Master of Fine Arts, Miami University, 2023, English: Creative Writing

My thesis, Up Close, concerns three main subjects that do not have agency to speak for themselves and a final section of personal poems. In one section, I draw the reader's attention to sites in my native northern Michigan that do not serve the functions they once did—everything from well-known tourist sites to my childhood backyard. A second section focuses on my maternal grandmother, Marilyn (nee Brownell) Rybka, who raised eight children, has been married for more than sixty-five years, and who now suffers from dementia alongside small strokes that occur with regularity. I imagine what she did and was like in her past as well as what she does in her everyday life. The third section records “postcard” communications from NASA's Mars Viking mission robots, exploring their inner thoughts as they sit idly, having concluded their missions. The final section follows a narrative following changes to the relationship to self through early trauma, the beginning and end of a romantic relationship, and rediscovering the self post-breakup. All four topics raise questions about purpose and value: why something that has lost or changed purpose is still valuable and why we should renegotiate our relationships with them.

Committee: Catherine Wagner (Committee Chair); Keith Tuma (Committee Member); Elizabeth Hutton (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Philosophy; Gerontology; Literature