Theses and Dissertations Collection

Weather This Body is a collection of poems in two parts exploring matters of agency. Persona poems speak to the agency of what is placed upon the body, whether willfully or by force, in terms of names, places, and situations, specifically in the series of “Cowboy” poems. If this world and the people in it assembles or disassembles the self, these poems question where is there ground on which to firmly stand. Formal poems seek to emphasize a want for control, never adhering strictly to the formal elements themselves. These poems speak in direct lineage to the Confessional style through language and syntax, infused with recent trends like self-portrait and stereoscopic poems. Drawing on the styles of beloved poets of mine such as Sylvia Plath, Rose McLarney and Kimberly Grey, these poems attempt to get at what, as Grey says, “disassembles you” as reader, as speaker, as me—the poet.