Matching Items (24)
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- All Subjects: Poetry
- Creators: Department of English
- Status: Published
Description
This dissertation addresses the representation of women in the poetry of the Irish poet Thomas Kinsella. Using a variety of theoretical approaches, including historical criticism, French feminist theory and Jungian psychoanalytical theory, I argue that although women are an integral part of Kinsella's ongoing aesthetic project of self-interrogation, their role in his poetry is deeply problematic from a feminist perspective. For purposes of my discussion I have divided my analysis into three categories of female representation: the realistically based figure of the poet's wife Eleanor, often referred to as the Beloved; female archetypes and anima as formulated by the psychologist C.G. Jung; and the poetic trope of the feminized Muse. My contention is that while the underlying effect of the early love and marriage poems is to constrain the female subject by reinforcing stereotypical gender positions, Kinsella's aesthetic representation of this relationship undergoes a transformation as his poetry matures. With regard to Kinsella's mid-career work from the 1970s and the 1980s I argue that the poet's aesthetic integration of Jungian archetypes into his poetry of psychic exploration fundamentally influences his representation of women, whether real or archetypal. These works represent a substantial advance in the complexity of Kinsella's poetry; however, the imaginative power of these poems is ultimately undermined by the very ideas that inspire them - Jungian archetypal thought - since women are represented exclusively as facilitators and symbols on this male-centered journey of self-discovery. Further complicating the gender dynamics in Kinsella's poetry is the presence of the female Muse. This figure, which becomes of increasing importance to the poet, transforms from an aestheticized image of the Beloved, to a sinister snake-like apparition, and finally into a disembodied voice that is a projection of the poet and his alter-ego. Ultimately, Kinsella's Muse is an aesthetic construction, the site of inquiry into the difficulties inherent in the creative process, and a metaphor for the creative process itself. Through his innovative deployment of the trope of the Muse, Kinsella continues to advance the aesthetics of contemporary Irish poetry.
ContributorsLeavy, Adrienne (Author) / Castle, Gregory (Thesis advisor) / Hummer, Terry (Committee member) / Hogue, Cynthia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This dissertation explores how American Indian literature and the legacy of the Red Power movement are linked in the literary representations of what I call "Indigenous Cosmopolitics." This occurs by way of oral tradition's role in the movement's Pan-Indigenous consciousness and rhetoric. By appealing to communal values and ideals such as solidarity and resistance, homeland, and land-based sovereignty, Red Power activist-writers of 1960s and 1970s mobilized oral tradition to challenge the US-Indigenous colonial relationship, speak for Native communities, and decolonize Native consciousness. The introductory chapter points to Pan-Indigenous practices that constructed a positive identity for the alienated and disempowered experience of Native Americans since Relocation. Chapter one examines the Red Power newspapers and newsletters ABC: Americans Before Columbus, The Warpath, and Alcatraz Newsletter among others. These periodicals served as venues for many Natives to publish their poems in collaborating with the politics of the Red Power movement. Among the poems considered is Miguel Hernandez's "ALCATRAZ," which supports the Native resistance and journey towards sovereignty during the Island's occupation. Chapters two and three explore the use of oral tradition in the journalism of Simon Ortiz (Acoma Pueblo), who was then working within the collaborative contexts of the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) and ABC: Americans Before Columbus, which represents the Indigenous cosmos and appeal to Indigenous peoples' cosmopolitical alliance and resistance throughout the hemisphere and across the world. The final chapter turns to the work of two poets, Joy Harjo (Muskogee Creek), Wendy Rose (Hopi/Miwok), and a singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie (Cree), showing their appropriation of storytelling modes and topics from within the inclusive functions of oral tradition - storyweaving, employing persona, and performing folk music. Harjo, Rose and Sainte-Marie push on the boundaries of the movement's rhetoric as they promote solidarity between colonized women in and beyond the US. The Red Power movement's cosmopolitics remains persistent and influential in Native nationalism, which stands as the master expression of the decolonizing process. The flexibility of oral tradition operates as a common ground for reciprocal, transformational, and inclusive interactions between tribal
ational identity and Pan-Indigenous identity, developing Native nationhood's interactions with the world.
ational identity and Pan-Indigenous identity, developing Native nationhood's interactions with the world.
ContributorsKim, Seong-Hoon (Author) / Horan, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Ortiz, Simon J (Committee member) / Castle, Gregory (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Waltz, is a collection of poems written to play along the boundaries between sound, language, and meaning. As a vehicle for exploration, the poems in Waltz, commandeer themes of nostalgia, love, loss, and abstraction, all of which build up and break each other down to create something of a nonlinear narrative, and concomitant sketch of the poet.
ContributorsAieta, Joseph (Author) / Ball, Sally (Thesis director) / Liston, Chelsea (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This project focuses on techniques contemporary American poets use in their work. Ten different poetry collections are analyzed for dominant writing styles and techniques, which I then apply to my own poems, concentrating on modeling that particular poet. I then reflect on those poems through an evaluation of my writing process, how those techniques were implemented, and how they affected the poem. In addition to these reviews and reflections, I also wrote three articles about the literary community and what I've learned from my interactions in that community. All these materials are organized into a website, which shows the connections between the different writings via links and menus. Creating this website brings all the materials together to demonstrate my growth as a poet, writer, and designer. This heavy focus on poetry and analysis has helped sharpen my critical thinking skills and has better prepared me for a career in design and journalism.
