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Full text of this paper is not available in the ETD Center. Copies may be available for inter-library loan from Bowling Green State University or may be available for purchase from Proquest/UMI

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Things That Stay

Ratcliff, Madison
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1679579870873489

Abstract Details

2023, Master of Fine Arts (MFA), Bowling Green State University, Creative Writing/Poetry.
Things That Stay is a collection of poetry that inhabits the permanence of Appalachian landscape, ritual, feminist variations of tradition, and versions of selves in relation to the metaphysical. Not only do these poems focus on the ways connection, religious beliefs, and natural elements persist in physical life—the passing of regional tradition woman to woman, sharing customs with partners, and the unyielding presence of plant life—but they also reach into the liminal, insisting on the transcendence of essence. Flowers, birds, hair, and supernatural experiences are reimagined and given new presence in transitional spaces; everything is given a soul, and the soul is what travels through spiritual places and stays after a physical life has been completed. Everything and nothing—emptiness and the knowledge from an entire existence—are brought together in spaces between lives and deaths, often grounded in the familiar reality of landscape and interpersonal relationships.
Abigail Cloud (Committee Member)
Larissa Szporluk (Committee Chair)
41 p.
Literature; Metaphysics; Regional Studies; Spirituality
poetry; feminism; Appalachia; spirituality; religion; metaphysics; plants; death; resurrection; rebirth; liminal; threshold; soul; essence; family; tradition; Things That Stay

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Ratcliff, M. (2023). Things That Stay [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1679579870873489

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ratcliff, Madison. Things That Stay. 2023. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1679579870873489.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ratcliff, Madison. "Things That Stay." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2023. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1679579870873489

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1679579870873489