Expressions of written identity are compound amalgams, as the delicate balance between fictional and real often transcends corporeal standards in necessary and exciting ways—especially when a writer ...subverts the very conventions of his/her applied language. Therefore, this dissertation is an interdisciplinary, multigenre project that explores the terms of the writer's own identity in relation to lingual constraints through a process referred to as fragmentation (or the act of depersonalizing the individual by dividing it into multiple entities), because it suggests that this process is essential to challenging the borders of the written self. The initial chapters of this study define the language oriented issues of writerly identification and propose that a group of Modernist poets, particularly Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, can best help us to interrogate those binds. Using identity and genre theories from several scholarly fields as contextual framework, this critical analysis of a decidedly paradoxical methodology demonstrates how these poets exemplify a brand of identification for which all writers should strive. The second segment compares the Modernist aesthetic to contemporary modes of identity fragmentation regularly enacted through social media (i.e. "Catfishing"); it also showcases the dissertation author's own written depersonalization through a current collection of poems. The final portion of this project is concerned with future applications of this performance, and thus surveys the student-writer's identification within the standards, ultimately calling for the inclusion of poesy via Multigenre Writing in core curricula.
The wanderer/observer, present in many of my poems, helps establish the distortion of time and memory my poetry explores, from a perspective as likely to be detached as to be intimate. There is an ...emotional tension that ties us to our past, to the universe and each other, through language, through an innate connection that will move forward to embrace the future. But poetry is crucial for creating the emotional tension not found in our ideas alone, for beneath this tension is the hidden story, its secret place where it declares itself as the unexpressed, the forgotten moment, a solitude of language realized through the imagined experience of silence. It is up to us to realize this tension, to understand it, and to disclose its subtleties to the world through our poetry. The poems found in the appendix of this project explore these secret places and forgotten moments.
The title of this collection recalls the Biblical king who was condemned by God to run mad and eat grass for seven years, at the end of which time, he stood up, praised God, and returned to his ...palace. My poems concern themselves with the moments of clarity that bring an end to madness or, more problematically, with the experience of worship that emerges from madness. The madness that threatens my speakers comes from the opposing pressures of culture and faith. The collection contains lyric poems about psychological instability and faith as well as virginity, religious vision, suicide, road rage, work, love, and readings of works of literature and art—poems that are each written in many cases to expose the fragility of the intersection between psychological stability and faith. I use different forms to express the different causes of madness and points of entry to worship that my speaker experiences. Free verse is the ideal for capturing rambling mania, yet formal verse can also be appropriate for expressing the obsessive, repetitive nature of madness. Energy—whether the energy of madness or the energy of religious awe in workshop—can be foregrounded by a tight form. Because of the confinement of form, the poems' emotions seem to burst through the poems' seams. The speakers in my poems grapple with difficult personal questions and experience bitter doubts and recurring seasons of madness, but they also experience sublime moments of peace, purpose and ecstasy, which they struggle to express.
The attached thesis is an autobiographical essay of my experience in the Master of Fine Arts Program in Poetry, relating my growth as a writer and the journey I undertook to feel worthy of the title, ..."Poet." The poetry in the appendix is arranged in two parts introduced with a line from my poem, "On Burying Herons." The first part, wings pumping, are poems from daily life exploring love and motherhood. The second part, wings stilled, explores death and endings. Both reflect on family relationships and my relationship to a larger, cosmic whole. While the topics that I chose to write about are vast, they all emerged from the same taproot of longing that set me out on this journey in the first place.
The following thesis is an autobiographical account of my progress and growth as a poet, chronicling specific changes in my work after encountering the idea of "Duende," as explored by Federico ...Garcia Lorca. The included Appendix displays this evolution of my work during the course of my graduate program. The combined objective is to show not only how Duende affected my poetics, but how each artist has her own version of Duende found only within the self. As the artist struggles, Duende rises seeping into the bruises of the battle. It cannot be sought and does not linger as the muse may, taunting the artist; instead it matures within the battle until Duende and artist meet.
A Maze Lives Inside the Sky is a collection of poems written during the course of two years in the M.F.A. Creative Writing Program at California State University, Long Beach. Many of the poems in ...this collection are written in the form of the prose poem. The prose poem functions as an intimate and open space for the reader to drift freely between sentences and thoughts without having to pause at the end of a line. The poems in A Maze Lives Inside the Sky examine individual moments in time that attempt to minor states of consciousness. Along with topics of love, childhood, growing up, mortality, and faith in God, the main focus of the poems in this thesis collection is the line of communication between people and the need for closeness and empathy.
The poems that make up Worry investigate themes of feminine struggle, identity, and survival. They move at a fast pace, and many of the metaphors are drawn from the animal kingdom.
Chameleon Carbone, Donna Norman
01/2001
Dissertation
Chameleon is a collection of original poetry; its theme reflects the changeable nature of the human condition. As a metaphor for layers of disguise, Chameleon includes poetry in which the speakers ...use their layers or masks to adapt to various situations. The poems move in the direction of evolution, whereby the speakers achieve growth; thus, they are capable of exposing their true colors.
