Date of Award
11-16-2006
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Teaching & Learning
First Advisor
Michael Beard
Abstract
Static From Under the Snow, a creative dissertation, is a collection of poems that discusses perceptions of culture and identity. The manuscript employs a framing poem to open this inquiry into how culture produces an identity that isn't always what it appears to be. The narrator invites an unnamed Asian woman (who, as an immigrant, has expressed a desire to be a part of the dominant white, patriarchal culture) to accompany him as he shows her how he became the man he is, and the resultant disappointment and anger. He invites her to listen to the many voices (poems) that work against the positive images regarding education, religion, love/sex, and identity (and even the weather) that someone from outside the culture might see and believe. The narrator himself was educated, on the upper Great Plains of Minnesota and the Dakotas, with these positive images. The narrator and the Asian woman embark on a journey wherein she listens to the often angry static produced by these voices, and at the end the narrator asks her who, now that she has experienced what he experienced, she thinks she might be, just as he wonders who he is. The manuscript calls into question the idea of a stable, confident dominant culture. Static employs a conscious prosody; more than half of the poems appear in traditional metrical forms, and the manuscript as a whole engages with poetic craft. Instances of visual and aural poetics are employed to reinforce both the rigid order of the culture and the confusion that such order can produce.
Recommended Citation
Early, John, "Static From Under The Snow" (2006). Theses and Dissertations. 7960.
https://commons.und.edu/theses/7960