Date of Award

5-2024

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts

Department

English

Program

Creative Writing (MFA)

First Advisor/Chairperson

Matt Frank

Abstract

The following manuscript is a hybrid artifact; a book-length poem-essay and visual artwork. The driving movement propelling the piece forward is that of an imagined (or enacted) epistolary correspondence between myself and my undergraduate mentor, Monica Berlin—who passed away in November of 2022. The manuscript is set up in the form of call and response. Each of the sections beginning with, “Dear Lauren,” quote directly from a letter Berlin wrote to me in 2018 as a response to my undergraduate writing portfolio. Each of the sections beginning, “Dear Monica,” are made up of my response back (re-contextualized through my interaction with the letter now, as opposed to when I first received it). The ensuing conversation that unfolds over these pages is a meditation on grief as well as the closeness, tensions, and distances that exist within our most intimate and meaningful relationships. It is an attempt to speak to (and through) the dead as well as the living.

Access Type

NMU Users Only

Justification for Restricting Access

As this is a draft of a manuscript I hope to further develop and publish, it needs to remain as private as possible for the time being. I've put a lot of work into this manuscript. If it's available online (even just by NMU users who could copy it and then re-post it on the internet) a publisher may not take it. Publishers (especially independent and/or nonprofit ones) simply can't afford to publish material they won't be able to sell. Thank you.

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Available for download on Monday, April 30, 2029

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