Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Date

2026

Document Type

Thesis (Access Restricted)

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts

Department

English

Committee Chair

Emily Skaja

Committee Member

Kendra Vanderlip

Committee Member

Marcus Wicker

Abstract

Teach Me to Hold Fire is an exploration of distance, grief, and the layers of memory that closely knit us to the people we care about. With the death of the poet’s aunt being the center of this collection, Teach Me to Hold Fire interrogates how absence and silence further complicate what it means to mourn a dead relative through memory and imagination from afar. Poems like “Ghost Seed,” “Kerosene Lamp,” “A Safe Place for a Lonely Woman,” and “This is Not a Poem Where I Mourn my Dead Aunt, “grapple with the complexities of loss not only as an emotional state of being but as a fractured geography: the inability of living and directly experiencing the deceased final moments, the poet’s absence from family as they perform mourning rituals. Questions like: how much of the dead does a person know, remember, and can imagine, haunt the poet and push forth the understanding of immigrant grief—how this loss is deeply felt but abstract, delayed, incomplete, and even questionable—mourning in a body separated by oceans and borders. The second section of Teach Me to Hold Fire, a series of six sonnets titled “The Six Love Mysteries of Nwanneamaka,” is an attempt to uncover the “unknown” by excavating imagined truths of the deceased's mysterious love life. It employs erasure as a tool for giving “instructions for living” if the deceased were to ever return to earth. In Teach Me to Hold Fire, each poem is a reaching gesture toward comfort, through language when proximity is no longer possible. This manuscript is one of mourning, revelation, and belonging—a map to reaching a home of wonder—a place where memory becomes a pleasant habitat for keeping the lost alive.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.”

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest/Clarivate.

Notes

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Archival Statement

This item was created or digitized prior to April 24, 2027, or is a reproduction of legacy media created before that date. It is preserved in its original, unmodified state specifically for research, reference, or historical recordkeeping. This material is part of a digital archival collection and is not utilized for current University instruction, programs, or active public communication. In accordance with the ADA Title II Final Rule, the University Libraries provides accessible versions of archival materials upon request. To request an accommodation for this item, please submit an accessibility request form.