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Kellie L. Chouinard UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Disconnect by Kellie L. Chouinard A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH CALGARY, ALBERTA SEPTEMBER, 2012 © Kellie L. Chouinard 2012 Library and Archives Bibliothèque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l'édition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-91175-4 Our file Notre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-91175-4 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par télécommunication ou par l'Internet, prêter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non- support microforme, papier, électronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriété du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette thèse. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privée, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont été enlevés de thesis. cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. ABSTRACT This creative prose poetry manuscript challenges the boundary between fact and fiction through the story of a displaced narrator and other unnamed characters, all of whom are disconnected from chronological time. Beginning in Windsor, Ontario, and continuing to Calgary, the second-person narrator interrogates the events that occur both before and immediately following her cross-country move in an attempt to feel connected to both cities. Disconnect interrogates the validity of memory and how one goes about creating a life from a handful of seemingly unrelated events, questioning whether the story is really yours if you remember it from a different point of view. The introductory essay examines the roles of autobiography, biotext, and confessional writing in contemporary Canadian women‟s literature through the works of Lynn Crosbie, Nicole Markotić, Damian Rogers, and others, and well as the influence of genealogy on the works of Daphne Marlatt and Robert Kroetsch. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am eternally grateful for the guidance and support I‟ve received from numerous people during my (seemingly) never-ending career as a student. First and foremost, my intense gratitude goes to Suzette Mayr, the best adviser an MA student could hope for. She pushed and questioned and made me think in four different directions at the same time, without which this thesis would not have been possible. I would also like to thank my parents, Shirley and Paul, for their unrelenting support - emotional, intellectual, and, at times, financial. They understood that this was something I needed to do for me, and proudly forced me onto the plane in September 2010 when I started having second thoughts about leaving home. Thanks to my aunt Kathy, who pushed me and berated me when I questioned my motives, but who called (and called and called) to constantly remind me that I “come from a long line of goddesses.” Yes, I think I do. My sister, Amanda, for a shared childhood and summers spent searching for dinosaur bones, and for a conversation we had over coffee 10 years ago at Rideau Mall in Ottawa. Vic, for an unexpected friendship that doesn‟t believe in a 37-year age difference. Susan Holbrook, Nicole Markotić, and Louis Cabri, for residual influences from my undergrad days; especially Nicole, for constantly reminding me that “there isn‟t always a strong line between poetry and prose,” even when I didn‟t want to hear it. VS, NW, LQ, AE, and KT, who all understand my neurotic obsession with coffee, telephone conversations, and letters; who nurtured my inner geek through conversations about poetry, books, history, comics, art and travel; and who showed me that friendships can withstand both the test of time and distance. Thanks, again, to my parents, for roots and wings. Finally, I extend my gratitude to the Department of English, the Faculty of Graduate Studies, and the province of Alberta for numerous scholarships, awards, and grants that have allowed me to present my work at a few conferences and, more importantly, have ensured that I always had a roof over my head and food in my kitchen. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Approval Page………………………………............................................... i Abstract………………………………......................................................... ii Acknowledgments………………………………......................................... iii Table of Contents……………………………….......................................... iv Introductory Essay: Writing the Canadian Biotext………………………… 1 Creative Manuscript: Disconnect………………………………................... 24 (1) Crash………………………………............................................ 27 (2) Click………………………………............................................. 49 (3) Skin Toxicity………………………………................................. 68 (4) Sick………………………………............................................... 91 (5) Crossing………………………………....................................... 102 (6) “Sonata in F Minor”……………………………........................ 117 Works Cited ……………………………………………………….. 126 iv 1 INTRODUCTION “Disconnect”: Writing the Canadian Biotext In the spring of 1997, a twelve-year-old version of me watched as my great- grandmother, my Meme, was lowered into her grave at St. Alphonsus cemetery in Windsor, Ontario. I had been there before, three years earlier when my great-aunt‟s ashes were buried on top of her father‟s remains, next to the grave of my oldest sister. Memory is slippery, and images from the past often return at the oddest times. The memory of my great-aunt Leona‟s burial has been relegated to my medial temporal lobe, easily accessible. Blue-painted urn with black birds circling the sides, eternally in flight. However, it wasn‟t until I sat down to work on my manuscript a year ago that a memory of my Meme‟s burial returned. At the time, I had been shocked at seeing my mother cry, and rather than be a witness to this moment, I had stepped back from the crowd of family members who were trying to console her. First I stepped over to a tree, and then farther, to another grave. Susan T. Dunn, 1902-1928, the headstone read. It was a simple upright slab of weathered concrete, leaning forward as the casket decomposed. I felt sorry for this woman, hers the only “Dunn” grave in the cemetery, and I began planting flowers for her every spring, laying a wreath at her headstone every December. I searched for information about Susan Dunn, and in turn, I learned about Windsor‟s history, the city‟s 2 role in 1920s rum-running. Searching for Susan‟s roots taught me about my hometown and the importance of history. When I began working on my thesis, thirteen years after discovering Susan Dunn‟s grave, my intention was to write a series of prose poems about urban decay and the history of my hometown. The history of Windsor had always interested me, but it became more important when I left in 2010. This was the place where Henry Ford founded the first Canadian branch of Ford Motors in 1904, and where Chrysler Canada came into being in 1926. Auto parts could easily be ferried across the river from Detroit and assembled in Windsor, cutting down the high taxes auto companies were forced to pay when the cars were assembled in the United States. Windsor‟s culture is invariably different from the rest of Canada‟s, although this is not always obvious on the surface. We bill ourselves as members of a unique nation: Canusa. Not entirely Canadian nor American, Canusa embodies the culture, language and history of both Canada and the United States. We are also low-brow, blue collar, Labatts-on-a-hot-summer-day kind of people. I set out to write about my hometown, and the people who live there. And then I got sidetracked. I did not set out to write an autobiography. But to write about my hometown meant writing my relationship with that city onto the page, which meant writing myself onto the page. Because I purposely chose to not write absolute individual truth in favour of a more generalized female experience, autobiography only really becomes important in relation to the city of Windsor, as this is also the city‟s story. While Disconnect is a biotext primarily about me, rather than a personal autobiography, it is nevertheless important to understand the history of the autobiography genre and its relation to other 3 forms of personal writing, such as the confessional, biofiction, and biotext. For Georges Gusdorf, the patriarch
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