Poetry Commons^™

The Filament, Elena Skibicki

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Filament weaves together the results of a neurodivergent person exploring their universe, in all its harrowing beauty and familiar tragedy. The speaker traverses oceans and thunderstorms, wades through the swampy shallows of their high school, participates in a pharmaceutical supply chain and its subsequent ransacking, floats through altered mental states, and retells legends, spanning many styles while still using the lyric “I”. Scrying into a nebulous future, the speaker returns with stories of the planet and its people, and the kind of world they want to build.

The speaker exposes their ghosts throughout the collection, hoping that the adage, …

Workable Seams, Jackson Mills Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In Jackson Mills Smith’s Workable Seams, readers encounter the stories, landscapes, and lives of rural Knox County, Indiana, from the oscillating vantage of a Hoosier boy raised with a Cajun sensibility. After relocating from Louisiana to the river bottoms of the crossroad state at a young age, the speaker gradually uncovers a local history only previously understood in fragmentary shards and fading glimpses.

Alternating between semi-lyrical embodied experiences and memories, documentary pieces in conversation with the state’s historical archive, and the retelling of exaggerated local yarns, poetry is a means of inquiry in Workable Seams. Topics range from …

Cullet, Celia Alice Easton Koehler

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

“Cullet” is an industry term for the refuse and smashed-up glass added to new material in the process of making new glass. It is related to the word “cull” from the old french “to collect” or gather. This collection of poems picks up the term as a framework for investigating the piece-meal of daily life, tracing relations between the individual and collective, and also tracing vantage and scale; shifts of where and how the speaker directs their gaze. The poems are invested in assembling an ethos of the domestic that recasts “the domestic” to include more public sites of daily …

Words And Stardom: Modernist Poetic Responses To Asta Nielsen, Karl E. Toepfer

Open Educational Resources

This essay discusses how four modernist poets portrayed the Danish movie star Asta Nilesen (1881-1972). German Hans Schiebelhuth (1895-1944) describes the "demonic" power of Nielsen's image to awaken dark aspects of his adolscent personality. For the Flemish poet Paul van Ostaijen (1896-1928), Nielsen's cinematic image provokes a radical shattering of language into extravagant "word-images." Danish writer Rudolf Broby-Johansen (1900-1987) linked Nielsen's image to a radical (Marxist) critique of oppressive sexual politics within a capitalist society. German Franz Behrens (1895-1977) composed a lengthy, expressionist ode to Nielsen from the perspective of one who actually worked as a screenwriter in the German …

From The Heart: Writing Love Poetry With Ai, Dan Ryan

Open Educational Resources

The chief reason our writing students turn to AI is not "laziness.” It’s fear. This lesson plan helps college students overcome their fear of a first-time poetry assignment by empowering them to partner with “collaborators”—first AI, then each other—to co-write a love poem before finally writing a poem on their own. This 4-hour lesson plan for a college-level Introductory Creative Writing course includes three low stakes drafting and revision assignments, and culminates in a high stakes poetry assignment.

From Poetry To Policy: How H-Stem Has Guided My Research Path, Kayla D. Taylor

Student Works

Embry-Riddle PhD student Kayla Taylor was invited to share how Humanistic STEM has shaped her educational journey at the third annual Humanistic STEM symposium.

Glitching Mayakovsky: Teaching The Accidental Poetry Of Machine Learning, Carlotta Chenoweth

Russian Language Journal

In this article, I seek to build on recent scholarship investigating the aesthetic status of AI-generated objects and the creative potential of machine learning by asking how AI glitches can be productive, both poetically and pedagogically. The report outlines an activity I designed for an undergraduate Soviet literature survey course. For this activity, I ask students to work in small groups and generate their own pseudo-Mayakovsky poem using ChatGPT. After sharing the poems, we discuss questions including the following: in what way can Mayakovsky be considered the “author” of these poems? Does this constitute a new literary genre or form? …

Normal, Perfectly Normal And Monotropic Academic, Jan A. Wozniak

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

No abstract provided.

A Symphony Of Distractions, Alisha M. White

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

No abstract provided.

