VS

Date of Award

6-2016

Document Type

Project

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

Department

English

First Reader/Committee Chair

Delgado

Abstract

VS is a poetic exercise in rhyme and rhythm. An exercise attempting to camouflage ideas in humor, in song, in lyrical overtures, and in social media pop culture lingo to highlight the damaging effects technology and social media have on the human relationship with the earth. VS is a mirror, is an attempt to selfie the world we have lost touch with by contemplating where our role as caretakers for our planet lies. Through varying poetic forms, VS displays and critiques the limited perspective forced upon us when we socialize and experience life solely through phones and screens.

In this manuscript, the speaker is fluid and mainly seen in the first person plural, or the collective, “we.” This voice includes the average media-driven American, as well as one who is considering how social media impacts their current lifestyles. In VS, the speaker represents various voices of faceless social media users who are separated from the physical world by the screens themselves and by digital avatars disguising further what is real. And yet, the speaker also represents a voiceless natural world—such as if it had the ability to forbid our modern ways of life from diminishing the world’s natural resources and curb further global pollution—while always questioning how these ways of life are being preserved on the physical land we live on and alongside.

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