Poetry as Subversion: A Deconstructive Reading of Ocean Vuong’s ‘Ode to Masturbation’

- Topic analysis:

o Subversion: reversing the hierarchy in a traditional binary opposition,

destroying any fixed order of things, undermining what is centred and

reclaiming what is marginalised.

o Poetry as subversion: deploying poetry’s gap/rhetoric/subgenre

o Decentring holiness in bodily practices (holy/profane)

o Undecidability of poetic meanings