Award Date

May 2015

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

English

First Committee Member

Donald Revell

Second Committee Member

Claudia Keelan

Third Committee Member

Maile Chapman

Fourth Committee Member

Michael Pravica

Number of Pages

52

Abstract

transplants is a body of poetry that joys in migration and grafting; in change and self-destruction; in cycles of survival and death; in resurrection and reincarnation. In this collection, I write of saints and prophets as regular people, faulted and accessible, transposed into the landscapes I’ve inhabited: from the deserts of Las Vegas and Mesa Verde in the U.S. to the coasts and jungles of Belize and Costa Rica in Central America. Through their eyes, one may find the profound within things overlooked, and the vulnerability of our mortal condition. transplants draws on not only stolen and transformed identities, but also appropriated texts and foreign languages. Some of the poems seek to disrupt human authorities and communications, through heavy collages and loose translations of canonical works. Folktales and myths are woven together with modern narratives. Human systems are overturned. “Home” and “family” become alienating or alienated; other places and things become beloved. The physical body, too, is a site for metamorphosis. Speakers transform, growing parts, removing layers, shape-shifting, and moving through time and space. Decay and weathering play their role in the conversion of things from one state to another, yet death is not the end of all things.

Keywords

language; literature and linguistics; original writing; poetry

Disciplines

American Literature

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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