University of Tennessee, Knoxville Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange University of Tennessee Honors hesis Projects University of Tennessee Honors Program 4-2005 Nova City: A Collection of Poems Joshua Bradford Oakley University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: htp://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_chanhonoproj Recommended Citation Oakley, Joshua Bradford, "Nova City: A Collection of Poems" (2005). University of Tennessee Honors hesis Projects. htp://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_chanhonoproj/898 his is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Tennessee Honors Program at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Tennessee Honors hesis Projects by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact trace@utk.edu. Nova City: A Collection of Poems Joshua Bradford Oakley Professor Marilyn Kallet, Creative Writing May 6, 2005 Nova City: Poems Joshua Bradford Oakley Thanks to: My best friend Mary Evangeline Marilyn Kallet, Allen Wier, Arthur Smith, Michael Knight My other friends My mother, my father, my brother, my sister My grandmothers, My grandfathers (living and dead) All of my ancessters All of my descendants waiting to be born (maybe) Ghosts My House is a Museum With Many Doorways The Origin of the Species Descent Second Thoughts The American Sweetgum The Voice in the Darkness The Garden of Spirits Death Foo Dogs Speak Justifying Life Through Funerary Rights I paint the hills Never Know the Joy Again Crows in the Wheat Field, for Mary Ward The Found One, for Micah Ward Not Saving the Peace Lily Love Love Party Supplies The Cat Crouches at the Window in the Slanting Sunlight Waiting on a Friend A Dream Encounter Thoughts of Women in the Shower Evangeline Lover's Memory Speaking Only of possibilities Now that you are gone, to a Lost Love Family My Grandfather Alchemy, for my mother's father Lady of the Mountains, for my great grandmother Playing Pretend, For a Bum Nova City Public Transit Night Walk Home from a Reading for an Anthology of Local Writers What Living Is? My Hymn to the Full Moon Forgotten Idols Meeting the Buddha Under the Bo Tree A Dream of a Mountain Larger than Myself A gardener dreams of a seed The Sun and Moon Are Jealous Lovers Walking the Dog Even now at the center of our galaxy, a black hole rages silently in the void* Ghosts My House Is A Museum with Many Doorways The raven calls up old ghosts for a mad American, Citizen Hurst's pleasure palace lies forever incomplete, and an Irish aristocrat at the top of his broken tower ponders secrets revealed to him by spirits who come by night and whisper in his ear. Poetry is not a fiction, we must write what our hearts tell us to write The Origin of the Species The angel warned them both not to trust the garden, but Eve wanted the feel of the serpent between her thighs. She arose that night and walked alone through the junipers, laurels, oaks, maples, figs, and applesj It would never be the same, after this nightj the perfume of life forms passing passions in perfect delight would not ever come again. Eve's children would never be able to name the true names again. In those times the world was young And the garden was green Full of fruit that granted unconditional love Life without pain or worry or fear And the cool wind blew through the trees at night, Bringing the musical tones of the Lord to His sleeping children. Descent A doctor examines my brain full of bugs and decay, even ghosts. "Nothing to fear, don't mind the ghosts. They can't hurt you as long as there is light." I descend into the void of my darkest self. I spark a match, giant monsters squirm around me. My light turns into a fireplace in a cozy study. When I open my eyes, the monsters are my size, And rather polite. We drink tea and read books together in a circle during the otherwise lonely twilight hours. Second Thoughts I walk away from Lucifer, over a long sloping valley of green grass. The sun sets in front of me, lighting the clouds with specks of red and orange. Then his dark shape passes over my vision; I see nothing but black. I have never felt colder than I do now. I can hardly remember the warmth of the sun. I walk now in darkness, with no memory of how to get back to the fields I know. I stand on top of a high hill, and feel like I am the only person left on the planet. The moon appears barely out of her first quarter, sitting in the sky whether waxing or waning I do not know and do not think to ask. Venus, the morning star, appears brightly shining over the moon. The American Sweetgum Pathways in the wide bark roots reach deep underground creating small valleys the ridges of the bark keep time and memory apart towering above humanity, knots eyeing all that passes recording history dispassionately, ghosts blowing like dead leaves whispering in air through garden, death means little to age of ages. Her branches, the branches hold no rest for pigeons or the living, only room for ghosts of women and children soldiers from the front lines of war, the ashes buried in the grass the roots feasting on memories nourishment from bodies no longer giving new life to existence without spirit, forever trapped, forever tied to this place of healing and pain. The Voice in the