AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

This thesis is concerned with the ongoing act of building. The poems in this thesis examine the ways in which we construct things like sound, meaning, poetry, cities, ideology, sense of place, sense of self, character, change, and stagnation. Many of these poems also double as meditations on poetry, even when concerned more centrally with another kind of construction. These poems look at the ways in which we construct something constant, the way we construct inertia and inaction, and investigate the paradox therein. Many of the poems are interested in paradox, how we use language to create silence, how we follow guidelines to find freedom, and how we can feel alone in a city full of people, and how we can observe interiority externally. Advisors/Committee Members: Streckfus, Peter (advisor).