Creative Writing Commons^™

Naturally: Memory In Verse, Heather L. Drouse

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis is a collection of free verse poetry that I have written that share a common theme of nature and family. This is a creative work that explores my personal memories and the feelings associated with them with the intention to spread joy and cause readers to reflect upon similar experiences they might have had as children. It consists of four major sections -- mother, father, love, and bridges -- and 18 poems, with "love" having 7 minor sections.

Guidebook On Making A House A Home, Alana Stallings

Scripps Senior Theses

This is a collection of poems by Alana Stallings that translates emotional trauma into fictional landscape and character. Both of these operate within the energetic structure of a home, at once pushing against and obeying this enforced confinement. Within that tension, Stallings explores questions of family, selfhood, belonging, displacement, and cycles.

Asked For Another Mountain, Nichole Lynn Moore

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Proclivities Of The Common Southern Wasp, Paul Bryant

Creative Nonfiction MFA Theses

A hybrid collection of poems and creative nonfiction essays exploring the author's relationship with his father and the American South.

Kaboom, Karstin Margaret Johnson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This document is a collection of original poems written between Fall 2018 and Spring 2022.

Sexual Whatever, Madeline Rose Tecmire

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A rerouting of gendered power, Sexual Whatever unleashes femininity repressed in America’s nuclear families. This collection of narrative poetry puts pressure on patriarchal traditions of Christianity through persona, Madonna—a radical culmination of the Madonna-Whore Complex—resisting systemic domination of female sexuality in both public and private spaces. While Madonna dismantles the patriarchy, she investigates the mechanisms of domestic violence, emotional manipulation, the very value of a proper Christian woman.

This book dares to demean female characters through love, sex, and family, while still giving voice to abusers, creating webs of confusion around the many definitions of domestic violence. More characters question …

Poinsettia Family: On The Poetics Of Forgiveness And Apology, Joshua M. Martelon

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

No abstract provided.

Infants Are A Collection Of Cells, Helena M. Blanco

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The poems in this collection represent three main themes within the work. The first theme relates to family and memory; how it changes over time and generation. The second theme focuses on music as influence outside of instruments; how poetic voice is a type of music in its cadence and rhythm. The third theme includes pop-culture’s lasting effect on current society and its nostalgic feel on the millennial population. Each theme embodies the poems messages of universal meanings along with abstract topics including certain groups such as geek culture and heavy metal fans.

Keywords:poems, pop-culture, music, family

Secondson, Jonathan Blake Heaton

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This author’s introduction is an analysis of graphic literature and poetry, and the combining of the two to create graphic poetry. Themes are explored of what it means to be a second son in a world permeated by traditional values, regarding the prominence of the first son.

This thesis was split into five sections: Finding My Story—in which the author explains how he came to the main narrative content behind Secondson; Finding My Themes—in which the author discusses the four themes that are included in Secondson and the inspiration received from outside works of poetry; Finding My Genre—in which the …

If We Are Honest, Lisa L. Anthony

MSU Graduate Theses

If We Are Honest is a collection of narrative poetry in which I explore the conflicts, struggles, growth, and transitions involved in many facets of life. Some poems deal with the relationship between a parent and a child. Others deal with the difficulties of marriage and divorce. Family history and experiences are the basis of many poems as well, specifically a series based on the life of my grandmother. Ultimately, most of the poems in this collection examine what it is to struggle but to persevere, to continue growing and changing, and to never quit the work that lies ahead.

Touch The Soil, Kirstin Fierro

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Stella And Valerio, Silvia Iorio

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

The Introvert's Guide To The Galaxy: A Reflective Guide Of Solo Travel And Study Abroad, Hope Patterson

Senior Theses

Oringinally meant to be a much longer volume, The Introvert’s Guide to the Galaxy is a creative anthology of works that explores one person’s Study Abroad and solo travel experiences. The main goal is to open a space to talk about unique experiences that cannot be anticipated, but should be learned from later. Topics include culture shock, sexism, alcohol culture, family, freelance tutoring, and risky outdoor activites.

Travel with our trusty guide as she fills you in on the things to know while traveling abroad, including finding perfect outdoor sleeping conditions because you missed all the taxis, dealing with the …

Things We Have In Common: Essays And Experiments, Willow Grosz

All NMU Master's Theses

Things We Have in Common is a collection of short stories, flash pieces, and image-text experiments that attempts, in the wake of the death of my mother, to excavate the relationship between memory and narrative, identity and belonging against a backdrop of the main forces that have influenced my familial group, namely generational poverty, a changing relationship with our Athabascan and Caucasian heritages, and the complicated ecology, geography, and culture of Alaska. Like many forays into memory, this project represents a joyous failure. Please read this collection as a love letter to Alaska.

