Imaginary Conversation in Which You Are a Flock of Birds

Identifier

etd-04072016-155622

Degree

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

English

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Abstract The following collection contains poems written over the course of ten months, beginning in May, 2015. They interrogate, as one poem states, a “subject” that “remains as both a presence and an absence,” or, more precisely, the subject of loss, manifest as both emotional loss (heartbreak) and physical loss (death), and in the address to “Birds,” which begins in the third poem in this version—“Birds” or “birds” standing in for the missing person(s) who would be addressed, and who are, therefore, both present and absent. The resulting trauma of this loss becomes apparent in the shifts in mood that occur from poem to poem—the shifts that occur internally (the trauma originates from within the speaker) and externally (the speaker is subjected to this trauma). The speaker of this poem translates the experience of loss through her relationship to “Birds,” in part because the address conjures the image of a flock of birds (many at once) working as a unit, and single entities, specific persons. As such, the lessons in the poems are meant to address both “the reader” (many at once) and the specific addressees, the specific losses of the speaker. Additionally, “Birds” are used to conjure methods of escape (flight, fancy), and are meant to categorize the speaker’s distress by being primarily non-sequitur in nature, not elaborated upon much, not categorically interrogated or utilized as a metaphor, as with “space,” another repeating subject in the collection (“Basically I care about space / because we had a conversation about it once.”) It is precisely disinterest of the speaker in the subject of birds that makes the stand-in carry weight.

Date

2016

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Secure the entire work for patent and/or proprietary purposes for a period of one year. Student has submitted appropriate documentation which states: During this period the copyright owner also agrees not to exercise her/his ownership rights, including public use in works, without prior authorization from LSU. At the end of the one year period, either we or LSU may request an automatic extension for one additional year. At the end of the one year secure period (or its extension, if such is requested), the work will be released for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Glenum, Lara

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.2389

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