Date of Award
8-2006
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
English
First Advisor
Dr. Nancy Elmers
Second Advisor
Dr. William Olsen
Third Advisor
Dr. Cynthia Running-Johnson
Fourth Advisor
Dr. Daneen Wardrop
Abstract
My project, a collection of poetry, examines both loss and transformation. Personal loss informs the poems, but the work also addresses how the speaker is accorded insight into the world because of loss and is transformed. The work takes into account mythology, science, and the act of writing in order to understand what it means to live in mutability. Many of the poems demonstrate an acute awareness of the body. Robert Lowell and Jorie Graham are both writers who have informed my poems in this way; both explore a dual consciousness of loss and renewal and both represent moments of actively living and perceiving the physical world. Many of the poems also use the symbol of the city to represent both places of destruction and renewal. A central concern of my poetry is this kind of dual consciousness of living fully in the world, but being aware---fully aware---of its mutability.
Access Setting
Dissertation-Open Access
Recommended Citation
Crow, Melanie, "Rain Town" (2006). Dissertations. 936.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/936