Tangled, Shannon Marie Ashley

MSU Graduate Theses

This thesis is a collection of poems. Much of my poetry is influenced by ideas of identity, particularly religious and sexual identity, and the ways identity affects relationships. As someone raised in a Catholic church from birth, religion has had a major impact on my life and perspective. I am no longer practicing but still consistently find myself considering the morals of the Church in my actions in a positive way. Catholicism will also always affect my relationship with my mother, who is still practicing. Much of my current poetry concerns my relationship with my mother, especially regarding religion and …

Gongshi Meditation On The American Prairie, Brandon A. Henry

MSU Graduate Theses

The following collection deals largely with autobiographical work. Created primarily between 2007-2018, the following poems reflect the life experiences and reflections of a poet throughout his thirties. Largely tied to regionalism of the Ozarks, many poems in this collection highlight specific locales throughout southwest Missouri and/or northern Arkansas, and explore, thematically, feelings of loneliness, isolation, the struggle of faith, and the impact of displacement, both physical and metaphysical. Further, many of the poems feature a through-line, thematically, involving the bonds of family and the impact of death on relationships and the human psyche. Lastly, an appreciation for, and connection with, …

Bramble And Knife, Sara Ryan

All NMU Master's Theses

This thesis is a collection of poems that center on the themes of extinction, family, the female body, and the presence of the animal. During my time in the Upper Peninsula, I found a connection with the natural world around me, and this led to my fascination with animals and extinction, both of which manifested in my poetry. As I struggled with the residual effects of toxic relationships, as well as the bleak romantic landscape of the UP, I saw my own body reflected in the bodies of animals. I specifically noticed this reflection while studying the art of taxidermy; …

Maybe She Found Me In A Poem, Robin Gow

English Honors Papers

Maybe She Found Me in a Poem explores my own family relationship and family stories through a variety of poetic forms, persona poetry, and prose pieces centered on an imagined relationship with my grandmother who died before I was born. The collection asks, “How much are our family stories our own?” and “Can we create memory?” Themes of haunting, ghosts, queerness, shared memory, death, and burial are carried throughout the collection and brought forward in their respective sections. Images are placed throughout as part of the collection to amplify the “haunting” power of the text.

New Year, Old Blues, Joy Bowman

Theses and Dissertations--English

This collection aims through the use of folktale and familial history to investigate the bounds of gender and memory against a rural Appalachian landscape. The work utilizes superstition, myth, and the commonplace to search the shadows for the forbidden and unspoken, in an attempt to redefine and reconcile personal dissonance through an observational and at times, voyeuristic lens.

Trickling, Marissa Medley

Honors Projects

A collection of poetry and other writings that explore family relationships with a focus on mental illness.

Explaining Poetry To The Open Heart, Matthew Wayne Larrimore

English Theses & Dissertations

“Explaining Poetry to the Open Heart” is a creative writing thesis of poetry. It makes use of lyric and narrative poems that utilize sound, imagery, and other creative devices in order to communicate the narrator’s relationships with place, others, and self to the reader. A shifting point of view alternately restricts and expands the reader’s perspective in order to direct attention toward the reader’s own perceptions of the narrator, the world, and ultimately herself.

Slow Emergencies, Jordyn N. Rhorer

Theses and Dissertations--English

Like the ever-circling lines in the skin of trees, sometimes the whole of a person is peeled back, layer by layer, until only seeds remain. Names, faces, stories, and relationships are unmade and molded into new shapes. Without warning, those left at the base, at the roots, can’t recognize this maple’s form. They hold a pile of leaves, a bottle of glue, and the hope that something familiar will take sprout again. The tree becomes new, and its tangled branches reach out. These poems explore the lives of those living with and caring for those with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. …

Her Name Is Quintana Roo: Essays, Poetry, Memoir, Linda Q. Lambert Mfa

All Student Scholarship

Her name is Quintana Roo is a collection of essays, poetry, and memoir through the lens of the author's experience as a child, mother, wife, journalist, and librarian. The dominant thread is the establishment of a septuagenarian's enchantment with words and writing.