The Enduring Enigma Of Tom Bombadil: From Riddlic Styling To Metaphorical Encounter, Derek Simon

Journal of Tolkien Research

Conversationalists and critics alike continue to take delight in Tom Bombadil, yet remain perplexed by his enduring enigma. Interpretive positioning appears to be determined by the semantics of the term enigma deployed and how it intersects with any of the several textual standpoints adopted. The primary contention of this article is that the enigma is intentionally both a riddle (noun) and a riddling (verb). Reading the enigma through literary features of the Old English riddle-song can yield an alternate interpretation of Tom Bombadil that has received scant attention in critical commentary. In support of this contention, I propose to read …

Sonnet For Troubled Earth, Elizabeth Davis

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Elizabeth Davis is a first-year student from Indianapolis, Indiana. Elizabeth is undecided on a major but is interested in the ways words and images can communicate complex and personal themes.

Catch And Release, Elizabeth Davis

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Elizabeth Davis is a senior English writing major from Indianapolis, Indiana. Her work explores themes of vulnerability, intimacy, and connection, often with a focus on the natural world.

Bs (A Condition), Trista Keeton

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Trista Keeton has always been a writer, ever since she held a pen she’s been writing little stories. The popular kids on the bus would pay her to write a survival plot line that included slight nudity. Now she’s writing at DePauw with no nudity :/ not as fun.

Every Minute As I Live It Feels Like An Hour, Ellie Davis

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Ellie Davis is a sophomore from Fishers, Indiana, majoring in English writing. She enjoys writing fiction, poetry, and screenplays that focus on identity and self-discovery.

Sonnet For Two Birds, Elizabeth Davis

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Elizabeth Davis is a first-year student from Indianapolis, Indiana. Elizabeth is undecided on a major but is interested in the ways words and images can communicate complex and personal themes.

The Weight Of Speed, Cole Pedro

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Cole Pedro is a senior from Griffith, Indiana, majoring in English literature with a minor in creative writing. They use poetry and fiction as outlets for their lifelong love of storytelling.

Women In Parts, Cole Pedro

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Cole Pedro is a senior from Griffith, Indiana, majoring in English literature with a minor in creative writing. They use poetry and fiction as outlets for their lifelong love of storytelling.

Modern Obsequies, Elizabeth Davis

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Elizabeth Davis is a senior biochemistry major and Honor Scholar at DePauw university. Her hometown is North Liberty, Iowa, where her beloved cats Tracy and Vin live. She enjoys Brandon Sanderson novels, playing the guitar, and Dungeons and Dragons, but her greatest passion is theatre.

Kansas, Tatum Coi

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Tatum Coi is a junior majoring in English writing and film & media arts. She is an aspiring poet, novelist, screenwriter, and film director. She has written a poetry book that she has yet to publish, and is currently writing her first novel. She would like to thank Chris White.

Ode To Passed Poetry, Justus Morgan

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Justus Morgan (class of 2026) is a musician and writer from Bloomington, IN, and is pursuing an independent major in song. Between class, homework, and the practice rooms, you may find him questing after unfamiliar sounds, admiring campus squirrels, or imagining that he can play the banjo.

How Beautiful Are We, Abigail Fathauer

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Abigail Fathauer is a junior English literature major, with minors in world literature and art history. She also works as Editor-in-Chief of the DePauw and president of the English Department Student Association (EDSA). In her free time, Abigail enjoys reading, hammocking with friends, and working at the Humane Society.

A Spectrum Of Light: Speculative Poetry Of Celestial Bodies And Astrophysics, Shannon Sosebee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a collection of speculative poetry with a focus on celestial objects within our solar system and larger bodies outside of our solar system, some of which are only theorized to exist. The author finishes the collection with introspective works, laying bare vulnerabilities and insecurities.

