Streszczenie/szczegóły

Afterimage: Poems, and, Morning Glory: A story of family and culture in the garden

Vogt, Benjamin R.   The University of Nebraska - Lincoln ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  2009. 3355633.

Streszczenie (podsumowanie)

Afterimage is a collection of poems based mostly on black and white family photographs from the past two centuries, roughly 1870 to 1990. Many of the poems, particularly the first section, trace the immigration of a rural German Mennonite family from Russia to Kansas and Oklahoma in the 19th century, however, around half of the total poems relate the author’s personal experiences trying to establish various homes in suburban Minnesota, Ohio, and Nebraska in the late 20th century. By reimagining the story in these photographs—or remembering them from personal and interviewed accounts—a narrative begins to emerge of cultural integration and identification in America, specifically in the Great Plains and Midwest.

Morning Glory is part memoir, part cultural exploration on the history of gardening, and part environmental treatise. At the core of the book is the author’s time spent growing up gardening with his mother in Minnesota, how this has lead to them being closer in adulthood, and culminates in the discovery of the lineage of fear, distrust, and solitude within his family that he innately exhibits. This darker side of his mother’s family—of poverty, religious fundamentalism, and an abusive stepfather—is paralleled with an exploration of global culture in the natural world, specifically, through gardening. By looking at our attitudes toward nature, manifested by its exploitation, manipulation, and our artistic interpretation of it, he compares this outward struggle with our humanity to an inward struggle with loss, confusion, self-doubt, isolation, and longing. Our violence toward the planet comes from the same root as our violence toward ourselves. Many nature writers and critics—such as Michael Pollan, Jack Turner, and Terry Tempest Williams—suggest we need to recreate or find a metaphor that links culture to the natural world, that the answer to our ecological and social crises is to get more culture into our relation to the earth; through the personal story of family and the exploration of various religions, philosophies, literatures, and garden history, Morning Glory does just that.

Indeksowanie (szczegóły)


Temat
Modern literature;
American literature
Klasyfikacja
0298: Modern literature
0591: American literature
0203: Creative writing
Identyfikator/słowo kluczowe
Language, literature and linguistics; Afterimage; Environment; Gardens; Great Plains; Memoir; Midwest; Morning Glory; Original writing; Poetry
Tytuł
Afterimage: Poems, and, Morning Glory: A story of family and culture in the garden
Autor
Vogt, Benjamin R.
Liczba stron
299
Data uzyskania stopnia
2009
Kod uczelni
0138
Źródło
DAI-A 70/05, Dissertation Abstracts International
Miejsce publikacji
Ann Arbor
Kraj publikacji
United States
ISBN
978-1-109-14705-6
Promotor
Bauer, Grace
Członek komitetu
Janovy, John, Jr.; Kooser, Ted; Raz, Hilda
Uniwersytet/instytucja
The University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Departament
English
Lokalizacja uniwersytetu
United States -- Nebraska
Stopień
Ph.D.
Typ źródła
Dysertacja lub praca dyplomowa
Język
Angielski
Rodzaj dokumentu
Dissertation/Thesis
Numer dysertacji/pracy dyplomowej
3355633
ID dokumentu w serwisie ProQuest
304949963
Prawa autorskie
Database copyright ProQuest LLC; ProQuest does not claim copyright in the individual underlying works.
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/unauthdocview/304949963