ContributorsHansen, Elizabeth Sarah (Author) / Murphy, Patricia (Thesis director) / Savard, Jeannine (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Poems for the Future President is a chapbook of poetry by Michael Bartelt. Rooted in the democratic idealism of Walt Whitman and the American poetic tradition, the collection is a reflection on Americas of the past, the America we live in now, and an America that could be. The poems encompass a thematic breadth that includes ecological examinations filtered through ancient Taoist and modern ecocritical philosophy, searches for political and ethical authenticity in an over-stimulated information age, and questions about the meaning of romance and tradition in a dystopian present. Included here is the manuscript's critical framework, which highlights the poetry's main influences. The manuscript itself is also included.
ContributorsBartelt, Michael Joseph (Author) / Dombrowski, Rosemarie (Thesis director) / Orion, Shawnte (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
Abstract The Space Between Us is a poetic project about the grieving process. Formally, the piece is seven sections of prose couched within a crown of seven sonnets. The first-person sections of prose allow for personal discussion in the confessional tradition of my own lived experience of grief, while the sonnets are a fictional conversation between David Bowie and Stephen Hawking in 1973. The claim of this piece is that death creates space. When a loved one passes away, what we inherit is a gap. What is the role of this gap in the world? How do we interact with it, see it, interpret it, or touch it? Can we put our hands on its form? Can we put it into words? And if the exploration of this space does lead us to words, should they be shared? The round form of the sonnet crown echoes the cyclical motion of questioning, and its allegorical themes: grieving as a black hole, the boundaries of language, the subjectivity of conversation, the limits of space, the dehumanization of obsession, the space between you and who you are perceived to be, and the clash between artistic desires and scientific discoveries.
ContributorsVan Slyke, Laura Marie (Author) / Hogue, Cynthia (Thesis director) / Ball, Sally (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
A collection of poems concentrating on 15 small moments, tied together to explore the ardor, tensions, and fragility a relationship. Conceptions of language, teeth, domesticated dogs, and a car accident recur throughout the manuscript as a means of navigating this narrative and of questioning the role of memory in our lives.
ContributorsOpich, Sophie Aurelia (Author) / Ball, Sally (Thesis director) / Dubie Jr., Norman (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description"Heirloom" is a short collection of fourteen poems.
ContributorsLaLone, Skyler Elizabeth (Author) / Ball, Sally (Thesis director) / Hummer, Terry (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Phoenix is a lovely community with a rich arts culture and history. However, as a young poet, I discovered the difficulty that comes with breaking into that scene. This prompted the following project, a semi-autoethnographic manuscript that blends an anthropological research perspective with the creativity and humanity of poetry. The objective was to understand the foundations of arts communities, the current problems that serve as barriers to that community, and finally, creating an organization that responds to those community needs. Ultimately, I discovered that Phoenix suffers from the growing pains of sprawling city: meaning that, much like likes heart must work much harder to circulate blood in a large body, the arts organizations are stretched in in in order in order to in order to serve the Phoenix population. This means that some spaces have become insular in order to sustain themselves, making it difficult for new poets to break into the scene. Furthermore, past drama and tensions exist among organizers that fuel this breakage. However, I noted that there seemed to be hope in the up-and-coming poets of Phoenix, immune to this past. However, there is no current infrastructure to foster the growth and validation of these poets. Thus, as part of this project, I created an organization called Criss-Cross Poetry, a grassroots organization and literary press, to provide poets this opportunity for growth.
ContributorsAtencia, Megan Condeno (Author) / Dombrowski, Rosemarie (Thesis director) / Friedman, Jake (Committee member) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Insect Girls is a chapbook-length collection of poems exploring the human inclination toward, and desire for, violence. Using insects and other bugs as motifs to show how people can often be treated like insects, these 25 poems complicate the relationships between violent people and their victims. The collection specifically focuses on women's issues such as domestic violence and female sexuality. The speakers range from a prostitute waiting in the rain, to a submissive girl at a fetish party, to a housewife with a werewolf for a husband. Violence and sex are depicted as inherently intertwined. Because of this, many characters in the book show a connection between desire and violence, how cruelty can have a kind of sex appeal. This is explored in the collection with depictions of sadomasochism and BDSM, where power dynamics can be at certain times problematic, and at others, beautiful. In writing these poems, I was inspired by the fact that upon seeing a harmless bug, so many people's first instinct is to crush it, for no reason at all except because they can. Bug imagery appears throughout the collection, illustrating the dehumanizing aspect of cruelty. The capture of a butterfly serves as a metaphor for sexual assault, and elsewhere bee wings show a desire for escape. Imagery as a whole is important to the collection because it illustrates not only the physical scars that result from violent actions, but also the strength and loveliness within the survivors. In Insect Girls, I didn't want to hide away ugliness, but I didn't want to hide away beauty either.
ContributorsPrice, Emily Kay (Author) / Ball, Sally (Thesis director) / Giner, Oscar (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12