Dissertation Defenses

Doctoral Dissertation Announcement

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Candidate: Adam Clay

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: English

Title: A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World

Committee:
Dr. Nancy Eimers, Chair
Dr. William Olsen
Dr. Daneen Wardrop
Dr. Jeffrey Angles

Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2009 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
The Bertha Davis Room, 111W Walwood Hall

Abstract:
The poems in A Hotel Lobby at the End of the World are largely pre-occupied with living in the Midwest, Michigan specifically. Throughout the manuscript, I am especially interested in political and social issues and their influence on both the region and the individual, as seen in a poem like “Elegy for a Thousand Half-Masts.” Included also in this social exploration is the economic crisis as well as humankind’s influence on the natural world. Formally-speaking, the poems seek to balance the two extremes of lyric and narrative through the use of an expanded, Whitman-esque line coupled with lyrical images and observations that have more in common with the work of a poet like Emily Dickinson. The poems in the final section comment on the ideas of motion, sound, and the idea of creation as it occurs on a personal level in terms of memory.