A Strange Kind of Dying

• Main Author: Sitton, Christina M.
• Format: Others
• Published: DigitalCommons@USU 2014
• Subjects: A Strange Kind of Dying; English Language and Literature
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/3314; https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4307&context=etd

Fragmentation is a basic symptom of loss, and poetry naturally reflects this disjointing and destructive effect. The fracturing within the poetic form reflects the internal and repeated fracturing effects of trauma on one's own life. In this poetry collection, A Strange Kind of Dying, the speaker is bound by the question, "How is it that I can piece myself back together?" The collection of poetry is meant to help the speaker to find healing from the fragmentation through language. The work is intended to be an act of transfer, passing on one human experience to another. The structure of the poems are eclectic in style to reflect the themes of fragmentation, disruption, and separation, making a strong connections between theme, content, and form. To achieve this aesthetic, I incorporate the formal and tonal qualities found within the poetic stylings of the lyric, elegiac, formalist, and confessional. By overlaying the above mentioned styles, tones, forms, and poetic concerns, I believe that my works contribute to poetry because it is a contemporary, poetic representation of the destroyed self. That is, it is an expression of how someone of today, in our modern, technological, and fast paced world, deals with the halting, and at time, paralyzing effects of loss, grief and trauma.