The 20th annual Symposium will be held on Thursday, April 23, 2009.

Stages on Journeys Homeward: James Wright and My Poetic Journeys toward Finding Home
Towsley Lecture Hall/Norris 101, 2:15 PM

Stephanie  Edwards,   '09 32
   Majors: English (Creative Writing), Economics and Management
   Hometown: Lansing, MI

Sponsor(s): Julie Stotz-Ghosh
Support: FURSCA-Richard Bethune Student Research Fellowship

Abstract: 
A year and a half ago, I found myself searching for a poet whose roots were intertwined with mine, who had known the long, hard Februarys of the Great Lakes and the devastation caused by the apparatus of the factory town (especially when found sans factory). As I poured through pages of poets, both old and young, dead and living, I kept returning to James Wright, a mighty Ohioan, because I thought I heard something in his voice and words that told deep truths about my soul and the Great Lakes.

My thesis consists of a critical analysis of James Wright's poetry and my own creative work inspired by his poetry. My analysis of James Wright is expository in form, and it explores his relationship to place, paying careful attention to the dramatic shift in the portrayals of landscape between his second book, Saint Judas, and third book, The Branch Will Not Break. My creative work mainly takes the form of poetry and explores different conjurations of my place, my home, Lansing, MI. I bridge these two components with a reflective essay on the influences of Wright on my poems.

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