Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-1988

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

English

Major Professor

Arthur Smith

Abstract

The following collection of ray poems spans ny eight years of writing. The first section of the thesis, titled "The Early Poems" is a sampling from the over one-hundred poems which I wrote between the fall of 1980 and the spring of 1985. These few selections from my earlier work show my struggle to find my own voice as a poet. Although these are written in free verse, they contain many of the conventions of traditional, formed verse, namely same internal rhyme and end rhyme as well as a strong emphasis on the rhythm of the lines.

In the second section, I have included various free verse poems along with some formed poems (terza rima, triolet, heroic couplets, and normative and accentual syllabic verse) under the title, "Revelations." In the winter of 1985, I "fathered forth myself as a poet," as I like to term it. In other words, I found my voice which is an extension of some of the tone and world view of my early poems. This voice was born on a cold winter evening in 1985 when, walking through the neighborhood, I had a waking vision which revealed to me what I consider to be the significance of the powerful beauty of this universe. As a result of this epiphany, I have come to believe that one of the chief ends of human beings (especially poets) is to affirm the beauty of this world and to, with all our strength, try to understand and help further that beauty. Ultimately I believe myself to be a voice \diose purpose is to celebrate the wild power of life vMch flows from the most limitless, incomprehensible power, God himself. The title of the thesis is taken from the last poem in this collection, an account of that epiphany which took place in 1985, "A Dream Walk."

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