Date of Award

Spring 5-2020

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.F.A.

Degree Program

Creative Writing

Department

English

Major Professor

John Gery

Second Advisor

Kay Murphy

Third Advisor

Carolyn Hembree

Abstract

Switch is a selection of poetry, composed from 2017 to 2020, that uses figuration from the natural world and quotidian experience to question three paradoxes of moral development: naiveté or culpability, interdependence or autonomy, and replication or authenticity. Contextually, these are coming-of-age poems on power––sex, family, and spirituality. Technically, the poems switch from those using a hybrid of traditional and experimental formal elements to those in conventional free verse. The collection includes sonnets, a pantoum, a villanelle, and several dramatic monologues, to serve as an ode to the twentieth century development of expressionism in the arts.

Rights

The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.

Available for download on Thursday, May 22, 2025

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Poetry Commons

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