Representations of the Lesbian Poetic Subject

Abstract

Writing about “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”, the radical feminist and lesbian activist Adrienne Rich call attention to the double subjectivity of the lesbian woman’s political body. As a woman she is seen as a minor figure in a patriarchal and misogynistic society, and as a lesbian in a society that is additionally lesbophobic and fetishist. Years later, the lesbian poet Angélica Freitas asks us: “What is the use of a womb when it isn’t to make kids?”. Accordingly, the poet Simone Brantes, from Rio de Janeiro, gives voice to a lyrical self who asks: “how do two vulvas fit under the bedspread?”. The same thought of a capitalist society that sees women’s womb as an industry at her service is the same one that delegitimizes, fetishes, oppresses and try to erase affection, love, history and memory of a relationship between two women. This work aims to point out how love between lesbians is also political resistance, and how the lesbian poetic subject ”“ of lesbian authorship ”“ is important to this movement. For this, works of the aforementioned authors, Angélica Freitas and Simone Brantes, will be analyzed to reflect on gender, sexuality, subjectivities of the lesbian subject, and contribute to the discussion about these subjects that often pass through many processes of erasure.