It Was Much More Pleasurable To Be A Cephalopod

Year of Award

2018

Document Type

Thesis - Campus Access Only

Degree Type

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Degree Name

Creative Writing (Poetry)

Department or School/College

English

Committee Chair

Prageeta Sharma

Committee Co-chair

Robert Baker

Commitee Members

Prageeta Sharma, Robert Baker, Bernadette Sweeney, Katie Kane

Keywords

memorial, closet drama, elegy, psychodrama

Subject Categories

Dance | Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies | Performance Studies | Playwriting | Poetry

Abstract

Note that the final version of this work will be published through Plays Inverse in 2021.

This play-in-verse is based off a true story of the death of Noah Michael Dewitt in 2015 when his body was found in the Eugene, OR waste water treatment center. Rooted in the author’s fascination with personal myth, the plot breaks away from narrativity, traditional forms, and causal explanation to seek alternative forms of knowing through the protagonist, Gutterslut, in her journey deeper into the “post-collapse body” of grief. The result is a psycho-drama that interrogates subjectivity, the discourse around murdered and missing persons, responsibility within and outside of romantic love, and the efficacy of language itself. In doing so, the author hopes to queer the underworld, subvert the notion of unity or the cathartic return, and explore other ways of communing with our dead.

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© Copyright 2018 Jordan N. Chesnut