Teaching Ettingerian Matrixial Theory, R. Michael Fisher

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Utilizing an adapted scoping review of the literature on Bracha L. Ettinger and Education (2008-2024), the author reveals the specific ways that Ettingerian Matrixial Theory (EMT) and its pedagogies are taught and can be taught in the future. EMT is argued to be a new branch of Critical Theory. The current literature shows there is mostly engagement with EMT in academic settings. As well, the literature reviewed shows EMT is used readily in arts and with artists as teachers and teachings for adults. However, the author unveils diverse other possibilities of teaching EMT. A few major themes from the literature …

Gestating And Co-Becoming With Ettingerian Maxtrixial Pedagogy, Barbara Bickel

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This article seeks to infuse and enrich the spheres of Arts and Education through a nascent introduction of Ettingerian Matrixial Pedagogy. To articulate this, I weave together the practices of Gestare Art Collective, which we describe as “matrixial infused education,” the “placental thinking” of Nané Jordan with my own thinking, art making and teaching. This article unfolds through interlacing theory and reflections on teachings found within art practices of Ma Poses, Womb Walking, Nap-Ins, and Spontaneous Creation-Making, along with examples of pedagogical artworkings: Metramorphosis and Muted Colours of Grief. The article closes with a poetic métissage inquiry that became—a Matrixial …

A Matrixial Museum: Education In Almost-Impossible Spaces, Valerie Oved Giovanini

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This paper is meant to scaffold an imaginary space for what is currently an almost impossible museum. It would reside on a border between Gaza and Israel. Artists and participants would be able to enter from both sides of the border into a circular and cavernous space to make, share and experience art together. In artwork that values its relational capacity to affect another, the move from aesthetics to ethics recalls our mutual place of origin understood in Bracha L. Ettinger’s Matrixial Theory (EMT) as “the matrixial womb.” Griselda Pollock’s Virtual Feminist Museum, Gur-Ze’ev’s counter-education, feminist pedagogy, and Art-care activism …

She-Hero: A Memoir Of The Divine Feminine Within A Creation-Centred Paradigm, Darlene St.Georges

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

She-Hero: A Memoir of the Divine Feminine within a Creation-Centred Paradigm explores Ettinger’s matrixial borderspaces through an inter-woven theoretical | artistic | poetic métissage. An example of creation-centred research, this memoir is likened to Ettinger’s concept of metramorphosis—an active restoration of matrixial knowledge(s) and knowing. Embodying a creation-centred curriculum and pedagogy, She-Hero privileges non-dominant epistemologies to attend to the disruption of historical patterns of the hero—inviting readers to submerge and emerge in co-poesis within an intimate and aesthetic kaleidoscopic space of feminine affect and agency.

Traces Of Communal Touch: Matrixial Encounters With Pre-Service Art Educators Across Two States, Kate L. Wurtzel, Laura L. Mccartney

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

The matrixial sphere, as put forth by artist and psychoanalyst Bracha L. Ettinger, is a shared and transsubjective space that is beneath the conscious, under the touchable and perceptible; it is a space where we encounter ourselves and one another in shared trauma, healing, art making, and the lived experience overall. This co-authored essay explores how a shared matrixial space and the matrixial gaze, which is not always visual, have been experienced through the square boxes of ZOOM as part of a collaborative, long-distance art exchange project. The project, focused on Spontaneous Creation-Making (SCM) sessions, as outlined in Barbara Bickel …

Full Issue_ Artizein_2024, R. Michael Fisher, Barbara Bickel

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This special issue, Ettingerian Matrixial Theory, Education and the Arts attunes with and brings together the cross-currents of creative and scholarly works that are emerging internationally between Ettingerian Matrixial Theory (EMT), Education and the Arts.

Some Rhythm, Some Blues, Kapri Washington

Master's Projects

Although it might sound cliche, Dr. King was my childhood hero. Every year, my mom would rent Selma Lord, Selma for me from the library and I’d watch it in awe as if I’d never seen it before. Not only was I inspired by how Dr. King and several others led the Civil Rights Movement but, more so, by how he used words to pierce even the hardest of hearts. I’d entertain myself with thoughts such as, “I wonder if I could do that, change the world with words one day.” So, I began writing poetry.

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This project consists …

The Stark Surrealism In Spectra’S Soulfulness, Zach Blair

English: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Arthur Davison Ficke and Witter Bynner were American poetry's first Surrealists, preceding Breton and his founding of Surrealism, with the publication of its first manifesto, in France in 1924. Though the creative merits of 1916's "Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments" are many, most scholars and critics regard it as a hoax intended to mock Imagism and the like. But Ficke and Bynner, using the pseudonyms Anne Knish and Emanuel Morgan, respectively, blazed trails no poets had priorly dared to venture down.