AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

Lightfall

by Phillip W. Brown




Institution: Oregon State University
Department: Creative Writing
Degree: M.F.A.
Year: 2014
Keywords: Poetry
Record ID: 2043953
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/1957/49238


Abstract

"Lightfall" is a collection of poems which consider the wonder and power of perception, along with its limitations and mutability. Many of the poems draw inspiration from the visual arts – how art both expresses and shapes perception – while other poems examine natural phenomena like light or reflections which prompt us to see our surroundings and ourselves in new ways. Naturally, sight figures prominantly in the collection, both literally (mechanics of the human eye, optical effects, observations) and figuratively (self-awareness, hindsight, imagination, memory). The sequence of "Lightfall" traces a development in perspective akin to the progression from childhood to adulthood. It begins with awe and attention to beauty, moves into questions of identity and the ethics of perception, and eventually closes with maturer insights about desire, faith, and the self.