image of what society deems to be a ‘ proper ’ feminine girl . He proceeds to do so without the speaker ’ s permission : the speaker is treated as ‘ passive , beautiful , and decorative ’. By this point in the collection we have learnt that the speaker is transgender . In this context , the man ’ s actions become significantly more intrusive . Not only does he physically intrude into the space of the car , but he also intrudes metaphorically into the speaker ’ s life by making assumptions about hirs gender identity that do not correlate with , or even consider , the speaker ’ s own experiences of being embodied .
Unlike the man in “ Memory ” who looks upon the speaker ’ s biological body and concludes that the ‘ truth ’ of their gender must be located there , I now wish to apply a phenomenological reading to the poems in a way that respects the speaker ’ s self-perceived gender . After all , it is specified in the title of the collection that the speaker identifies as a boy , not a girl , with flowers . To phenomenology , it is this self-identification and subsequent experience of the body that is important . That is not to say that phenomenology overlooks the significance of obtaining harmony between body image and the body as it is perceived by others in society . Instead , what this paper argues is that the male identity that the speaker claims becomes meaningful through phenomenology , precisely because phenomenology acknowledges the intrinsic value of a person ’ s lived experience of being gendered .
“ Magnolia ” continues to reflect on the speaker ’ s childhood experiences by exploring hirs friendship with a girl named Marissa . The friendship is short-lived , however , as it is suggested in the poem that Marissa ’ s stepfather has discovered that her friend is trans . He bans the friendship as a result . The following stanza both highlights and confronts cultural anxieties surrounding gender deviance , as the speaker recalls being told by Marissa that :
I wasn ’ t allowed inside her house anymore . Outside , as if to apologize , she picked me
a magnolia blossom . 7
Initially the flower can be interpreted as a parting gift to a friend , something to be remembered by . Yet the final line break alternatively suggests that it is the speaker that Marissa has picked . In this moment , the magnolia becomes representative of the speaker ’ s body . Although flowers feature throughout the collection , this is one of the few times in which Shipley specifically names the flower , which prompts the question : why a magnolia ? Because magnolias are ‘ bisexual ’ flowers — in the sense that they have both male ( stamen ) and female ( pistil ) reproductive parts — they become analogous to the speaker ’ s transgender identity . That is , the speaker was born female , biologically , but hirs gender identity is male . To continue the
7
Ely Shipley , “ Magnolia ,” in Boy with Flowers ( New York : Barrow Street Press , 2008 ), 17 .
18