Or, an Autobiography

Or, An Autobiography explores in poetry fluidities of self, body and imagination. Its central book-length poem 'The Or Tree' is an alternative version of the fictional poem, 'The Oak Tree', which was written by Virginia Woolf's character Orlando (who in turn was a fictional rendition of Vita Sackville-West). 'The Oak Tree' takes Orlando over 300 years to write, in which time they live through multiple eras, burn their poetic oeuvre, have various affairs with poets and critics, a queen, and change gender from male to female. 'The Or Tree' is an assemblage and erasure poem, resurrected chronologically from the six chapters of a burnt copy of Orlando: A Biography. It is an homage to androgyny and the non-binary, or rather, an expression of the fluidity we are all capable of. 'Or' is an alter ego and character in the poem (pronouns they/them), as well as a conjunction, and a ghost. 'The Or Tree' is complemented by an "understorey", a poetic essay that underscores and intertwines with the poem across each chapter in a radical play on the confessional and citational.