Ooliths

Authors

Estelle Mazor, Florida International UniversityFollow

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Major/Program

Creative Writing

First Advisor's Name

Denise Duhamel

First Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Chair

Second Advisor's Name

Campbell McGrath

Second Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Member

Third Advisor's Name

Meri-Jane Rochelson

Third Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Member

Keywords

poetry, Florida, travel, coming-of-age, domestic, sonnet, pecha kucha

Date of Defense

11-3-2015

Abstract

OOLITHS is a poetry collection that challenges commonly held American values such as the sanctity of the family, the American Dream, the nobility of parenthood, and faith in God. Divided into eight sections, the collection follows the arc of childhood, adolescence, maturity and decline. Images of birds, crickets, the beach, the moon, and rainstorms anchor the poems to Miami’s natural habitat and to each other, while images involving music, sleep, raisins, coffee beans and eggs unite them in the realm of the domestic.

OOLITHS includes traditional forms such as sonnets, as well as nonce forms, prose poems, free verse and newer forms. “Art History for Breast Cancer Survivors”—a twenty-stanza pecha kucha inspired by Terrence Hayes that deals with the narrator’s battle with breast cancer—marks the middle of the collection. Having scratched the varnish off our illusions, OOLITHS concludes by acknowledging the inevitability of loss with a bittersweet smile.

Identifier

FIDC000158

Recommended Citation

Mazor, Estelle, "Ooliths" (2015). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2323.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/2323