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A collection of poems about the folly of human nature and also its triumph. These poems, while chronicling the terrible living that is filled with pleasure, loss and bewilderment, attempt at understanding what is love, the desire to look towards what/who is to come, and the yearning to be outside oneself. The human error is to love.

This collection of poems and paintings seeks to find the places where visual and written communication intersects, and the places where those two media diverge. The collection consists of poems and paintings juxtaposed, as if in conversation with one another throughout the pages. The collection treats each painting and poem as a separate attempt at prayer. As a reader turns the pages, similar questions are asked again and again, but in different settings and with different outcomes. This collection focuses on finding reconciliation between the oral culture of storytelling and the written culture of ideas, all within the context of prayer.

The intent for each poem in this thesis: To write without intent. I, ironically, intended to approach the writing process without considering the outcome of each poem. Some of the poems spiraled out of control, while others spiraled into focus. I do not always know what I’m thinking. It may be unfair to impose clarity on poems when clarity is not always part of experience. Each poem took self-examination to understand in the context of my own life. The proposal for this thesis, entitled, “The Unintended Approach,” did not mention the unintended consequences of writing poems in such a way. Bursts of energy found their way into the writing. Only in reflection, did I realize that these bursts of energy were understandable in the context of personal memory. This experiment in crafting poems, at times, left me confused. There are images I still can’t seem to decipher. I have kept my belief that concise meaning in poetry is not the most important aspect of verse. With rapid urbanization, increased distortion created by fast-paced leaps in technology, and the evolution of celebrity awareness, the world we write in, is not the world we were written into. I have written each poem into their own place on page—allowed them their own discoveries without my approval. People behave in a way that is often erratic. My experience is intrinsic to what I have observed in my life; a schizophrenic cousin, a slurred maternal mouthing, uncles addicted to drugs or hope, for fame. My life has been a series of disjointed events. This thesis is a composite, not a copy. Genetic code is also a composite. Each poem has a life unlike my own. The goal of this collection was to allow these poems their own struggle to understand.

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Lost in Perception is a manuscript of narrative poems that are unflinching honest explorations of the self—emotional states-of-mind such as anxiety and anger, and states-of-being such as feelings of self-worthlessness. Confessional in nature these poems derive from familial relationships, domestic abuse, desire, sex and/or a combination of the aforementioned. To an extent, Lost in Perception is a manuscript of a diarist. It features a number of poems concerning a romantic relationship with an alcoholic that present a cohesive narrative within the collection. The narrator in Lost in Perception views the self as divergent from the self it once was and should be again—the self lacks well-being or wholeness—to become whole again most of the poems turn toward the natural world. The narrator perceives the self as existing in an unnatural state and what exists in nature is harmonious. The narrator wishes to take something from nature and apply to the self such that the self becomes whole again. There are two primary landscapes within Lost in Perception—Florida coastal lands and Southwest Virginia Appalachian foothills and valleys. The natural world is also the space where the narrator enacts an emotional response to work through personal turmoil. The narrator turns toward nature as a place to figure out and/or admit something about the self, rid the self of negativity and to articulate a desire—primarily for change to occur. Lost in Perception is an unabashed and clear presentation of an individual who once felt whole, but who now feels broken or stuck. / Master of Fine Arts

The Bass & The Boogeyman is a manuscript of poems that explores issues of sexuality, gender, and identity. The poems also attempt to reach an understanding of what it means to be a member of a largely marginalized social group (homosexuals). In this explorations and a attempts the poems are also engaged in finding the origins of fear. The poems follow one narrator from childhood into adulthood. While the poems do not provide the type of clear narrative and story arc one would expect from a novel, they do offer a sense of trajectory and reward the reader for reading from cover to cover. This manuscript is very aware of itself as a book and strives to exist as such (rather than as a stack of poems who happen to be in the same place at the same time). The manuscript features several connected poem series that work to provide cohesion to the collection. The poems Boys, Men, and Fags are an example of this connection between poems. Each of these three poems can be read as individual pieces, but when taken together they offer a commentary on all three groups that cannot be gained by reading them separately. The manuscript also employers a cast of repeating characters (the boy & the boogeyman among them) to give the collection the sense of narrative trajectory mention above. Lastly, the manuscript combines numerous traditional poetic forms with a wild and unruly use of pop culture and humor. The end result is proof that funny and serious are not always contradictory terms. / Master of Fine Arts

本論文以「寒山詩及其版本之研究」為題，約十二萬字，共分六章完成。 第一章緒論。敘述本文寫作動機、目的、研究方法，以及主客觀的限制。 第二章寒山子之時代與家世。共分二節。寒山子身世如謎，人言人殊，故第一節乃蒐 集前人的考證，而於第二節參照各家說法，略加辨證，以明寒山子的時代，以及家世 。 第三章寒山詩之版本。此章為全文重點一。按海內外所知見的寒山詩版本，說明其版 本形式，並考述其源流。 第四章寒山子之思想。共分三節。寒山子亦儒亦道亦佛，本章引用寒山詩以證明寒山 子發端於儒，出入於道，而終極於佛禪。 第五章寒山詩之內容與形式。共分二節。此章亦為全文之重點。第一節係寒山詩內容 之研究，依其表現而分為俗情詩、傷感詩、諷刺詩、閒適詩、玄悟詩五大類。第二節 係寒山詩形式之研究，選就語言、聲律、修辭技巧等特色加以賞析。 第六章結論。旨在陳述歷代及近人對寒山詩的評價，以及寒山詩的影響，並印證「實 用理論」為寒山詩的文學觀。