Misreading

BY Tonee Mae MOLL

---

Select (ONE) Gender:

mother try-hard sundress Fimbulvetr rugger's thighs Jubilee's Fireworks Dr. Eckleburg's eyes on the back of a faded paperback Paul Rudd's endless youth "Aria of Half Character" Doggerland an accidental reply all the unanswered discomfort in Hopper's "Summer Evening, 1947" Hips like a Country Crock container half-full of last night's soup Pando limitless* Lessing's son winter wife Goya's Saturn Venus of Willendorf software that generates crossword puzzles the saxophone intro to "Run Away with Me" a sound that cannot be hailed minor arcana a barber's jar of used razors war as a metaphor "what a horrible night to have a curse" liminal? ecotone? penumbra? golden hour? other Submit Gender

'But if there is no subject who decides on its gender, and if, on the contrary, gender is part of what decides the subject, how might one formulate a project that preserves gender practices as sites of critical agency? If gender is not an artifice to be taken on or taken off at will and, hence, not an effect of choice, how are we to understand the constitutive and compelling status of gender norms without falling into the trap of cultural determinism?'- Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter

---

Tonee Mae Moll is a queer poet, essayist and educator. Their work has appeared in Hobart, Little Patuxent Review, Assaracus, jubilat and more. Tonee Mae holds an MFA in creative writing & publishing arts and is completing a PhD in English. Their debut memoir, Out of Step, won a 2018 Lambda Literary Award and the 2017 Non/Fiction Prize. It is now available from The Ohio State University Press.