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Date Permissions Signed

5-17-2022

Date of Award

Spring 2022

Document Type

Masters Thesis (Campus-Only Access)

Department or Program Affiliation

English-Creative Writing (MFA)

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

English

First Advisor

Wong, Jane

Second Advisor

Trueblood, Kathryn R., 1960-

Third Advisor

VanderStaay, Steven

Abstract

Tending to is a collection that explores the ways that grief often shapeshifts. It utilizes fragmentation, distorted images, memory, and a myriad of forms to investigate what it means to toe the line between the living and the dead—to oscillate between love and loss in spaces that are often blurred, abandoned, neglected, or forgotten. It asks readers to not just live in these uncomfortable spaces, but to bloom from them as they go from page to page: to ask themselves what they tend to, whether that be the living, the dead, or something else entirely. And, just as the gaps often found in the poems and the pages, this collection gives readers space—it invites them, at the very end, to take in some air.

Type

Text

Keywords

tending to, tending, grief, shapeshift, love, poetry, poems, formal poetry, tenderness, ghosts

Publisher

Western Washington University

OCLC Number

1322278257

Subject – LCSH

Poetry--Social aspects; Emotions in literature; Death in literature

Format

application/pdf

Genre/Form

masters theses

Language

English

Rights

Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.

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