This thesis consists of a collection of poems: two thematic-translations that engage source material for their composition and two anaphoric poems. “A Seeson in Heckk,” an epyllion (or mini-epic), engages Arthur Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell," as it echoes his syntax and translates some of his themes into a portrait of a troubled young speaker familiar but strange to Rimbaud's. “Love Poem,” the first anaphoric poem in the collection, explores the arc of a relationship through surreal, bizarre, and lyrical images that chart the experience of falling in and out of a tumultuous love affair. “THE BOOK OF CLAY” is composed in relation to “The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.” These poems form a surreal, pastiche, thematic-translation of the early American's accounts of her experience during the King Philip's War. “Transplant: Final Lines from a Poem Titled, Cardiology” also uses anaphora, while it explores emotional identity, authenticity, and an overused poetic trope: the heart.