Theses and Dissertations Collection

These poems deal, partly, with frustration in the face of poverty. The people in these poems are not poor. Some might say they are broke, or breaking, but not penniless. Or they make a living but owe more than they make. In this way, they are owned. While poverty in American consciousness most readily and problematically connotes money, it deals with far more important things: poverty of spirit, of opportunity, of a home and identity, of power in the face of an abundance of will. The people in these poems have an abundance of will. I love them for that. Frustration due to poverty causes violence or a resignation to act violently, to destroy a body either to feel something or to say, "I have agency." The body destroyed, well, it can be anything: muscle and bone, a field, a neighbor, a levee, a town, a country . . .