Dictation From Chrysanthemums

Enclosed in this thesis is a collection of poems entitled Dictation From Chrysanthemums. Although the poems vary in scope and subject material. they convey unity: the unity that arises from the unknown, the unexplored, the undiscovered. To call the poems wholly "new" would be incorrect-after all they draw strongly on tradition as well as on the work of contemporary writers: Rimbaud, Yeats. John Ashbery. Philip Levine, Louise Gluck. To name all the influences would be impossible. but these are starting points. In addition. critical theory undergirds the project: everything from culture studies to theories of “hybridity" and "marginality." The end result is a hodgepodge of language and thought; aesthetic bliss and existential angst.