Old Dominion University ODU Digital Commons English Theses & Dissertations English Spring 2019 Pangaea Nishat Manzoor Ahmed Old Dominion University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/english_etds Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Ahmed, Nishat M.. "Pangaea" (2019). Master of Fine Arts (MFA), thesis, English, Old Dominion University, DOI: 10.25777/ t6y0-6r51 https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/english_etds/75 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the English at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PANGAEA by Nishat Manzoor Ahmed B.A. May 2016, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign B.S. May 2016, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Old Dominion University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF FINE ARTS CREATIVE WRITING OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY May 2019 Approved by: Tim Seibles (Director) Luisa Igloria (Member) Remica Bingham-Risher (Member) ABSTRACT PANGAEA Nishat Manzoor Ahmed Old Dominion University, 2019 Director: Prof. Tim Seibles Pangaea is a collection poems that revolves around themes of race, culture, identity, religion, faith, mental illness, death, and love. The themes in Pangaea aim to pinpoint the where all these ideas intersect in the body and the heart, each theme a continent on its own right coing together to make the overall landmass of human existence. In Pangaea, I am asking to find the root of urgency that drives one to love, to hate, to feel. This thesis is an attempt at unearthing that root. iii Copyright, 2019, by Nishat Manzoor Ahmed, All Rights Reserved. iv This thesis is dedicated to my friends who aren’t here to read to this, to my friends who have made it this far, to my friends that appear in these poems, to my grandmother, to my brother, Rafat, to my parents for their sacrifices, to William Yarbrough for his deep loyalty and kindness, to Kelsey Wort for teaching me the many blooms through which love grows, and finally, to my life and universe, Camille Elizabeth Gay. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply grateful to my legendary mentors in how they have helped shaped this manuscript and my writing sensibilities. Thank you to Luisa Igloria for being my mother when I was a lost child in Virginia. Thank you to Remica Bingham-Risher for your rigorous edits in words you knew had promise when I did not. Thank you to Tim Seibles for directing this work and for laboring over the many drafts this manuscript took. I am deeply indebted to the three of you for instilling me the belief that I am on the right path. I would also like to extend thanks to all my instructors and peers in the workshop who have all had a hand in molding the way I see the writing world. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. A few of these pieces, or earlier versions of these pieces, originally appeared in Academy of American Poets (online), Tampa Review, Barely South Review and Blue Agave Literary Journal. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page FOREWORD ...................................................................................................................................1 Kobitha .......................................................................................................................................1 The Pangaea Effect ....................................................................................................................2 SECTION 1: EARTH ......................................................................................................................3 Passage .......................................................................................................................................3 Brown Boy .................................................................................................................................4 Muktijuddho ...............................................................................................................................6 Incident Exercise ........................................................................................................................7 Thrush (ˈthrəsh) .........................................................................................................................8 Cardinal as Metaphor for Body Crossing State Lines ...............................................................9 Amen ........................................................................................................................................10 There are Cemeteries that are Lonely ......................................................................................11 The Heat Must Cut The Sweet .................................................................................................12 Ghostbox ..................................................................................................................................13 The First Time You See a Dead Body Outside of a Coffin .....................................................14 Crown Shyness in a Place Where We Might One Day Meet ..................................................15 All Our Bodies [I] ....................................................................................................................16 Love Poem for Fox ..................................................................................................................17 Have You Heard The One About the Boy Who Saw the Sky Reflected in the River and Wanted It So Bad He Walked Into The Water? .................................................................18 Transmissions from The Aftersleep No. 1 ...............................................................................19 Naperville In June ....................................................................................................................20 The Heart is a Hive ..................................................................................................................21 At Virginia Scenic Overlook #2 ..............................................................................................22 “Okay” .....................................................................................................................................23 After Two Years in Trinidad Studying Vedanta Philosophies, My Childhood Best Friend Returns Home ....................................................................................................................24 Observations Prior to Hurricane Florence ...............................................................................25 SECTION 2: OCEAN ....................................................................................................................26 Inheritance ................................................................................................................................26 Aubade for Lineage Underground/Underwater .......................................................................28 Love Poem for Lost Continents ...............................................................................................29 All Our Bodies [II] ...................................................................................................................30 Untitled ....................................................................................................................................31 Creation Myth ..........................................................................................................................32 Noah After The Flood ..............................................................................................................33 After Abel’s Death, the Raven Comes to Me ..........................................................................34 Below Vesuvius .......................................................................................................................35 vii Page From Across the Room, God Speaks in a Whisper I Cannot Make Out .................................36 Guilt Apocrypha .......................................................................................................................37 Transmissions from The Aftersleep No. 2 ...............................................................................38 Distance as Metaphor for Devastation .....................................................................................39 Depression with Mute Button ..................................................................................................40 Dear God ..................................................................................................................................41 At a Funeral the Summer I was Eight ......................................................................................42 Dear Shaitan .............................................................................................................................43 Our Bodies: Three-Fourths ......................................................................................................44 Pride Apocrypha ......................................................................................................................45 Honey in Four Ways ................................................................................................................46 Gorged ......................................................................................................................................47