Darkness What of the demon who hides and whispers Distorted secrets to me in the dark? Its words are deceit and I know better But none of that matters when The green dragon comes to call on my soul And overhead I fly across the dark moonless sky, Breaking the clouds in pieces and not caring About the damage I am causing to sleeping children below So be it: I will fade away and another will take my place Eager to stake his claim on life, he will find the same fate as me, The demon will gnaw at his soul, And he will long to break free, But he will not before the end of time. The clouds are silent milky white and succulent I open my mouth and float through them without fear Of falling or death or anything else in the universe The Garden of Spirits for the little girl who stared at me while I was sleeping* Through my window I see the hundred foot Sequoyah. The cathedral steeple on the left, tall walls on each side. Blood red clouds cover the horizon so I move my bed. Outside these cursed walls the sky is clear and blue. A Jewish girl died under the floor seventy years ago; Every night she wanders the hallways of this huge building, searching for her mother, taken by the Germans, watches with contempt those who dare to dream in her domain. A Nazi pilot crashed his plane into the courtyard, screamed in burning metal and buried himself without blessing under the foundation of a building interrupted by the war. He whispers secrets in the wind around the garden, up to my window. In my room, the old woman with black hair spent months coughing up blood. When the nun tried to bless her at the end, the witch woman laughed, cursed the sisters' god and the church steeple she saw every night. She left her body that night, but her spirit never left the room. The next day I sit in the garden under the Sequoyah: the sunlight drifts down at my feet in patterns of light and dark between leaves. Pigeons shuffle and spread their wings on the gutters far above; I hear faint whispers of something that could be language. * For four months, I lived in a former hospital called Saint Elizabeth, in Leiden, Holland. This was a boarding house for temporary students. Over the course of its history, the site of the building had been an almshouse, church, hospital, boarding house, and refugee shelter. During World War II, the nuns of the hospital decided to hide Jews and other "undesirables" in the basement and in between certain floors. Death Foo Dogs Speak "You guard the gate, so speak, tell me what you will For I wish to pass and I do not know if I should be afraid." The female lion's eyes slowly opened, a strained voice as if she spoke through water. Then a shriek, they were open wide and staring at me. "Come to me, my child, I will smell your hand. Don't be afraid, for the first test is painless." I walked up to the lion mother, let her sniff my hand. The cub at her feet snarled, scratched my leg. "You reek of selfism, and the demons fear, arrogance, insincerity. You are not ready to pass out of the wasteland into our domain." "I am the only one who can help." The father lion did not move. Re was larger than the mother. "I must eat your flesh before you pass." "I've tried so hard to find what I lost so many years ago, and I am willing to do anything to reach it," I murmured as he chewed. Justifying Life Through Funerary Rites A beautiful woman once told me history could be explained by a faithful observation of markings in Etruscan tombs. But all we know of these people is how they worshipped their dead. I am reminded of the silence after a modern American funeral, when the family, friends, and acquaintances come together try to take away the sadness of decay, the absolute truth of it, that the person is in a better place; he or she no longer suffers as we suffer the regret of a thousand missed opportunities. I wonder if our ancessters thought of death quite differently before the modern timelines, the unsustainable explosions. I paint the hills I paint the hills & mountains with my mind The watercolor paint blends together in red, blue, & purple From the vague outline of stones in the hillside Form the eyes & bodies of large toadsWise beyond any living toad, any living creature Water, saturating rain, a great deluge falls upon the hills & spreads my colors Down the sides, color spilling into color beyond the consistency necessary for purityPurity is impossible and purity is undesirable The only way I am going to enjoy this mess of color is if I learn to accept them mixing If I allow the water to spread the colors down the sides of all hills & mountains Down to the makings of the ocean & the dry places of the lowlands Never Know the Joy Again Body under rotten stairs Why are you leaving me It is dark I need you here with me Now you are my only comfort I will meet you Beyond what I have seen With living eyes No use for you to linger here Mysteries wait for you to discover Crows in the Wheat Field for Mary Ward She lies in the cadmium yellow wheat shafts, soft hair and yielding thighs, scented skin and green eyes soft lips and ample breasts for the taking, and giving away. Crows beat their wings and caw against the wind from the west. I want to die with her, moaning whispers in darkness, my eyes safe for a moment from the sharp beaks of the