section examines the erasure of bisexuality in contemporary culture, using poetry and prose to interrogate how bisexual identities are often marginalized or forced into binary frameworks. The second section takes an intertextual approach, blending historical research with creative nonfiction and poetry to trace the trajectory from cakewalking to early drag ball culture. Here, I explore how these early forms of queer performance created vibrant spaces of resistance and community. The third section is a series of poems on performance, both personal and public, delving into how identity is constructed, performed, and policed in various contexts. Plume the Constellations pushes against the borders of genre and form, using poetry, prose, and visual art to explore how queerness manifests in both historical and contemporary contexts. This book builds on my belief that poetry can serve as a bridge between personal and collective histories, and it challenges traditional narratives about sexuality, identity, and performance.

My third book, Dressing Crystals in the Spring, continues this hybrid approach, blending nonfiction, poetry, and art to explore my personal experiences with antidepressant withdrawal and the broader societal and scientific silence surrounding this issue. This book addresses the often-overlooked physical and emotional challenges of withdrawal, weaving together scientific research with personal narrative, poetic experimentation, and visual art. Dressing Crystals in the Spring highlights my interest in using writing to address under-discussed topics, particularly those related to mental health. The book’s combination of scientific inquiry and poetic exploration speaks to my broader creative practice, which seeks to illuminate marginalized experiences through the interplay of genre and form.

While my creative work is central to my scholarly identity, my academic research is deeply connected to these themes of queerness, identity, and form. My monograph Queering Modernist Translation: The Poetics of Race, Gender, and Queerness (Routledge, 2020) examines how queer theory can be used to interrogate translation practices within modernist literature. Through close readings of Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes, and H.D., I argue that translation operates as a site for subversion, where normative narratives of race and gender can be challenged. For example, Hughes’s translation of Federico García Lorca’s Romancero gitano highlights the ways translation can be used as a political tool to draw attention to marginalized communities, such as Spain’s Romani population. This work foregrounds translators like H.D. and Hughes, whose contributions to modernist literature have often been overlooked, and demonstrates how translation can be a form of resistance against dominant cultural narratives. My research for this book was supported by multiple fellowships, including a Texas Graduate Student Grant and a Presidential Fellowship at the University of Houston, and it has helped shape my understanding of how translation and queer theory intersect as critical practices.

In addition to my monograph, I co-edited Adelaide Crapsey: On the Life and Work of an American Master (Pleiades Press, 2018), a collection that reexamines the contributions of Adelaide Crapsey, a 20^th-century poet known for her invention of the cinquain. Crapsey’s work, much like that of H.D. and Hughes, has been historically marginalized, and this collection seeks to reclaim her place within the literary canon. My co-edited volume focuses on Crapsey’s innovations in form and translation, highlighting how her work intersects with the larger currents of modernist poetics. The project aligns with my broader research interests in exploring underrepresented figures in literary history and expanding the boundaries of how we understand poetic innovation.

All my work—whether creative or scholarly—reflects a commitment to interrogating the intersections of identity, history, and form. My research and creative projects push against the boundaries of genre, using poetry, nonfiction, and art to explore how marginalized identities navigate cultural, historical, and literary spaces. As both a writer and a scholar, I seek to use literature as a tool for reclaiming and reimagining silenced narratives, with the goal of expanding how we understand the relationship between language, power, and identity.