DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/FHYQ-F992
Defense Date
2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts
Department
English
First Advisor
Gregory Donovan
Second Advisor
David Wojahn
Third Advisor
Shermaine Jones
Abstract
This collection is a synthesis of music as a theoretical framework for understanding life experiences, rejection of mortality’s negative connotations, and realization of the natural world’s expanse. I aim to challenge narrow definitions of music, life, and death, acknowledging the eternal or demonstrating how something has survived despite contrary belief. In my poems, I attempt to use music as a way of establishing a scene in which a speaker is able to realize something about the nature of life/death by experiencing music. The concept of counterpoint informs the poems’ tensions, contrasting subject matter, and sometimes form (through enjambment, caesuras, line length, and stanza breaks, etc.). Thus the title: “Species,” for while this term is associated with biology, it is also a type of musical counterpoint, specifically the layering of multiple melodies that incorporates dissonant tones.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
5-3-2022