This paper examines the speech-based musical realization of "The Surface" and its attempt to assimilate the poem at the structural, sonic, and expressive level. The software and analysis/re-synthesis techniques used to create timbres heard in the composition are discussed in detail. In addition to technical and structural issues, the common elements of the two art forms are considered within the context of the digital domain.

The dissertation includes a critical essay on Jorie Graham's "The Guardian Angel of the Little Utopia and a full-length collection of poetry entitled Moonlight in Quota. The essay is a critical examination which argues that Graham's poems question Western anthropocentric thought through her constant arrangement of particular images (flowers, yellow sky, leaves) and her subsequent questioning of such intellectual and linguistic arrangements. Graham grapples with ideas of perception, questions the historical concepts of truth and knowledge, and engages in linguistic play both musically and imagistically. Each section is tied together by some overriding theme or persistent image: 1.) forgetting, Mexican-American border scenes 2.) poverty and faith shown through images of marginalized characters 3.) Artistic creation as a means for the survival for the "other."