Location
Guzman 104, Dominican University of California
Start Date
4-17-2019 4:00 PM
Student Type
Undergraduate
Faculty Mentor(s)
Judy Halebsky, PhD
Presentation Format
Oral Presentation
Abstract/Description
Published poet, Abby Laporte, has created a 22 page poetry collection exploring femininity, radical politics, and spirituality. Her senior thesis creative component serves as a tool of identity exploration, and provides a framework for the reader to address questions of their own social location in relation to the text. Laporte's academic essay provides an examination of the true value, and possible concrete benefits, of self-expression through poetry - particularly in relation to personal or political identity. She takes on a close reading of "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath, and thus demonstrates the meta-experience of her own process as a reader. Laporte takes qualm with the contemporary practice of social media poetry quips by explaining the importance of specific and detailed personal poetry. The academic analytic essay creates an effective introduction to the chapbook length poetic dissection and rebuilding of self that is found within her creative component. The topics investigated (in both the introductory essay and Laporte's creative component) are of broad scope, including ecofeminism, privilege and race, meta-poetry about the writer and the reader, eating disorders and body image, and surviving sexual violence. The author weaves her own strange spiritual outlooks into a powerful tapestry of conceptual experimentation. Ultimately, this scholarly work aims to prove that poetry is valuable to society, and that the action of writing poetry is both politically radical and radically healing.
Sacred Lucidity: Embodied Identity Through the Lens of Poetry
Guzman 104, Dominican University of California
Published poet, Abby Laporte, has created a 22 page poetry collection exploring femininity, radical politics, and spirituality. Her senior thesis creative component serves as a tool of identity exploration, and provides a framework for the reader to address questions of their own social location in relation to the text. Laporte's academic essay provides an examination of the true value, and possible concrete benefits, of self-expression through poetry - particularly in relation to personal or political identity. She takes on a close reading of "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath, and thus demonstrates the meta-experience of her own process as a reader. Laporte takes qualm with the contemporary practice of social media poetry quips by explaining the importance of specific and detailed personal poetry. The academic analytic essay creates an effective introduction to the chapbook length poetic dissection and rebuilding of self that is found within her creative component. The topics investigated (in both the introductory essay and Laporte's creative component) are of broad scope, including ecofeminism, privilege and race, meta-poetry about the writer and the reader, eating disorders and body image, and surviving sexual violence. The author weaves her own strange spiritual outlooks into a powerful tapestry of conceptual experimentation. Ultimately, this scholarly work aims to prove that poetry is valuable to society, and that the action of writing poetry is both politically radical and radically healing.