DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/98SB-A750
Defense Date
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts
Department
English
First Advisor
David Wojahn
Second Advisor
Kathleen Graber
Third Advisor
Geoff Bouvier
Fourth Advisor
Adin Lears
Abstract
The poems in this collection seek to reframe the language we use to describe and characterize addiction and recovery. The poems interweave in two major threads, "Addiction poems" and "Recovery poems," as a way to complicate and contextualize the interplays between the two states, and to recenter the "I," the internal experience, which often proves to be illegible and elusive. Via references to childhood, to Dante's Purgatory, to the myths of Actaeon and Artemis, Echo and Narcissus, the speaker explores modes of indulgence, self-isolation, the unreliability of memory, and the reaches we must make towards hope.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
5-6-2025