Creative Writing Commons^™

Homefront, Stacy Elaine Pratt

Dissertations

This collection of poetry and essays explores the nature of marriage, time, and human experience. Many of the pieces center on the author's experience as the wife of a soldier deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Others use scientific and mathematical imagery to illustrate spiritual concepts.

Circumnavigation, Vincent Reusch

Dissertations

This creative work, a novel, set in the late 1980s, tells the story of twenty-seven-year-old Davison Johnson (Davi), as she sails around the world in a solo race. For Davi, sailing is more than a challenge, however; it is an escape. On her previous year-long sail, she sailed away from the guilt of her non-action as her Cambodian student, Chanthavy, was abducted from a market in Siem Reap, where Davi was working as an English teacher. Now, she is sailing away from the uncomfortable reality of her older brother's slow death to AIDS. Her brother, Peter, does not disappear as …

The Sins Of Kalamazoo, A Full-Length Play Based On The Works Of Carl Sandburg, Christine Iaderosa

Dissertations

The Sins of Kalamazoo , is a creative work, a frill-length play adapted from the poem of the same name and other works by Carl Sandburg. This playfollows a nonlinear storyline based on images suggested by Sandburg's poem as well as portions of the city of Kalamazoo's history.

"The Sins of Kalamazoo", poses the question: "I hear America, I hear, what do I hear? America's national narrative is made up of both the shining promise of the future and of the recognition of the decay as its cultural identity becomes fragmented through time. The theatre provides an exceptional cultural space …

Intimacy, Elizabeth Knapp

Dissertations

In one of his finest poems, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower," William Carlos Williams writes: "It is difficult / to get the news from poems / but men die miserably everyday / for lack / of what is found there." Earlier, his contemporary, W.H. Auden, had made his famous claim that "poetry makes nothing happen." While the views of the two great modernists appear to be at odds with each other, they are in fact two sides of the same argument, the yin and yang at the center of all true art. For what these poets saw as critical to both …

We Become Delicate Boats: Poems And Essays, Deja Anne Earley

Dissertations

My collection of poems and essays, We Become Delicate Boats, takes inspiration from a broad range of sources that shift into each other: paintings, pop culture, literary figures, dreams, relationships, faith, family, history. For example, some poems throw together unexpected bedfellows, like Kafka's Gregor Samsa and Marie Antoinette; others are anecdotal, like one that describes going on a blind date with a man who actually turns out to be blind, some re-imagine stories we already know, like one in the voice of Medusa, talking about which occasions call for her various snake "wigs." Although quite a few pieces are playful, …

Parliament Of Owls, Allison Renee Riddles

Dissertations

In this work of poems, I experiment with different forms (villanelles, sonnets, cinquains, sestinas, prose poems, and free verse) to create an original accompanying space for the existence of my speakers. I also use many of my poems to illustrate moments, feelings, and scenarios of relationships as well as place new perspectives on poems based on the work of other poets. Parliament of Owls provides an array of vistas on relationships, loneliness, and triumph.

We'll Hang Ourselves Tomorrow, Samuel Brendan Ruddick

Dissertations

This is a collection of short stories. They are all first person narratives. Most of them are told by men in their late twenties to mid-thirties. A couple of them are told by boys on the verge of adolescence. I can not tell you what they are about. I can tell you that they are very sad. I can also tell you that they are full of hope and wonder. Hence the title, a line taken from Godot. The reference to suicide might sound grim, but I would argue that if the world were without hope, we would hang ourselves …

About Love, Kerri Ann Quinn

Dissertations

About Love is a novella and a collection of short stories written at the University of Southern Mississippi. It is accompanied by a critical preface.

Marathon, Ohio, Alan Guido Rossi Jr.

Dissertations

Marathon, Ohio is an original collection of fiction, accompanied by a critical introduction. All of the stories were written between 2005 and 2008 at the University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Writers. The stories are arranged for a thematic and formal effect, rather than by chronology.

You Will Come Safe From The Sea, Peter J. Geye

Dissertations

Set against the Minnesota North Shore of Lake Superior, "You Will Come Safe From the Sea" examines the lives of Olaf and Noah Torr, a father and son whose long estrangement began after Olaf survived a shipwreck on Lake Superior. Thirty years after the wreck, Olaf is dying of cancer and has asked his son home to help him die. Over the course of two weeks in November, the protagonists learn each other's lives and summon the courage to forgive. Multiple stories-within-the-story evolve, including the harrowing account of the wreck of the SSRagnarek (Olaf s ore boat), and Noah's own …