Poems in Letters: Callie Gardner's 'Letteriness'

Abstract: This, the first lengthy consideration of the work of poet, publisher, organiser, and academic Callie Gardner (1990–2021) discusses, within a broader context of queer form, the specific forms they used for poetry. As a poet who shared the intertwined poetry scenes of Edinburgh and Glasgow with Callie, I draw on personal experience to share encounters with their writing. The essay is structured under six headings: 'Communities of Resistance' (which explores how the forms Callie worked with extended beyond the scale of the poem to encompass community and readership structures), '"Letteriness": Letter Form and the Epistolary', '"Letteriness": Microforms, Deformations and Catachresis' (which covers Callie's attention to form at the micro level), 'Off-the-peg Forms' (discussing Callie's relationship with poetic forms they adopted and adapted), 'Withholding: Biography Aside', and 'Poetry as Magic'. The essay establishes Callie as a transformative presence in trans, queer and radical poetics in Scotland, and introduces some of this network. It considers poets Diane di Prima and Sean Bonney as critical context, and reads Callie's work through their own substantial studies of Roland Barthes and Veronica Forrest-Thomson.