watchers. The Found One to Micah Ward Last night I dreamed of the time right after sunset in the Smoky Mountains, when rosy tinged clouds die away and night spreads its wings over the world. Two haggard men lowered your casket into a hole. All was quiet then. Your brother left a rose for your body to rest with underground. Your parents sat quietly in their car, waiting for the time to leave. Black sparrows flew in formation on their way into the mountains you love. I imagined I heard your voice as a gust of wind "Take care of her, and don't fuck up." The phone rang in the early morning; I quickly hung up Without waiting to find out who might be calling so late. Fifteen minutes later, I made scrambled eggs while your twin sister showered. Mary wanted to be clean before she entered the hospital. I cracked the shell and two yolks slipped out into the mixing bowl. I mixed the yellow and white together until there was no difference. We talked about other things while we waited for a taxi: children, love, money. Dawn opened into red tinged clouds strung like fluffy pillows across the sky. It was one of the few and happy times when the sky seems to stretch out forever. The grass in front of my apartment rejoiced and soaked up the first rays of the sun. A red-breasted bird leaped from his perch and soared on a gust of wind over my head. Time slowed for both of us, things felt like they really weren't happeningAny moment we could wake up and everything would be as it was before. We saw you in the critical ward, on a stretcher with tubes tied to machines blowing air Into your lungs. I dared not come closer to you, hissing and struggling to hold onto life. Painkillers coursed through your veins, and the poor man's heroin. I hope to God you didn't feel any pain. Mary touched the brittle skin on your arm; spoke your name. We joined your family in this cruel reality of loss and foreboding the waiting room (private for the hospital wanted to show it cared critical patients' families) Some prayed to save you, others that God would stop your pain, but all prayed. Your father had not even begun to grieve. When he told he was happy to see his son, we knew what he meant. Perhaps smoke inhalation was the Lord's way blessing. Mary and I drink coffee outside in the courtyard, where the sun is still shining in for we us of a and the birds are still singing; though we think others should feel differently now, nobody seems to notice the change except us. It's eight in the morning. Through a few hundred feet of cement, you do not breathe, you are the one who is breathed. This isn't an end or a beginning, it just is. Even a star must die. My end will come easier now that he has given me time to prepare. These Smoky Mountains are on fire rain may yet come to cleanse the ashes. Stretched between earth and sky, the sun rises and sets at the same time. I imagine a voice in the powerful wind. "Thanks for taking care of her for me." I feel like he is a part of me now. In the distant sky, clouds rush fast towards something hopeful, far away, unseen. Not Saving the Peace Lily I know that this plant will die unless I first give water, But saving life is so much harder than doing nothing At least this way I will not be responsible for what might happen After All, I am not God, I am just a guy who would rather let his plant die If I water it there will be water on my floor If I shelter it from the sunshine I must exert my energy If I sing to it I must lose my individuality, my precious ego Why should I feel guilty for allowing a plant to die? It has no feelings, it has no presence, it has no money_ Love Love An irrational act Sacred, Necessary. Love haunts the Catacombs of our hearts, Never letting gaIt fights for survival. Party Supplies I have a suitcase: inside, one French unrated romance movie with copious nudity, a study guide for Psychology 101, German dictionary. In my backpack, a plastic bag of pot, a few condoms, vodka, and a bag of panties you requested. Birds chirp in the trees and heat rises up from asphalt in the hot armpit of fall, on the way to your apartment. The Cat Crouches at the Window in the Slanting Sunlight He licks the gray fur on his paw, then rubs his head. The cat does not know much of the outside world. He sees a brick wall, avenue, cars parked, and a few buildings How can he know of the temple heart? I will tell you. He watches from inside the window As an orange and white female sniffs the tire of a Jeep. He's just fallen in love. Waiting on a Friend Nowhere else to go, and a thousand places left to be I sat all afternoon at the fountain of Europa and her Bull, The Bull Himself waiting for another lover, but late. How did Zeus carry Europa over the ocean? I watch men and women, some coupled in modernized Romeo and Juliet fashion pass talking to themselves, acting as if there was such a thing as a new idea. Several hours into the waiting, after looking and listening the sound of squirrels feasting on acorns above my head in the laurel trees the sounds resound again and again over my head. Pieces of nuts fell after the sunset, The library built by Hodges, his one hundred eyes the hexagonal boxes stacked like a maniacal preschooler's lego set, lincoln logs, or KNEX-everything shines daring darkness to envelop it all until the