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Frankness in Gethsemane
Award Winner
Recipient of the 10th Annual Graduate Student Symposium Award, Creative Performances - Second Place (2017)
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Presentation Type
Creative Performance (Electronic Copy Not Available)
Abstract
Even in the absurdity of their work, or abandonment of the typical convention, in their run-ons, Ginsberg and O’Hara communicate an ethereal holiness.
This poetry collection rhetorically addresses Ginsberg and O’Hara, adopting qualities of their work, while pushing in my own experience and voice. Strangely enough, I am drawn to the questioning inside O’Hara’s work over his stylistic abandonment of punctuation. There’s something honest and cutting in his interwoven questions, rendered imperative by periods, a dialogue that works back and forth between--Frank talking to himself. I take hold of Frank’s absurdist qualities, the strange thing he does with words, cramping in what I might describe as side jokes or an inclusion that puts the poem slightly off its rocker. This fight for form morphs into an invocation, almost a confessional poetry. In the construction of my own poetry, I suddenly find myself using ‘Frank’ repeatedly, calling out to him continuously in an attempt to get a feel for what he does. The fight for form becomes a fight for Frank. I open a strange dialogue between the pair of us.
The ultimate question I address within this body of the work: are we children of circumstance completely, bound to fight against whatever will is opposed? I deconstruct concepts of holiness and scatter religious questions amidst the milieu of a Midwestern childhood.
Start Date
4-4-2017 12:00 PM
End Date
4-4-2017 2:30 PM
Year of Award
2017 Award
Faculty Advisor
Jeremy Schraffenberger
Department
Department of Languages and Literatures
Copyright
©2017 Moriah Henkelman
Embargo Date
4-4-2017
Frankness in Gethsemane
Even in the absurdity of their work, or abandonment of the typical convention, in their run-ons, Ginsberg and O’Hara communicate an ethereal holiness.
This poetry collection rhetorically addresses Ginsberg and O’Hara, adopting qualities of their work, while pushing in my own experience and voice. Strangely enough, I am drawn to the questioning inside O’Hara’s work over his stylistic abandonment of punctuation. There’s something honest and cutting in his interwoven questions, rendered imperative by periods, a dialogue that works back and forth between--Frank talking to himself. I take hold of Frank’s absurdist qualities, the strange thing he does with words, cramping in what I might describe as side jokes or an inclusion that puts the poem slightly off its rocker. This fight for form morphs into an invocation, almost a confessional poetry. In the construction of my own poetry, I suddenly find myself using ‘Frank’ repeatedly, calling out to him continuously in an attempt to get a feel for what he does. The fight for form becomes a fight for Frank. I open a strange dialogue between the pair of us.
The ultimate question I address within this body of the work: are we children of circumstance completely, bound to fight against whatever will is opposed? I deconstruct concepts of holiness and scatter religious questions amidst the milieu of a Midwestern childhood.
Comments
Location: Great Reading Room, Seerley Hall