Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY【翻译】

Pryor, Caitlin. "Vanishing Act." Doctor of Philosophy (English), May 2015, 86 pp., references, 17 titles.
This dissertation is comprised of a collection of poems preceded by a critical preface. The preface reconsiders the value of discontinuous poetic forms and advocates a return to lyric as an antidote to the toxic aspects of what Tony Hoagland terms “the skittery poem of our moment.” I consider poems by Wendy Xu, Kevin Prufer, Sharon Olds, and Stephen Dunn in depth to facilitate a discussion about the value of a more centrist position between the poles of supreme discontinuity and totalizing continuity. Though poets working in discontinuous forms are rightly skeptical of the hierarchies that govern narrative and linear forms, as Czesław Miłosz notes in The Witness of Poetry, “a poet discovers a secret, namely that he can be faithful to real things only by arranging them hierarchically.” In my own poems, I make use of the hierarchies of ordered perception in lyric and narrative forms to faithfully illuminate the collapsed structures of my own family history in the shadow of Detroit. I practice the principles I advocate in the preface, using a continuous form to address fractured realities in a busy, disordered age when poets often seek forms as fragmented as their perceptions. These poems are distinctly American, but because there is no true royalty in America, our great cultural and economic institutions—television, music, film, magazines, and big business—take the place of the castle (the book’s emblem) while Michael Jackson ultimately rises as the commanding dead king whose passing prompts contemplation of the viability of popular culture, family, history, and geography. The fallen structures that litter the work are many: the twin towers, chess rooks, bounce castles, nuclear families, the auto industry. However, the sole structure cohering the whole is that of a lyric voice whose authority is derived through lived experience and presented in rich, continuous poetic forms.
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Copyright 2015
by
Caitlin A. Pryor
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the last four years, I have been gloriously, radically edified, thanks to my professors and committee members, particularly my dissertation director, Dr. Bruce Bond, who pushed me to write the best poems of my life, and Dr. David Holdeman, who steadfastly supported my graduate career and my scholarship. I’d also like to thank my mother, Victoria Cowan, and my grandparents, Keith and Geraldine Downes, for their patronage and conviction. I am also grateful to my dear friend, Dr. Jenny Molberg, for her keen eyes and beautiful mind: this book is full of you, as I know the rest of my life will be. Thank you to all my friends and colleagues in Denton: this community has immeasurably bolstered my work. Finally, I want to thank my husband, Chad Pryor—without your undying love and belief in me, I could never have come this far.
These poems originally appeared in the following publications:
Catch-Up: “Agnieszka’s Spine”
Cold Mountain Review: “Instructions for Divorce”
Crate: “Milford”
Faultline: “Milanese 101”
Fawlt Magazine: “Dropsy Daisy”
Fugue: “Flight Plan”
The L Magazine: “Tibetan Monk Shot While on Fire”
The Mississippi Review: “Half Past” and “Cease and Desist”
Nimrod: “Best Order” and “Progeny”
The Offbeat: “The Last Time I Saw David”
Poet Lore: “Vanishing Act”
ROAR Magazine: “Southern Living”
So to Speak: “Every Creeping Thing”
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iii
PART I: CRITICAL PREFACE
Blessed Rage for Order: Poetry and the Price of Discontinuity ..................................................... 2
Works Cited .................................................................................................................................. 24
PART II: VANISHING ACT
I.
Castles ............................................................................................................................... 29 Creation Myth ................................................................................................................... 31 What’s Left of Michigan ................................................................................................... 33 Milanese 101 ..................................................................................................................... 34 Yarning ............................................................................................................................. 35 Cease and Desist ............................................................................................................... 36 Dropsy Daisy .................................................................................................................... 38 Mushroom ......................................................................................................................... 39 Love Meter ........................................................................................................................ 40 Half Past ............................................................................................................................ 42 There Is No Such Thing as Bad Luck ............................................................................... 43 Instructions for Divorce .................................................................................................... 44 Happy Everything ............................................................................................................. 45
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II. The Last Time I Saw David .............................................................................................. 47 Every Creeping Thing ....................................................................................................... 48 Poem in the Mouth of Angela Chase ................................................................................ 49 Agnieszka’s Spine ............................................................................................................. 50 Tibetan Monk Shot While on Fire .................................................................................... 51 Star of the Stripes .............................................................................................................. 52 Save Her ............................................................................................................................ 53 Whiskey Alpha Romeo ..................................................................................................... 55 Simon Says ....................................................................................................................... 56 Demolition ........................................................................................................................ 58 Cortlandt Street ................................................................................................................. 59 Funeral for the Cork .......................................................................................................... 60 Say Mine ........................................................................................................................... 61 Revenge ............................................................................................................................ 62
III. Birthday Poem .................................................................................................................. 64 Cold Comfort .................................................................................................................... 66 They Stopped Cutting ....................................................................................................... 67 Best Order ......................................................................................................................... 68 Poem After His Dictionary ............................................................................................... 69 Flight Plan ......................................................................................................................... 70
The Shinglers .................................................................................................................... 71
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Minimum Grace ................................................................................................................ 72 Southern Living ................................................................................................................ 73 Home & Garden ................................................................................................................ 74 Progeny ............................................................................................................................. 75 The Mirror Stage ............................................................................................................... 76 Vanishing Act ................................................................................................................... 78 The King ........................................................................................................................... 80 Notes ............................................................................................................................................. 84

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