The poems in this manuscript are an exploration of the post-divorce grieving process. They seek out a midpoint between grief and growth, the changing definition of family, and balance between self and Other. Each section of the manuscript begins with a poem centered on Lake Jackson, Florida, known locally for its sinkhole. The title of the manuscript as mentioned above describes the act of a lake draining through a sinkhole and, metaphorically, speaks to the draining of the speaker's former self. Because grief is cumulative, these poems establish the roots of their writer's grief: family, loss of childhood (along with its insularities), and divorce (the loss/changing nature of love). These poems are meant to strike a formal balance between confession and discipline, as well as to invite a shared experience through insight and quotidian details. The poems are arranged in a way that reveals the speaker's journey toward self-authorization and her willingness to assign meaning to all comers: calling upon inanimate sinkholes, mating cats, and even the "prick of mosquitos" in the hopes of turning the mirror outward. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. / Summer Semester, 2010. / March 25, 2010. / Marriage, Family, Grief, Divorce, Love, Loss / Includes bibliographical references. / Erin Belieu, Professor Directing Thesis; James Kimbrell, Committee Member; Andrew Epstein, Committee Member.

The poems in this thesis manuscript, The Dirty Lover's Mausoleum, are intended to alternately confuse and enlighten the reader. They span a spectrum of emotions, from sadness to anger, and from depression to hope, never dwelling for too long in just one facet. Even the title is open-ended: Who is the dirty lover? Is it the speaker? Is it the beloved from Part I? Ultimately readers should find answers in the stories of the speaker—everyone is a dirty lover, even the kindest of the speaker's subjects. These poems are studies in relationships, both lost and found, both kept and disintegrating. They examine how loved ones can become family, and how family can become the people you know the least, but fascinate nonetheless. Lastly they are a study of the self and how the self deals with loss, pain, and joy. In "Study in Remembrance," the writer quotes Robert Olen Butler in an epigraph to the poem, and it is this epigraph that holds true for the speaker throughout the manuscript: "I have to remember how the world has changed" ("Jealous Husband Returns in the Form of a Parrot"). The speaker is constantly struggling to remind herself that life goes on, no matter how adamantly she holds on to the present and the past. That life should go on. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. / Summer Semester, 2010. / April 21, 2010. / Daughter, Sea, Cigarette / Includes bibliographical references. / Erin Belieu, Professor Directing Thesis; David Kirby, Committee Member; Andrew Epstein, Committee Member.

The poems in Former Queen of the Amazons comprise the speakers' garbled negotiation of the world around them and the clamoring voices they possess. Written within a matrix of culture, woman-hood, and persona, the poems holler with chaos, they demand to be heard, and at the same time, the speaker invites the reader into this play. In Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto," Haraway claims the idea of the cyborg is "blasphemous," having no origin story. Rather, the cyborg reshapes itself to adapt to any surroundings. Similarly, the collection and its various speakers explore "blasphemy" in order to negotiate the self, through a writer sampling life in acrid, ludicrous, and heartfelt lurches. Consider the aim of popular culture to reflect and distort the lives and faces of its consumers. This collection takes advantage of these appeals—The Grinch, Mr. Potato Head, Calvin and Hobbes, and video game culture hurtle headlong to hyperbolize and glorify the range of human emotion. With the play of maudlin and ecstatic, the speakers stretch their capacities, because they are not the creatures of popular culture—they are warped versions of a writer in a fun-house mirror. The images range from a little strange to wholly surreal, but come from a deeply felt center. It is this center, this heart, which remains constant, while the landscape hurtles and upends. / A Thesis submitted to the English Department in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. / Summer Semester 2010. / March 26, 2010. / poetry, creative writing / Includes bibliographical references. / David Kirby, Professor Directing Thesis; Erin Belieu, Committee Member; Barbara Hamby, Committee Member; James Kimbrell, Committee Member.

A young girl fits herself into a different kind of life to forget her past. A ghostly presence chronicles her years on the land. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. / Spring Semester, 2008. / April 3, 2008. / Fiction, Novel / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert Olen Butler, Professor Directing Thesis; Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Committee Member; Julianna Baggott, Committee Member.

The following is a novel in the form of a gospel, telling the story of religious fanaticism in the early years of the United Sates and the rebellions in West Florida in the year 1805 and 1810. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. / Spring Semester, 2011. / March 30, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references. / Mark Winegardner, Professor Directing Thesis; Robert Olen Butler, Committee Member; David Kirby, Committee Member.

Relief, a novel, tells the story of Eric and Abigail Kees, who fall in love in the months after the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. Over the next decade Eric and Abigail marry, have a child, start a business, buy a second home and eventually discover that some of their earliest anxieties about their relationship are true.Meanwhile, Eric's brother, Boyd, comes in and out of their lives. The first time he enters their lives Eric and Abigail are living in New York. Boyd stays long enough to reveal some of the fissures in their relationship and then leaves a few weeks later, apparently taking with him a lottery ticket worth millions of dollars. Eric and Abigail not only feel like they have been robbed of their winnings but also like they were robbed of the ideal future they had begun to imagine for themselves.Years later Boyd reenters their lives. Now the setting is Relief, a small coastal town on the Florida panhandle. Relief is where Eric and Boyd were happiest as children, and it is where they have returned as adults, hoping to reclaim a measure of that early happiness. But neither of them manage to pull it off, and when Boyd flees this time, Eric and Abigail can no longer lie to themselves about the life they have built together—or the lives they might have built if they had never met. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. / Spring Semester, 2011. / February 25, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references. / Mark Winegardner, Professor Directing Thesis; Julianna Baggott, Committee Member; David Kirby, Committee Member.

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. / Collection of poems / 2031-01-01T00:00:00Z

The Gifts of Odin: The Violaceous Amethyst, follows the Miller family as they battle tarantula fish, learn secrets from trees, and go up against a conniving, double-crossing, espresso-drinking villain.

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