TERRAFORMING HELL a Project Presented to the Faculty Of
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TERRAFORMING HELL A Project Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Chico In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English by © Matthew Paul Stephens Skripek 2016 Fall 2016 TERRAFORMING HELL A Project by Matthew Paul Stephens Skripek Fall 2016 APPROVED BY THE INTERIM DEAN OF GRADUATE STUDIES: Sharon Barrios, Ph.D. APPROVED BY THE GRADUATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE: Jeanne E. Clark, Ph.D., Chair Sarah Pape, M.F.A. PUBLICATION RIGHTS No portion of this thesis may be reprinted or reproduced in any manner unacceptable to the usual copyright restrictions without the written permission of the author. iii for Shelby jag älskar dig iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project would not have been possible without the guidance, support, and friendship of countless peers. I cannot name them all, but I am thankful for their influence on my work nonetheless. Dr. Jeanne Clark, I thank you for your friendship, enthusiasm, and for encouraging me to continue my poetic experimentation. You were always ready to offer reading suggestions that were exactly what I needed to read at the time. You are a true master of your craft and share your boundless knowledge with utmost expertise. Sarah Pape, your introduction to the world of literary publishing through Watershed Review and both AWP conferences we attended has given me hope and drive for my future as a writer. Though my formal academic journey may conclude for now, the written world never stops pushing forward. I am proud to be a part of this effort. Thank you for being a friend and mentor. Dr. Geoff Baker, Dr. Robert Burton, Dr. Tom Fox, and Dr. Kim Jaxon, I thank you for encouraging me to move beyond the written word to explore what lies around and beneath a text or concept. Through you, the invisible becomes visible. Tim Hayes, Nick Monroe, Jill North, and Kris Wheat, were it not for your friendship I would not have had the endurance to push through this program to its conclusion. You were always prepared to discuss academics and even more prepared to not discuss it at all. I do not make friends easily, but your persistence, compassion, and affinity for beer and companionship has made you all a friend for life. Deal with it. v Nathan Sandoval, Amanda Haydon, Eric Dunk, and Stephanie Evans, or more succinctly the English Graduate Student Council for 2015-2016, I thank you for reminding me that organization is essential for effective leadership and that some important meetings simply must be held off-campus. Several writers, educators, and acquaintances including Daria Booth, Kyleen Bromley, Jason Deane, Brittany DeLacy, Dani Fernandez, Bob Garner, Gina Hiner, Javier Lopez, Megan Mann, Athena Murphy, Zach Phillips, Amanda Rhine, Luke Scholl, Marta Shaffer, Michaela Sundholm, Phone Vang, Charles Walker, Jeremy Wallace, Rissa Wallace, Natalie Windt, and so many others that I simply cannot name all of you. You are what made my experience at CSU, Chico so fruitful and memorable. Thank you for your influence and all my best to your future endeavors. My parents, Paul and Carol Skripek, their furry beast, Joel, the Randall and the Johnston families, I thank you for encouraging me to pursue my dreams no matter how long it takes to achieve them. Shelby and Cosmo, I thank you for making every day worth waking up for and worth remembering as I drift off to sleep. I love you both. Lastly, a huge thank you to Stan Upshaw for seeing the undefinable something in my earliest writing even when I did not. I would not have pursued this without your influence. Thank you, friend. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Publication Rights ....................................................................................................... iii Dedication ................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments....................................................................................................... v Abstract ....................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER I. Terraforming Hell: A Critical Introduction .............................................. 1 II. Terraforming Hell ..................................................................................... 17 Ars Poetica .................................................................................... 18 I wake up to headache................................................................... 19 Guillotine ...................................................................................... 20 Five Notes for a Widow from Her Lover Lost to War ................. 21 One Year Waiting ......................................................................... 24 After a Dream in Which Everything is Ashes .............................. 25 After a Dream in Which Everything is Ashes II ........................... 26 monochromatic engraving: an ekphrasis ...................................... 27 The Poet Stops to Drink Kvasir’s Blood (or, The Mead of Poetry) ...................................................................................... 28 Lessons in Quiet Passing .............................................................. 29 you: a poem in four triplets ........................................................... 30 Fictions .......................................................................................... 31 Hel, Having Been Thrown to Niflheim, Finds Herself Alone upon an Endless Expanse of Ice ......................................... 32 Understanding Hyperborea and the Northern Winds.................... 33 After a Dream in Which European Mythologies Prove Tender Bedfellows ........................................................................ 34 The Last Bloom Falls from the Oaken Throne ............................. 35 In Defense of Giants ..................................................................... 36 vii October 1995: Cascade Mountains, California ............................. 37 August 1995: Landscape with Mosquito Lakes ............................ 38 Landscape with Fish: An Absurdist Inversion .............................. 39 After a Dream in Which a Red, Crescent Moon Appears to Be Lying on Its Back ................................................................ 40 November 1992: Norway .............................................................. 41 After a Dream about Dolmens ...................................................... 42 After a Dream in Which the Moon Swallows the Ocean .............. 43 April 2015: Landing in Phoenix ................................................... 44 Approximating Lust ...................................................................... 45 The Portal, The Well ..................................................................... 46 Untitled ......................................................................................... 47 Like Little Full Moons .................................................................. 48 Terraforming Mars ........................................................................ 49 III. Works Consulted ...................................................................................... 50 viii ABSTRACT Terraforming Hell by © Matthew Paul Stephens Skripek 2016 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Fall 2016 Terraforming Hell is a collection of poems that explore the dark terrain of reality, the fantastic, and the rift that lies between. It traverses the æther and the dreamstate. Some poems find their footing in the natural world while others walk beyond it. Like skeletal remains, these poems are spare in structure and ask readers to bring their own interpretation of the details to each work. These poems are meant to encourage reexamination of the familiar so new ideas may take form. Here, nothing is static nor concrete. The purpose is redefinition. TERRAFORMING HELL: A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION My earliest experience with poetry occurred during adolescence. For a high school book report I’d chosen to read Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, a decision spurred by my interests in science fiction and astronomy. My initial reading was, as most adolescent experiences, incomplete, but a particular chapter has managed to remain at the fore of my mind for over a decade. “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” tells the story of an automated, robotic house. Each morning, it prepares breakfast for the resident family to ease them into each new day. It’s a typical trope of robotics in fiction that their intention is to simplify the lives of humans they’re programmed to serve without question, but Bradbury pushes this idea to encompass the frailty of human existence in contrast to the unerring consistency of mechanical automation. It comes to be understood that the human inhabitants of the house have long since been obliterated by the thermal flash of a nuclear weapon. The house, seemingly unaffected by the blast or the absence of the family, continues its unaltered daily routine until the entire structure is destroyed by an electrical fire. It took several years to realize why this chapter, out of everything in The Martian Chronicles, is what regularly cropped up in my mind when I considered Bradbury or his work. While taking an undergraduate course on the subject of poetry, I gained an understanding as to why it never left my mind. Simply put, I liked the “inhuman” poetics reflecting a world that is no longer driven by humanity itself, but rather factors