Please note: creative writing theses are permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for these. To request private access, please click on the locked Download file link and fill out the appropriate web form. / Collection of stories / 2031-01-01T00:00:00Z

Please note: creative writing theses are permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for these. To request private access, please click on the lock icon and filled out the appropriate web form. / A collection of poems / 2031-01-01T00:00:00Z

Please note: creative writing theses are permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for these. To request private access, please click on the lock icon and filled out the appropriate web form. / These are the short stories and excerpt of the novel Jaewuk Kim has worked on while in the MFA Program in Creative Writing Fiction at Boston University. / 2031-01-01

<p> <i>The Leaving Symphony: Musicality and Voice in the Poetry of Trauma, Addiction, and Redemption</i> represents two years of my critical and creative writing while attending the California State University, Long Beach M.F.A. in Creative Writing program. Evident in the poems of this manuscript, my major themes include trauma, addiction, and personal redemption, all through the intimate lens of my family and myself. Crucial to my writing is the evolution of those struggles, seen in the organization of the poems in this thesis. The methodological essay at the beginning of this project details my process and influences, followed by a full-length collection of poetry. My poetry is highly musical thanks to the inspiration of both my musician father and several writers, such as Sylvia Plath and Dean Young; my work also possesses a distinctive voice that took me decades to find, especially as a poet. This thesis documents that growth and eventual catharsis in writing. </p><p>

<p> <i>POISON</i> is a collection of loosely interrelated short stories chronicling one family&rsquo;s struggles with drugs, alcohol, poverty, gang affiliation, death, disease, and depravity in Los Angeles, California. Most of the stories are set in the 1990s, and channel the trends of the decade, especially those specific to LA. The chronology of the collection is scattered, the dates and details inconsistent or conflicting. POISON aims to emphasize the imperfect nature of memory, the ways in which recollection at once dictates our lives as well as dismantles it. The collection is accompanied by a fictional family tree and a nonfictional photo album containing real photographs of the semi-fictionalized characters depicted throughout the stories. While the photos may display a sense of contentment, when coupled with the collection&rsquo;s content, the reader may begin to interrogate the ways in which memory severely skews reality.</p><p>

<p> <i>The Daily Special</i> is a collection of seven short stories written during my Master of Fine Arts for Creative Writing career at California State University, Long Beach. The stories are linked thematically through a relation of food to a character&rsquo;s psyche in order to exemplify characterizations or conflicts. The element of food is either mundane or centered; however, all the stories respond with the emotion of fear that later results in an act of acceptance. The fear stems from two outcomes, not fitting in or losing something of value. The characters have to face their fears and accept their current situations in order to move forward.</p><p>

Magister Artium - MA (English) / Visklippie and other Cape Town stories is a collection of short stories, inspired by my experiences having grown up in the 1960s and 1970s in Cape Town. This is a fictional work that, however, uses memory and oral history as the main sources for the stories told. I have conceived my project in the context of South African short stories from the mid-twentieth century, a very significant part of our literary history, since it encapsulates the volatile years of Apartheid. Unlike most of the writing of this period, my stories will try to highlight individual experiences, especially female subjectivity. My fictional engagement is also narrowed down by region since I will focus more on the short stories which emerge out of and represent Cape Town. This collection will aim to reflect the diverse voices of the people who have lived in divided communities in Cape Town. The stories will cover the period from the 1960s to contemporary times. They will be stories told from the perspective of children and women, but a few will be focalised through marginal male characters. The collection will be grounded in local community experience and centre on family relationships where there is triumph over political and personal adversity. The voices that emanate from these stories are seldom represented despite the great diversity in South African literature. These voices will sometimes emanate from the perspective of individuals condemned and ostracised by the same people dispossessed by Apartheid. The stories will aim for individual perspectives, complex interior explorations, ironies and paradoxes that will reveal fleeting connections and triumphs despite adversity.

No description available.

The Blue Highway is a collection of eleven literary short stories and ten miniature that depict men in trouble, searching for a code to live by. The miniatures are repressed memories, appearing suddenly like the tips of ice bergs and act as stepping stones (tension bridges) between the larger works. The stories begin at the end with "Time Out", the story of Frank, a down and out homeless vet at the end of his rope. Then we begin the journey along "The Blue Highway" with Danny and his gang of teenage bandits, taking themselves to Disney World to see if they can recapture their lost dream. On our journey we will meet Mark, the ex-killer, an old Cuban fisherman who will not give up his honor, a young man on a way to a war who discovers a fantastic treasure, a soldier on his way home again, two MP's who nearly kill the wrong man, we will spend a night on an African savannah with wild hyenas and finally, meet a grandfather who discovers the one gift which might save his family. The same gift which might save Frank as well.

IS THIS TRIP NECESSARY? is a collection of narrative poems portraying journeys. Section I focuses on the speaker's grandfather's journey from Lithuania to Ohio and on the speaker's Cleveland childhood. In Section II, an adult speaker, a psychiatrist, portrays the inner journeys of his patients and his own psychological development. Section III is a coming of age account of worldwide travel. Section IV explores the home the speaker finds in Florida, and its connections to the world. Literary sources for this book include Chaucer and Shakespeare's depictions of journeys and a sense of culture, profession, and place. Whitman expressed American dynamism, pride, and break with tradition. Several contemporary poets deal with migration, inner journeys, and/or health including the writer-healers Richard Berlin, Rafael Campo, and Cortney Davis. Poetic forms used in this book include sonnets, a double sonnet crown, sestinas, prose poems, list poems, abecedarians, haikus, and originally structured verse.