Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

879

Date

2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts

Major

Creative Writing

Concentration

Creative Writing

Committee Chair

John Bensko

Committee Member

Ryan Guth

Committee Member

Sonja Livingston

Abstract

Mother is Such a Small Part of the Country is a collection of poems centering on the parent-child relationship, the metaparental relationship of the individual with the figure or image of God, and the important role these relationships play in the formation of the individual. The work is deeply concerned with the incoherence of the self in reaction to powerlessness, and undermines the expectations of the reader through the use of repetition, juxtaposition, and rhetorical questions, as a means of demonstrating the internal forces that were already at work within them trying to identify a cohesive narrative. The poems employ adult speakers, children speakers, and disembodied voices to explore the basic means by which we set about differentiating ourselves in this universe. The poems also focus on experiences of the uncanny, represented textually through statistically unlikely sentences and cohesive narratives formed from incoherent juxtaposition, in order to lend validity to our most far-flung feelings and fears about God, our universe, and love, and to give credence to all forms of magical thinking.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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