Travel/Log
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Graduation Year
2025
Writing Track
Poetry
Degree
Master of Fine Arts
Program
Creative Writing
Program Director
Judy Halebsky, PhD
First Reader
Judy Halebsky, PhD
Description
It almost seems like we might be able to escape our own mortality if we travel enough, if we just keep moving. Who hasn’t experienced a changed sense of time while on the road. We all chase romance when we travel. Our western American landscapes have been romanticized ever since early explorers sent dispatches home. Values and beliefs across a landscape shift and evolve as we evolve as a species. Even so, we must acknowledge that romanticism is part of a cover up of the harm that comes with commercialization, colonization and commoditization. When we travel it requires us to reconcile these realities with our own held prejudices and mythologies. This collection of poetry and found objects/historical documents grapples with the dualities of this experience, fully acknowledging that a tourist’s experience (no matter how thoughtful) will always be somewhat superficial.