Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

12-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Creative Writing

First Advisor

Dr. Elvia Ardalani

Second Advisor

Dr. Steven Schneider

Third Advisor

Dr. Edna Ochoa

Abstract

If This Heart Had a Mouth consists of forty-two poems where love is the catalyst for a multitude of emotions, ranging from falling in love, to hopelessness, to a begrudging kind of acceptance at losing the beloved to somebody else. To create all forty-two poems, 23 written in Spanish, and 19 poems written in English, I employed the literary device called Mimesis which entails deriving an original poem from someone else's work.

To create each poem, I followed another poet’s original work, line by line. I imitated that poet’s rhythm through their use of meter. I counted the number of syllables in each line so that I could then accommodate my own lines. Throughout this creative process, however, the most important decision dealt with choosing the appropriate poet, and the appropriate poem for the sentiment I was trying to convey.

This poetry collection is written from two different female perspectives involved in a love triangle. One of the voices in the poems belongs to the mistress, and the other voice emerges from the disloyal man’s wife. Throughout the poems, each woman speaks in her own native language, Spanish for the mistress, and English for the wife. This choice led me on a wild hunt for their voices in various poetry anthologies and websites. To clarify, though, the mistress dominates both languages. I decided that her voice should open and close this poetry collection with “If This Heart had a Mouth”, and “I Have Been Conversant with This Heart”, respectively.

Comments

Copyright 2016 Julieta V. Corpus. All Rights Reserved.

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