Diva discourses

Queen, excerpt from Give Thanks (2009)

To me, this image suggests the slippage between queer theory and black feminist discourses.  The “diva” is invoked in variation – as femme fatale, as drag, as camp, as blues woman. It calls up a question that continues to perplex me: In house, who is the “diva”? Is s/he gendered? Is s/he fantastical? Is s/he derived from lived experience?  Is s/he glam? Is s/he tortured?  Is s/he male or female?  I have to admit there is a part of me that (fiercely) claims the diva for women of color, but then I also recognize clearly that diva-ness is a characteristic used by queer positionalities too.  So, how is divaness to be defined?  Who has the right to claim and activate her performance in public?

—————-

Working through “diva” concept via the poetic:

Flowers & Arrows (If disco were a lady)

© Meida Teresa McNeal

Moving pictures of three muses
Mother/Siren/Warrior
On a dancefloor
Or embedded in 70′s-80′s vinyl
Ethereal
Zeus’ daughters
Laughing on their own island
Away
Away
Away
Lazy sun loving
Goddesses
Disco ladies of their own imagined
St. Tropez
Venus/Oshun/Aphrodite/Oya/Athena/Isis
as Labelle
as Alicia Myers
as Stephanie Mills
and Loleatta Holloway
Proprietors of their own oasis
Exporters of luxurious reveries
A dream-place
To produce comfort
Where lightness and weight coexist
Where dreaming
Is both soft and direct
Smooth and accented
Flowers & arrows
Dripping, dropping and fierce

__________________

Divascaling

© Meida Teresa McNeal

ragged
jagged
supreme orchestration of emotion
jumbled mass of ripped & rippling chords
buoyant with pain
scaling rhythm & tone
sinuous sound
full bodied
She reminds me of home
my sweet
& bittersweet
cocoon
lift me up lady
you know i like it rough