Submission Date

4-23-2018

Document Type

Paper- Restricted to Campus Access

Department

English

Adviser

Jon Volkmer

Committee Member

Jon Volkmer

Committee Member

M. Nzadi Keita

Committee Member

Abigail Kluchin

Department Chair

Rebecca Jaroff

Project Description

What began as a number of topics I could’ve written about—Asian-American identity, mental health, genre fiction—plus my inability to decide on one ended up becoming a project about death, the one subject I was considering that didn’t make much sense but seemed inevitable to write about. That idea culminates here as a portfolio of creative works: some poetry, some prose, some in-between the two. The portfolio deals with death in general—how we cope with, write about, and obsess over it—though it does focus on the sub-themes of war, elegy, suicide, and the notion of life after death (or the lack thereof). Developing this project involved pulling disparate sources together in order to gain inspiration. Sources I engaged with include memoir, poetry, medical and sociological literature, the last words of various people, and hybrid genre works, the last of which helped me experiment with form and style in certain pieces. Additionally, the nonfiction elements of the portfolio involved using my own life as a source to write about. The process of researching for and writing this project is discussed in an afterword.

Comments

Submitted to the Faculty of Ursinus College in fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in Creative Writing.

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