Abandoning: Engaging With Form Through Unconventional Imitation

Abandoning is a chapbook-length poetry collection I have created as my senior honors capstone project. It is inspired and informed the ghazal, a Persian poetic form. This collection focuses of the meaning created through the juxtaposition of seemingly disparate things, like the couplets that make up a ghazal. I have included revised versions of older works as well as new works which were written for this project. One of the most important facets of this collection is the move it makes away from the speaker, and the subsequent return after engaging in deep looking at the world. There is also a profound engagement in this work with the voices of other poets, using both found poetry and close imitation to access a new understanding of poetic works I admire. The process of constructing this collection furthered my understanding of my own poetic habits and the mechanics of successful poetry more broadly; it was a worthwhile endeavor and an excellent end to my experience in the Honors College. Presentation: https://youtu.be/1_ZXmMm9eqI