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History of Names. [Original writing]
Abstract
History of Names is a poetry manuscript with a critical introduction. The poems are mostly lyric and narrative, some in traditional forms, some in free verse, a few with regular meter and rhyme, most without. This manuscript, taken together with the introduction, shows a portrait of the development of a poet, of an idea, of a poem. This collection is the culmination of about seven years of writing, developing, revising, studying, analyzing my own poems, the poems of my contemporaries, and the works of great poets as models and ideals. The topics are varied because life is, and the forms are varied because approaches to life are, and what is a poem or a collection of poems but a response to life and a reaction to the world. And that's what this collection is: my response to the world I live in. It is History of Names because it is the history of my names--my family names in the literal sense, but in a broader sense the way each poem is somehow a new way of looking at something and renaming it through this new perspective. The essayist Paul Gruchow says, "To name a thing is, in some literal sense, to take possession of it." That is what this collection is all about: taking possession of the world by naming it through these poems, understanding the world through its names and claiming them for my own. ^
Subject Area
Literature, Modern|Literature, American
Recommended Citation
Whitney, Tamora Ann, "History of Names. [Original writing]" (1990). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9108254.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9108254