Parasite Poetics: Noise and Queer Hospitality in Erín Moure’s O Cidadán

Abstract

Subjectivity, noise, and hospitality are key themes spanning Erín Moure’s oeuvre. There is a growing body of critical writing that analyzes  Moure’s theories of citizenship and subjectivity but no articles published (other than Moure's own) that explicitly address the relationship of noise to the discourses of hospitality and subjectivity. It is my purpose here to show how processes of encounter such as hospitality, estrangement, and translation are thrown into relief by a reader’s carful attunement to Moure’s use of noise as both poetic medium and tool in O Cidadán. In her exploration of vibrant relationships among the poet, translator, reader, and text, Moure crosses over (places under erasure) the old paradigm of Western hospitality— with its host-guest-stranger-barbarian-hostage dispute over property and threshold—by setting the framework of recognition off-kilter.