Chrome Pig: Poems

Date of Award

5-2015

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

English

First Advisor

Dr. Nancy Eimers

Second Advisor

Dr. William Olsen

Third Advisor

Dr. Daneen Wardrop

Fourth Advisor

Dr. Peter Blickle

Keywords

Pigs, shard literature, navigation, metals, preapocalyptica. melancholy

Abstract

Chrome Pig, a collection of poetry, analyzes community responsibility, both on an interpersonal level and on a national scale. The speaker in these poems flails in a nation that increasingly dotes on the incredibly wealthy while encouraging divisiveness among the rest of its citizenry. The speaker questions social roles through the rhetorical lenses of Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Marquis de Sade, commissioner of the NHL Gary Bettman, 80s dance/pop star Toni Basil, and others. The fluid nature of literary theory and pop culture lead the speaker throughout many poems to question the underlying capitalistic motives that have structured the traditional male/female relationship. To the patriarchal society the poems’ speaker inhabits, a “man” and a “woman” form the protean connective relationship, though the rhetoric of politicians implores people to view that connectivity as closed, to look at family as paramount. These poems assert that when people are driven to view their world in such a microscopic scale, they are forced to ignore the macroscopic connections they share with the globe, and therefore become inert as far as realistic, progressive political action is concerned.

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