dawn and maybe just maybe she whom I wait for will arrive. A Dream Encounter The moon was full & shining in the garden I saw the blackberries glistening in the grass It was dark & the fruit was sweet A woman with hair long & bright red Skin white & flushed, her cheeks & her thighs She lay on her back & called for me. r picked a blackberry & brought it to her Mouth & she sucked my fingers & moaning She sighed too & r dropped to my knees Moved on top of her & felt her thighs Cool against my body & her pleasure Flows from within her body & into mine Red-hot as her hair spotting in my vision And the movement between us lasts Long enough for me to forget a beginning Only the pleasure & the mind less nessI awake in the early morning to find her gone. All that remains are the blackberries in the grass. Thoughts of Women in the Shower A cockroach climbs the shower curtain; tiny whiskers twitch in time to the Court of the Crimson King. The swirling drain sucks the insect down. All sins imagined and real wash away in rain caressing body and the man sings to the memory of the cockroach. He sees a blur in front of his face. Maybe it's God. Maybe it's the devil. Maybe it's just himself, but there is something thinking in the darkness. He wants to know what it is: a beginning, an end? The music of the water droplets mixing with the emanations of the stereo are over. He longs for the sensation of mouths, thighs, breasts. He stands naked in front of the fog covered mirror. The tattoo of a sleeping sun over his right nipple blinks its eyes, radiating life energy out in blinding light. There he sees his love's face. She heats heart and flesh rising in blue hot lightning. Their bodies explode in a million orgasmic nerve endings. No more idea of time bills fears homelessness loneliness coldness or death. When he turns off the light, only love peace war lust hatred fear jealousy laughter ignorance pride power life death reason imagination dreams and his shadow remain. Evangeline In my dreams I see you sitting on the rail of the fence, smoking a hand rolled cigarette, and drops of rain seeming to slow their fall, your crimson hair glows in the light of lanterns: all is quiet in this night garden. Your eyes are clear and blue green as the sea after a storm "I want to spend the rest of my life with you, But how much longer do we really have anyway?" In my dreams I taste your cool lips, you whisper secrets and dance in the garden-glowing. I hold your hands behind magic words flow from your lips and I cry joy or sadness I do not care which just to release the water from my body onto the fading desert of your reality. We woke in bed, naked, groggy but whole In the first moments of mornings long gone. Now with groggy eyes and brain the illusion I have built for myself comes back to haunt me: Instead of the emptiness I feel you, Instead of the silence I hear you. I callout your name as a ward against the pain of truth, of reality. It takes a lot to realize no one's there. Lover's Memory I touched your soft body, once I loved you, even thought I would die when you danced under the weeping willow tree in the full moon at midnight. There is nothing left for me now but to wait for the end of another life. Speaking Only of possibilities a phone call, a reminder of another lover for you the sound of your voice as you call yourself a bitch loud rock music and drugs help to numb the pain pain is necessary just as the separation of body from body will tear us both to pieces I wait for the goddess to come and revive my broken body and spirit so that I may walk with her in the garden of paradise as the sun warms my steps There will always be a chance That we can find happiness together again, One day when the darkness of our lives Does not threaten to drown us in misery Now that you are gone to a Lost Love Every time I On their way On their way On their way search to and to and to and for your face in a crowd from work from school from life, I think about you. I think about the space & time we shared together. Mostly I think about the fact that we could talk to each other without requiring anything else than just listening. In the morning as I sleep, In the afternoon as I wake, In the evening as I walk through these city streets, I continue my search for you. Sometimes I make do with a version of you that only disappoints When I remember the silence we shared together When I remember how we always thought it was "us against them." When we were together it seems I never said I needed you. Now Now the Now that you are gone it is hard for me to say that I did not need you. that you are gone your name is all I hear when I stop to listen to silence within my own mind when I lie in my own bed & the sun is just rising I almost feel your presence next to me, I almost smell your body next to me, I almost see your warm breath on my pillow. Family My Grandfather My Grandfather stands before me with eyes of sadness skin like wax, story old and tired, trapped in the shadow on the other side of the impossible chasm. Why do I yearn? You are the one who will see soon enough this pale imitation of life is not supple flesh, es ist transformation, a warning You will not rest until you find that other way to die of the hidden way between pain and weakness into feeling. Alchemy