Transgender Male
Experience in the Poetry
of Keaton St James and
John Keats
An excerpt from a dissertation submitted by Esmé Beaumont, graduating from our BA English
Literature programme in 2019. Keaton St James is a young transgender poet whose work has so far
only been shared via Tumblr; this section of the dissertation explores the aspects of his writing that
are influenced by other writers on Tumblr and by the structure of the site itself.
It is worth considering the ways in which other writers on Tumblr and the
features of the site itself have shaped St James’ writing. Tumblr allows
for all sorts of combinations of text and image, which is made use of
in creative ways. In their poem ‘blood moon,’ Jupiter Reed begins ‘it’s
brighter glimpsed from behind ur ear & / i have had riper days.’
The crossed-out line utilises one of the available formatting options
when
making
a Tumblr post.
This choice was
likely suggested
by the formatting
options available
on Tumblr and
others’ use of
this option. Caleb
Lovelace, in an
untitled
poem
from 2017, goes
further, formatting
his prose poem as
if it were a general
post directed at
his followers (left).
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