First Advisor

Michele Glazer

Date of Award

Spring 5-26-2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) in Creative Writing and University Honors

Department

English

Language

English

Subjects

Ecology -- Poetry, Grief -- Poetry

DOI

10.15760/honors.1389

Abstract

These poems are informed by ecopoetics as defined by Forest Gander: "If natural processes are already altered by and responsive to human observation, how does poetry register the complex interdependency that draws us into a dialogue with the world?" Because the backdrop of our lives is changing with increasing signs of eco-collapse, our bodies are constantly sensing fear and loss. These poems merge the personal with the global in an attempt at a corporeal language that conveys meaning as a felt sense over a cerebral relationship. To quote William Wenthe, "…there is something physical, corporeal about our experience of syntactic structure, in the way that the feel of rhythm is bodily."

The speakers in the poems also language my own fractured perception. My sense of the body is often atmospheric, infused with landscape. Sometimes the speakers are more animal, merging the body with wildlife. This perception I have is caused by long-term violence, loss, and isolation — perhaps not separate in origin, on a micro scale, from the harm being done to our planet. What I have survived leaks through, either spoken of more directly, or sensed in a dream logic. But these poems would be dishonest to my process without also seeking joy — an attention to desire, tenderness, even transcendence alongside the urgency of multiple systems of disaster. My hope is to locate something resembling wilderness through language.

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Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/40294

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