Year of Award
2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Degree Name
Creative Writing (Poetry)
Department or School/College
Department of English
Committee Chair
Brian Blanchfield
Commitee Members
Sean Hill, James Bailey
Keywords
poetry, museum, display, exhibit, curation, mortality, masculinity, ethics, exhibition, animals, creatures, habits, Chicago, Yellowstone, nature
Abstract
Field/Museum: Poems + Studies is a collection interested in curation—collecting, containing, protecting, preserving, and displaying. Each set of poems becomes its own exhibition, employing experimental form and detail studies to preserve the work. Mortality, masculinity, ethics of the museum space, the concept of wildness, science, and family dynamics are scrutinized and studied throughout.
Readers learn that the author’s uncle worked at the Field Museum of Chicago throughout her childhood; so began her intimate relationship with the museum space—a deep fascination with the task of exhibiting. Later in the collection, readers are guided into the field—into a series of place poems that actively magnify the natural world and the speaker’s place within it. Entering and exiting both worlds, field and museum, of the collection, opens a liminal space to reflect upon what is on-display, what is under examination.
Recommended Citation
Bober, Em, "Field/Museum: Poems + Studies" (2024). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 12321.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/12321
© Copyright 2024 Em Bober