Date of Award
5-3-1979
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Liberal Studies
First Advisor
Quentin Vest, Ph.D.
Second Advisor
Carolyn M. Craft, Ph.D.
Third Advisor
Massie C. Stinson, Jr., Ph.D.
Abstract
The poems in this collection were written during the past two years, from 1977-1979. As the reader will quickly see, much of my work has been in the surrealist mode, with greater emphasis upon association of images than upon strict logical progression. But I am not a surrealist: I make use of certain surrealist devices to explore aspects of circumstances and conditions and to get at symbols from what Jung called the Collective Unconscious (as popularly understood-- not in any strict sense). While when I first began to write I delighted in strange and unusual images for their own sake, I quickly tired of these games.
I hope the sections into which I divided my poems will help to reveal the different directions I have been moving in: for example, the first section reflects my interest in Japanese and Chinese poetry; here the images are homely and earthy rather than surreal. The poems in section four, by contrast, are more discursive and attempt a somewhat more complex development; they certainly derive from Western as opposed to Eastern influences. And in section five I have attempted a kind of riddling , and therefore serious, humor.
Appendix A is devoted to a discussion of the creative process as I participate in it; I tell how one of my poems came into being and show its stages of development.
Appendix B contains various assigned metrical exercises which were undertaken to demonstrate command of traditional meters.
Recommended Citation
Corrie, Dan, "A RED COAL: A COLLECTION OF POEMS" (1979). Theses & Honors Papers. 418.
https://digitalcommons.longwood.edu/etd/418
