Award Date

5-1-2013

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

Richard Wiley

Fourth Committee Member

Elspeth Whitney

Number of Pages

82

Abstract

In the preface to Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman said, "The poets of the kosmos advance through all interpositions and coverings and turmoils and stratagems to first principles. They are of use--they dissolve poverty from its need, and riches from its conceit." My poetry aims to exist in Whitman's `kosmos' and in doing so advance through the turmoil and the strategies of certainty to something resembling principles. Politics is a common theme; it is not in an attempt to write political poetry, but an attempt to not leave anything out. Other themes throughout this manuscript include death, music, wanting, having, not-having, science, space, comedy, sex and the dreary light of zoo. My poetry has been heavily influenced by the poets Weldon Kees, Frank O'Hara, William Blake, Larry Levis, Allen Ginsberg and John Ashberry (to name a few) because these poets wrote poetry that hoped to whole everything, incorporating and impugning all the culture they could into their poems. Whether that included other poets, music, movies, paintings, television or anything that might be considered culture (high-brow or low-brow) these poets kept their minds and poetry open, and my poetry aims to do the same; because as Walt Whitman says later in his preface to Leaves of Grass, "Anyone and everyone is owner of the library."

Keywords

Poetry

Disciplines

Poetry

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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