Zanesville & Western: a Creative Dissertation
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ZANESVILLE & WESTERN: A CREATIVE DISSERTATION by Mark Allen Jenkins APPROVED BY SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: _________________________________________ Dr. Frederick Turner, Co-Chair _________________________________________ Dr. Charles Hatfield, Co-Chair _________________________________________ Dr. Matt Bondurant _________________________________________ Dr. Nils Roemer Copyright 2017 Mark Allen Jenkins All Rights Reserved ZANESVILLE & WESTERN A CREATIVE DISSERTATION by MARK ALLEN JENKINS, BA, MFA DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HUMANITIES – AESTHETIC STUDIES THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS May 2017 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are several significant people to thank in the development, creation, and refining of this dissertation, Zanesville & Western: A Creative Dissertation. Dr. Charles Hatfield supported me throughout the dissertation. His expertise on theoretical framing helped me develop an approach to my topic through a range of texts and disciplines. Dr. Frederick Turner encouraged me to continue and develop narrative elements in my poetry and took a particular interest when I began writing poems about southeastern Ohio. He encouraged me to get to the essence of specific poems through multiple drafts. Dr. Rainer Schulte, Dr. Richard Brettell, and Dr. Nils Roemer were my introduction to The University of Texas at Dallas. Dr. Schulte’s “Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Arts and Humanities” highlighted many of the strengths of our program, and “Crafting Poetry” provided useful insight into my own poetry as well as a thorough introduction international poetry. Dr. Brettell’s “Art and Anarchy” course expounded the idea that poets could be political in their lives and work, both overtly and implicitly. Dr. Roemer’s “Urban Cities” course, which juxtaposed history, literature, art, and film through several significant European cites, showed me the way place could influence culture. Dr. Susan Briante provided extensive feedback on one of the earliest poems in my manuscript. Her own interest in book length poetic sequences and writing about place provided impetus for many of the poems in this project. Dr. Bondurant kindly stepped in when Dr. Briante accepted a position in Arizona and provided support through my field exams and dissertation work. Finally, without family, friends, and colleagues, this work would not have been possible. My wife, Marina and my daughter, Anneka, gave me constant encouragement, support and extra iv time on weekends and breaks to write. I also am grateful to my parents for their ongoing support throughout my college education. I also want thank my colleagues and students at Memorial High School in Houston, Texas, who showed kindness and patience as I finished the final pages of my dissertation in between teaching and grading. A special thank you to Dr. Chad Wilson who read early drafts of the introduction and helped with editing and formatting. March 2017 v ZANESVILLE & WESTERN: A CREATIVE DISSERTATION Mark Allen Jenkins, PhD The University of Texas at Dallas, 2017 ABSTRACT Supervising Professors: Frederick Turner and Charles Hatfield ABSTRACT This creative dissertation is comprised of a poetry collection titled Zanesville & Western and a scholarly apparatus that offers background for the creation of the poetry collection. The purpose of this creative dissertation is to challenge the narrow portrayal regional poetry is typically confined to and to reconsider location as a creative impetus for poetry through the examination of other poets’ work and my own work. My dissertation, which consists of a collection of original poetry accompanied by a scholarly critical essay, reconsiders the history, aesthetics, and politics of place in American poetry. Specifically, my essay argues that place is an inescapable aspect of poetry, and in my poems explore the ways in which place can represent history, both public and personal. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................ iv ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................. vi PART 1: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1 Poetry of Place and the History of American Poetry ............................................................. 4 The Context of American Poetry of Place ............................................................................. 6 Masters, Robinson, and Frost: The Move Toward Modernism ........................................... 13 Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology ................................................................. 13 E. A. Robinson ................................................................................................................. 14 Robert Frost ..................................................................................................................... 17 Modernism and Place: A Re-Evaluation.............................................................................. 22 The Poetry of T.S. Eliot ....................................................................................................... 34 The Poetry of Ezra Pound .................................................................................................... 38 From Modernists to Confessionals: New Criticism and the Fugitive Poets ........................ 40 Confessional poets ........................................................................................................... 44 Intention and Poetry of Place ............................................................................................... 51 Using the Term “Place” ....................................................................................................... 57 Why Poetry is Appropriate for Place ................................................................................... 61 The Role of Place in Contemporary Poetry ......................................................................... 64 My Own Poetry of Place ...................................................................................................... 71 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................... 78 Primary Sources ................................................................................................................... 78 Criticism ............................................................................................................................... 78 PART 2: ZANESVILLE & WESTERN .................................................................................. 84 1. Ohio .................................................................................................................................. 85 Clay .................................................................................................................................. 86 Zanesville ......................................................................................................................... 87 The Big Muskie’s Bucket ................................................................................................ 90 Ohio.................................................................................................................................. 91 When I read in the Zanesville Times Recorder that the Disfigured Statue of General Sherman from Baughman Park had been Sold at Auction .............................................. 93 Re-mapping Zanesville .................................................................................................... 96 At the Campus Martius Museum of the Old Northwest in Marietta,............................... 98 I think About All the Other Parts of Ohio I’ve Neglected ............................................... 98 vii Maybe, Ohio .................................................................................................................. 101 Playground Supervisor at Cuddy Dixon Memorial Park ............................................... 103 The Urban and the Urbane ............................................................................................. 105 Learning Southeastern Ohio’s Curves ........................................................................... 107 James Wright Invites his Students at Hunter College to................................................ 109 See What It’s Like to Spend a Night in Zanesville, Ohio .............................................. 109 At the Zane Grey and National Road Museum .............................................................. 110 A Crisping ...................................................................................................................... 113 Telling my Daughter about Southeastern Ohio ............................................................. 115 2.Louisiana ......................................................................................................................... 117 Swimming in the hotel pool at a Quality Inn in Hot Springs, Arkansas, ....................... 118 I think of my old apartment pool in Lafayette, Louisiana ............................................. 118 Rubbernecker ................................................................................................................