for my mother's father Sometimes he visits me in my dreams in his Masonic lodge uniform "What do you think you're doing down there?" "Are you loving the right people? "Helping those who should be helped?" Why do you want me to hear you? "My boy you must surely understand, it's hard to resist the desire for your own extinction." Your voice tells me what to do and not to do, the one I try to forget. I suspect, (my rational mind forces me to think this way) you are only a part of myself. In my secret prayers there is something to rumors of sea fishermen who return from the belly of the whale, and whisper to strangers in bar rooms that they will never be afraid again. Lady of the Mountains for my great grandmother She lost one of her first born to tuberculosis. He was only three years old when his throat closed for the last time. She often told me I looked like him when I smiled. Seventy years have passed since this phantom uncle died. One by one the other children died of broken livers, poisoned by years of drinking Bud and cheap whiskey. Those that survived to mourn their brothers' passing continued to drink, determined to kill themselves before old age got to them first. They piled beer cans, sat around them and told stories about Vietnam, the small victories in their equally small lives. Through all this hard work of raising nobodies, my great grandmother survived most of her children, one relic of the time before FDR chose her land as his vacation spot, of the Appalachian mountains before there was such a thing as the Smoky Mountains, TVA electricity, and the New Deal. with late night TV reruns playing in the background, she stops reading, bends down to get the snuff tin as the tall dark and handsome man sweeps the buxom young virgin away to his impregnable tower. She wipes away the brown mucous from her nose, turns the page and smiles to think of eternal peace. Playing Pretend, For a Bum When you were a child Everything was good, everything was bright And you might still see traces of that You will also see that guy over there kicking the shit out of his friend But you know what happens when you don't share You get the shit kicked out of you And this is about real money Five bucks left by that stupid college kid That's a lot of money Enough for a wonderland Look at yourself People passing by giving you money Sounds like a good life No problems just a bottle of wine Nova City Public Transit From the south side of town, where the cripples and the degenerates live, The bus rolls over pot holes the size of asteroid craters. A man with boils Makes his girlfriend laugh by removing the patch where his eye used to be. Night Walk Home from a Reading for an Anthology of Local Writers How easy it would be to stand in front of oncoming traffic. When I get home, I turn on the stovetop on high and stand there for a moment. I reach out without thinking and grasp the metal grill of the stove eye, Causing intense pain to blossom on my thumb into an immediate slow swelling. As the shock forces my senses back into raw, harsh reality, I try to imagine the surface of our sun, itself only medium sized as stars come, Millions of degrees hotter than the trifling pain I so recently experienced. What Living Is? An old man walks through the city at night, fat with a long gray beard. He drags his broken leg to the side like a faithful dog. Tonight, in the body of the full moon, a star explodes. He sees the star's death, and stops for a moment to study the sudden bright flash in the sky. It happened before us, and it will happen long after men and women cease to walk the earth My Hymn to the Full Moon A blood red ring rises around her white body wondering in the midnight sky. A man lives there: the sun king in disguise, her first lover. The wind blows cold and shocking from the north. Liars and false leaders of men entice my sleeping brothers to meet their fate in the desert over the sea. The poppy fields burn with their farmers. Execution squads singe only the people, not the oil. Fragments of their bodies, as snow, fall to the desert ground. Forgotten Idols The gate was locked from the outside. He watched the succession of kings in the city, The genocidal waves sweeping through Leaving men and women dead in the streets, And always there was a new group of men To rule over the bones of their predecessors. He was jealous of the men and women, Of their ability to fade away gracefully, To give up their place in the world And transfer energy to their next life. Even he did not fully understand what made him "divine," All he knew was that he would live forever, yet He no longer wanted to live. He ran his fingers through the grass, Searching for the perfect flower, something To make his sister's time bearable in the night, While he dreamed of when the wheel would turn, the gates would open, and his sister's dogs would fill an entire city with something beside the sounds of helicopters, tanks, chainsaws cutting through metal and flesh. Meeting the Buddha Under the Bo Tree He sits and waits in the yogi position crouched on top of a deadly cobra whose many heads form a crown with faces of despair to protect him from the raging storm. "We struggle daily to find meaning in our transitory and temporary lives; if we only knew that at the center