On the title: for a dichotomy of vulnerability and resistance; for self as plural and/or changeable; for acts of claiming. To hint at tone, setting, and content. On sound: to shape a poem's mood, and because these pieces should leave your mouth a little tired if you read them out loud. On lineation: to highlight the near-misses in language-ambiguities, double meanings, troublesome literalization-and to see these not as pitfalls but as opportunities. On stanza and strophe breaks: if a stanza is a room, the breaks between must be doorways, and who wants to sit down and rest in a doorway? The aim is to stretch the reader across the distance, leave him/her hanging and anxious to get to the next words. The same strategy, less intensely, informs line breaks as well. On punctuation or its omission: used where pacing, voice, or logic require it, but otherwise considered unnecessary. On orthography: at times because it's redundant (the words should signal beginnings and ends of thoughts regardless of capitalization); at times because capitalizing proper nouns signals an impossible surety of reference (who understands America enough to claim they're describing it completely and accurately?). Additionally, to encourage ideas to collide. On the lowercase i specifically: this isn't about autobiography, but about writing good poems. Perspective changes as the writing dictates; be wary. On voice: bifurcated, bilocated, liminal in identity (say, an ex-carney holding a one-woman picket line) and method (fragmentation; juxtaposition; ellipsis; word play). Passionate and linguistically lush. On why: not to break the rules of discourse, but to break them open, exposing what's inside.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-04132004-154747 |
| Date | 14 April 2004 |
| Creators | Brockmeier, Victoria |
| Contributors | Michelle Zerba, Sharon L. Weltman, David Madden |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04132004-154747/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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