Date of Award

Spring 1987

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

Program/Concentration

English

Committee Director

Peggy Shumaker

Committee Member

Philip Raisor

Call Number for Print

Special Collections; LD4331.E64M87

Abstract

Whether the things we love are truly things or people or places, we love them because they are a part of us. As a writer, I remember special moments, carry special memories, and when writing poems, try to recall and put into words of special meaning these recollections. I try to recreate that time, that place, that person and look for the best words I can find, then put them in their best order to make my poetry. My early years in the country, among country things and people, have given me a real feel for earthy simple things.

Just as influential are books and their authors. As Denise Levertov has said, all of them “are in the poet's mind,” When my writing begins, therefore, the page isn't really blank. There, invisible before me, are those poems and stories remembered from years of reading, the ones that rema.in long after the exact wording has been forgotten. I remember the flavor of Robert Frost's poems of New England, Wendell Berry's poems of country farms, Maxine Kumin's poems about horses.

Poets of other years also help to make up the broad base of this compiled influence. Wordsworth's and Yeats' poems are equally as much a part of this heritage as the contemporary poets mentioned before.

The poems in Over My Shoulder picture a little of this influence, Childhood experiences become vivid, As Robert Frost recalled what it was like to swing on young birches, so in “Chicken Plucking" and “Eggs” of Section I, I have remembered those very special times in my youth. I have tried to speak with clarity and brevity, using the familiar voice of country people, unadorned with rhetorical devices.

Section II contains poems of wider scope, dealing with people known only through second-hand knowledge, easily recognizable and important in their influence, Who could read about John Milton without recognizing his daughters? Or Anne Bradstreet without remembering her amazing outpouring of poetry in the wilderness of America in the 1600’s?

The technical tools used in Over My Shoulder vary. Free verse is generally used--rhyme avoided. I tried to make sounds, rhythms and imagery as vivid as possible. The circular concept is evident in several poems; "Eggs" is one, "Baby, Baby” another.

As a unit, My Shoulder attempts to make one complete statement: that "we love the things we love for what they are"--memories of things past, books read and people remembered, and the tell these things helped me form these poems.

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DOI

10.25777/2ra1-8q92

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