Earth Science A dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Sarah E. Green May 2015 © 2015 Sarah E. Green. All Rights Reserved. 2 This dissertation titled Earth Science by SARAH E. GREEN has been approved for the Department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences by Mark Halliday Professor of English Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT GREEN, SARAH E., Ph.D., May 2015, English Earth Science Director of Dissertation: Mark Halliday “I Am Not Sentimental” looks at poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Adam Zagajewski, Robert Frost, Gregory Corso, and Rachel Wetzsteon, all of which have in common the speaker’s grappling with diametrically opposed ideas (ways of living, ways of seeing.) Though the speakers make divergent choices, in every case the poem is able to sincerely and substantively engage both sides of a dichotomy, before settling on a conclusive course of action or perception. This openness to paradox and/or counter-argument heightens the poems' poignancy, immediacy, and intellectual liveliness, creating the sense that in every case the poet is thinking in real time and as surprised by the outcome as the reader. “Earth Science” is a collection of poems that explores the ways in which life surprises us by disrupting simple categories: stranger and neighbor, lover and enemy, luck and loss. 4 DEDICATION Dedicated to my grandmother, Margaret W. Grimes 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to Mark Halliday and Jill Rosser for their guidance. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 3 Dedication ......................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. 5 “I Am Not Sentimental” ..................................................................................................... 8 Works Cited……… ………………………………………………………………...32 Earth Science: Poems ...................................................................................................... 34 I. ...................................................................................................................................... 36 Towels ...................................................................................................................... 37 Prayer ....................................................................................................................... 38 Assembly .................................................................................................................. 39 Plan For The Apocalypse ......................................................................................... 40 Bon Bon ................................................................................................................... 41 Bruno Mars .............................................................................................................. 42 Nike .......................................................................................................................... 43 Salt Peanuts .............................................................................................................. 44 The Auditions ........................................................................................................... 45 July Linden ................................................................................................................ 46 Sorry For Me ............................................................................................................ 48 Shrimp Boats ............................................................................................................ 49 They Died As They Lived ........................................................................................ 50 II. ..................................................................................................................................... 51 There’s Been a Miscommunication About My Past Snake Skins ........................... 52 Watching The Cranes ............................................................................................... 53 Wong Kar Wai’s “Fallen Angels” ........................................................................... 54 Insect ........................................................................................................................ 55 Awake Before Him .................................................................................................. 56 Constellations ........................................................................................................... 57 Sunday Afternoon, Spain ......................................................................................... 58 Mayday .................................................................................................................... 59 Hotel Winter ............................................................................................................. 60 Light Sentence ......................................................................................................... 61 Patch of Blue ............................................................................................................ 62 Splash Line ............................................................................................................... 63 Porpoises .................................................................................................................. 64 III. .................................................................................................................................... 65 7 Earth Science ........................................................................................................... 66 Pastel ........................................................................................................................ 67 Light, Don’t Leave Me Out ..................................................................................... 68 Omens ...................................................................................................................... 70 Fate Factory ............................................................................................................. 71 Afterword ................................................................................................................. 72 High School ............................................................................................................. 73 October Recovery .................................................................................................... 74 Chances Are, Lafayette, Indiana .............................................................................. 75 At The Mechanic ...................................................................................................... 76 The Marines’ Priest .................................................................................................. 77 Skeleton Evenings .................................................................................................... 79 Our Bird ................................................................................................................... 80 Acknowledgments (Publications List) ........................................................................... 81 8 I AM NOT SENTIMENTAL: AMBIVALENCE AS A SIGN OF GENUINE ATTENTIVENESS IN POETRY Robert Frost in his essay “The Figure A Poem Makes” compares a poem that has managed to achieve immediacy to a pressed flower that retains its scent. (176) There is a lyric genre of poem which is able to stay fresh in that way through the novelty and accuracy of its imagery. But I believe the poems I talk about in this essay reward multiple readings as reliably as the included Frost poem does. By dwelling earnestly and unhurriedly in emotional and philosophical suspense, they can trick even a reader who already knows the ending into wondering what will happen. These poems apply the mindfulness a painter brings to visual observation to whatever question they have on their minds. Some of the poems here readily admit their ambivalence; some unsuccessfully try to hide it. Zagajewski doesn’t doubt himself as much as stand in awe of the strange paradox that is the simultaneous resilience and demolition of Lvov. (“To Go To Lvov”) Awe is not so far from doubt; both states are tuned in to the limits of complete knowledge. The humility of not knowing joins all of these poems, whether they admit it or not; even Frost’s, which avoids a fully conclusive statement about the emotional range of a phoebe. In so doing they avoid sentimentality, which Kevin Prufer has defined as lack of complexity. (77) By leaving room for sentiment, while introducing tension against it, the poems are able to be ultimately more emotionally affecting than poems with unshakeable, monochromatically passionate, belief. The first poem I’ll discuss, Gregory Corso’s “Marriage” provides the only example in this essay of a speaker for whom ambivalence is a pleasure. (Modern 9 American Poetry) The performance in the poem is of a character trying to make up his mind, but the series of alternating pros and cons in “Marriage” functions more as a filibuster delaying