Dissertation Defenses

Doctoral Dissertation Announcement

---

Candidate: Jason Paul Olsen

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: English

Title: Neon Allegiance

Committee:
Dr. William Olsen, Chair
Dr. Nancy Eimers
Dr. Christopher Nagle
Dr. David Kutzko


Date: Friday, October 16, 2009 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
3025 Brown Hall

Abstract:
This collection of thirty-one poems is built around my personal search for place, the idea of “home,” and how it is relationship more than mere geography that defines the places one encounters in a life. In these poems, that idea of “home” ties back to intimate relationships with family and friends, but also with relationships involving culture—both historical and popular—as a whole.
The collection itself is a pastiche of strategies and stylizations, united by a defined and consistent voice. The geographic locations vary—from Las Vegas (where the largest number of poems and energy are focused) to stops at points across the country. The collection reaches toward a conclusion in an Atlantis that stands in for New Orleans, before ending itself back in a West ravaged by drought but still willing to let the reader search for home amongst the drained swimming pools and landscaped rocks. In these poems, the West represents the idea that promise and possibility can still exist even amidst a landscape that has been almost drained by those earlier on the quest for promise and possibility.
Among other poetic techniques, I engage in several Postmodern strategies such as a collage of voices and scenes (in “Family Tree,” for example), the insight of a speaker beseeched with paranoia (“Conspiracy”), playfulness and dark humor (“Reunion”), a willingness to borrow from cultural history (“How Houdini Died” and “Flynn and Blake”), and an interest in forging a fictional history (the created character at the center of “The Failure of Australian Architecture”). These are poems specifically inspired by a variety of writers, including Frank Bidart (“Thanksgiving”) and Ted Hughes (“A Few Years Ago in the City”), but the willingness to place the writer vulnerable on the page was encouraged through diligent study of Robert Lowell.
These poems are the product of the many theories, works of literature, and intellectual pursuits to which I have been introduced and taught at Western Michigan University, and I feel these poems properly represent those intellectual journeys.