African American Studies Commons^™

Break Us Beautiful, Elizabeth Upshur

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The problem addressed in this thesis is cultivating an answer to the question: what creates or comprises the sum total of my Blackness as a modern American woman living in our current political climate? I primarily use a read/call and response methodology, responding to both lived and hypothetical experiences that explore or demonstrate the ways that identity, race, gender, sexuality, regionality, religion, and the historical thumbprint intersect. The results are this collection of poems that is at times mythological, at times irreverent, both abstract and formal as it seeks to fit these pieces into a singular mosaic. The conclusion drawn …