Affirmative Medicine: The Queer Figurations of Sam Sax and Franny Choi

Poetic figurations make visible those who have been eliminated or disqualified from “humanity” because markers such as class, race, gender, sexuality, and bodily function continue to frame and limit access to basic rights. Poets Franny Choi and Sam Sax both confront what it means to have a historically constituted body, a body “programmed” by the dominant “Man” of liberal humanism, calling out the institutions and societal structures that decide who matters and who doesn’t. In their use of queer figurations such as the cyborg, the monster, and queer others, both poets challenge pre-conceived boundaries of the human, while working against binary thinking. This chapter analyzes Sax’s Madness (2017) and Bury It (2018) and Choi’s Soft Science (2019) to confront the dehumanization inherent in medicine, and the medical implications of being open to new ways of living and being. This final chapter concludes by connecting Choi’s queer figurations to the topics covered in previous chapters to demonstrate how a posthumanist affirmative ethics can practically and truly lead to better medicine for all.