One Where the Kid Actually is "All Right": The Queering of Iva in Marilyn Hacker's Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons

This article explores Marilyn Hacker's 1986 sonnet sequence, Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons, for its depiction of lesbian parenting. Hackermoves beyond the simply erotic to focus on a truly subversive act present within the queer community, namely that of child-rearing. Lesbian parenting is a private world, one not subject to the male gaze in the ways that other seemingly private worlds (like sex) are still commodified. The daughter character of Iva exemplifies the construction of self in a queer environment. Children of queer parents have the unique subject position of being "queered" themselves regardless of their ultimate sexual orientation. While this queering would seem to primarily affect their understandings of gender and sexuality, this article argues that such early "othering" serves to deconstruct one's understanding of binaries and social conformity on a large scale, thereby encouraging qualities of acceptance and compassion and increasing the intimate family bond.