For me, there has always been a wolf at the edge of the woods, watching and waiting. My sister often cried wolf, trying to shape reality into words that fit her emotional desperation. The rest of my family simply agreed not to speak of the wolf. It is not that we believe it will go away if we don't address it; speaking of the wolf simply seemed somehow weak, definitely futile, and painfully self-indulgent. The wolf is sometimes hunger, sometimes depression, sometimes alcoholism, sometimes loneliness or fear or anger or the past or the present or the future, or anything at all that reduces us to less than the fragile concept of ourselves that we had each glued together, so alone and so patiently, each time it was smashed. But there is always a wolf, always watching. My family tried to starve the wolf by denying it language, but that only served to make it more cunning and more fierce. Poetry has helped me to gaze back at the wolf and see myself and the world in her. The wolf at the edge of the woods is what Lorca called duende, the shadow of death that reminds me that I am alive. The wolf is our escort into the woods. It is silence but it is also language itself. The wolf watches, not just me or my family, but everyone. It protects and nurtures us, but stalks us too. Words can devour us. It is through this devouring, this annihilation, that we can be reborn. We carry words around inside our heads and mouths like we own them; we have them at our fingertips like they are dogs on leashes. But it is words that make us kneel and beg. And they can blow our houses down. / A Thesis Submitted to the Department of English in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. / Summer Semester, 2003. / May 16, 2003. / Poetry / Includes bibliographical references. / David Kirby, Professor Directing Thesis; Barbara Hamby, Committee Member; Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Committee Member; Hunt Hawkins, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_176381 |
| Contributors | Reese, Rita Mae (authoraut), Kirby, David (professor directing thesis), Hamby, Barbara (committee member), Stuckey-French, Elizabeth (committee member), Hawkins, Hunt (committee member), Department of English (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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