A collection of poems.

“Lake Echo” is a collection of poems in three parts. It centers around a fictionalized rural landscape, and the nuanced family dynamics and social systems that accompany rural spaces. The poems focus on memory and trauma, and how trauma can be performed by the body – theatre and staging are central metaphors in the collection, as the narrator considers her own modes of performance, and the disembodiment caused by trauma and unhealthy learned behaviors. The poems are bound by a repeating title, “Lake Echo,” in which the narrator reflects again and again on both physical and emotional landscapes. In the Afterword, I discuss poetic and theatrical influences for the collection, as well as ways of knowing that come from animal interaction and engagement; animals populate the collection, and are a primary source of inspiration for the text. I also discuss Vievee Francis’s “antipastoral” poems, and the idea of remaking or redefining rural poetics.

a collection of poetry.

A collection of poems engaging themes of: the concept of choice in queerness; heteronormative familial socialization; the metaphorical and literal loss of motherhood from a transmasculine subjectivity; how people socialized into cis-normative feminity learn methods of self-protection that are dependent upon womens’ collectivity; and how media representations shape a child’s perspective of identity-building options. In queerness, our lack of choice operates as a source of empowerment—or, rather, a shield against doubts. To insist on having no choice is to ask the hegemon for a form of parental protection. Innocent. I was born this way. You birthed me this way. The least you can do is love the monster you made. These poems reject this parental protection. Born this way. Transexuals are expected to perform a linear narrative in order to substantiate their claim. I knew I was a boy from a young age. I want to have heterosexual sex with women. Now, I am a man. However, this demand for a linear narrative has scarcely gone uncontested. Lou Sullivan, cited in the epigraph, famously rebelled against his rejection from the Stanford Gender Dysphoria Program, a rejection rooted in the belief that transsexuals cannot also be homosexuals. “I love being a girl,” he writes in his childhood diaries. “So delicate.” These poems ask: If a transmasculine person can be a homosexual, then can a transmasculine person love being a girl?

Light Suite is a collection of the work I produced during my enrollment in the University of New Orleans Low Residency M.F.A. program. The writing, format and length styles reflect my experimentation with my craft. It also provides insight as to what my "poetic voice" is. Light Suite attempts to entwine personal experience with engaged observation and occasional flights of fantasy. The following poems illustrate my attempt at diversifying personal, poetic style. There are travel, prose, and accidental meaning poems. There are poems that feature personal narrative and collaboration. All of my works do share one characteristic and that is the close relationship with visual representation of an oral experience. I employ white space, line breaks, line length, assonance and consonance to create works that are as close to my speaking voice as possible.

"Fame" is a series of poems in four parts: A., B., C., and &. The first section explores both the concept of autobiography and adoption. The second section concerns itself with biographical poetry as it explores Boar Girl. The third section aims to rethink the confessional poem, and the final section is a playful engagement with music and literature.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-87).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2008. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-145). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Nebraska, 1920. / Without thesis note. Includes bibliographical references.

Perfect Teeth is a collection of poems.