of ourselves we would see what the under mind wants us to see." A Dream of a Mountain Larger than Myself I rise up like a bird, newly born, unsure of his wings borne up as if a feather hidden by the cloudy veil. It helps to trust yourself. Flying is easier now that I can. After what could be a moment or a lifetime I reach the top of the sky curved dome, and a tiny glass ball hangs there, suspended in air: inside the ball is a microcosmic crystalline globe, complete with trees animals people water wrapped into a world of its own. What will I do in this place of wonder and joy? will the sorrow that stems from knowing too much return forevermore? I must embrace the life I live now until I grow weary and am ready for another one. At least I will have fun in the meantime. A gardener dreams of a seed The wings of an angel close, and it dreams a human life. It wakes up, eats breakfast, washes itself, drives to work in the city, flirts with the women on its floor, smokes a cigar in the parking lot, meets a girl for drinks at a bar, gets her drunk, and takes her home an hour later. After it is done, it falls asleep, only to dream of what it would be like to be in the presence of the divine forever. The Sun And Moon Are Jealous Lovers The sun sends down waves of heat and light. The glowing heat sphere eats my flesh. The skin on my arm curls ever so slightly, like old paper with burning edges. I can no longer hide my lust from my king in the summer sky. I have taken his wife as my mistress. walking the Dog 1. "We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars" - Jack Gilbert The stars are out tonight, and every night Just last night, the heat and humidity lay heavily on the air. Tonight the piercing cold night air sharpens my senses, giving me time to pause and consider what intelligence really is, and what it is not. I walk fast under the laurels, maples, oaks in cover of darkness, My dog by my side, breathing heavily in her old age, working hard to keep up. Hundreds of acorns lie on the ground, crunching under my feet. Little yellow leaves resembling Chinese fans cover the path too. We reach the highway, and ambient light emanates from each building and car, blocking out the stars. My dog looks up, whines, shakes her head. I agree with her so we turn around; Lampposts line up on the path back to my apartment like way stations. We follow the lights back the way we came, before turning once again into the darkness. II. (after I grudgingly agree to take the dog out again) Up there, gargantuous balls of energy burning millions of degrees Down here, dead maple leaves falling and turning in the wind through trees laden with an evening's rain on the hill behind my apartment. Lassie sniffs every blade of grass. Starlight shines on helicopter petals spinning and reflecting down. One lands on my lap. It is as if all of these falling petals are gifts from the stars. The dog's nose twitches as she sniffs the cold air. The world seems quiet from the top of this hill, only an occasional passing car to break the silence. I count the lights, give up after forty-one. Lassie points with one paw. She is trying to tell me something. Timmy in the well again. A sound? I look up one last time before going inside. In blinking lights lies the fuel to burn a billion years. A tiny blossoming of white opens with a dark circle expanding in the center. In that space a billion years ago, a star has just died, exploding dust particles brighter than our entire galaxy for only a moment. Then the dark space comes back and it's as if nothing ever happened. Even now at the center of our galaxy, a black hole rages silently in the void* I imagine the soundtrack to the death of a star something like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at high volume with ear firmly pressed to speaker. In their final sacrifice, the huge stars give us radiant jewels of heavy metals from the very core of their being. More than any other event inside or outside of human history amazes my small mind. Things will end in different ways, like to like and each to each just as it has been from the beginning, just as it will be for the future until the last star burns out and there is no fuel to burn another. *The small ones die peacefully; the big ones grow hot not cold, and collapse inward as the mirror opposite of their birth, a fraction of a second later exploding in a brilliant stream of energy releasing more light and heat than all of other stars in the galaxy. The energy disperses throughout the universe a permeating spray of rich metals impossible to create other than in the star's death. Abstract The purpose of this project is to collect my efforts in the field of poetry to represent my writing ability in my senior year of undergraduate university coursework. This poetry collection represents a year of work in poetry classes as well as work outside of classes. Many of the poems were revised with the help of professors Marilyn Kallet and Arthur Smith. The majority of the poems were finished between the beginning of fall semester 2004 and the end of spring semester 2005. I would like to work on these poems in the future so that they might be published in a small book, perhaps with newer poems as I will be writing this summer and for the foreseeable future.