VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "D'Aguiar, Frederick M."

Browsing by Author "D'Aguiar, Frederick M."

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The Beaten Pathos
Roche, Michael William (Virginia Tech, 2014-01-07)
The Beaten Pathos is a manuscript of poems written by a shelter dog--a shelter dog whose distrust of both his reader-dogs and himself amplifies his need to communicate. More often than not, the result is a poem borne of an imagination both ostentatiously loud and cutting at an oblique angle, like a miter saw. Additionally, a handful of poems are muted and cool (like Miles Davis' trumpet), and, consequently, more direct in their expression of the poet's emotional vulnerability. Whether the poems in this manuscript are of the miter-saw or trumpet variety, their speakers--although frequently not equipped to do so--are earnest about getting and/or making even the most sideways of things right.
Catch Chain
Talbert, Robert (Virginia Tech, 2010-12-13)
Catch Chain is a book of poems that traces the journey of a Corrections Officer who attempts to combat issues of isolation, inhumane treatment of inmates and societal rejection in jails by embarking upon a cross-country road trip. However, the same issues the officer initially wrestled with begin cropping up in different cities, on various highways and in a multitude of states. The excitement and adventure of the open road runs parallel to the recurring imprisonment of the guard's mind.
The Center of the Known World
Crickenberger, Sara Margaret (Virginia Tech, 2008-04-14)
All of the stories in The Center of the Known World are subtly linked by their connection to the Appalachian Mountains — more specifically the Allegheny Mountains — although not all of the stories take place physically in the mountains. They also are linked in that they explore the small changes and shifts that take place in the emotional landscape as we live our daily lives. There are no life or death situations that change characters' lives in the beat of a heart or the shot of a gun. Rather, these are people who deal with gradual shifts in power and understanding. They are people in search of connection and community. Some of them come to seemingly small realizations that change everything. Others battle flaws or demons that keep them from having the things they want most. The first five stories are free-standing pieces. The next two stories — Grand Opening Special at the West End U-Store and A Fine Addiction — are connected by location and characters. I hope eventually there will be other stories in that series. The final part of my thesis — Skin Writing — is the first section of a novel in progress.
The Conversation About the Keys: Original Plays - Part I: Tim Without Thalia; Part II: Thalia With Someone Else
Shen, Yu-Li Alice (Virginia Tech, 2009-04-14)
"First Love teaches you how to love. Great Love perfects that love. Last Love...well, we never really figured out what Last Love did." "Tim Without Thalia" and "Thalia With Someone Else" sprung from a place of being tired, but not yet sleepy. The "quarter-life crisis" if you will: When everyone else seems to be getting married, having kids, starting their own basket-weaving businesses, except you. When relationships between college friends break and relationships between "real life" friends…break. When love is dictated as much by actual romance, as it is by power. Yet you still feel oddly euphoric about it all. In these two companion plays, Tim, Thalia, and their clueless but well-meaning friends wax idiotic on the rules of modern romance: the chase, the connection, and, of course, the end. Produced April 30 – May 2, 2009 in Virginia Tech's Performing Arts Building under the direction of Dr. Patricia Raun, Theatre Arts Department Head.
Doan Trouble de Fish
Willis, Kedon Kevin (Virginia Tech, 2013-05-07)
Doan Trouble de Fish is a collection of short stories examining the way of live for different Jamaicans in their home country and in America. The collection opens from the first-person perspective of a teenage boy struggling to understand his place amongst his group of friends in "Sat'day" and, in "'Ooman Conversation," ends with an omniscient look into the lives of a group of adult women struggling to maintain agency against the pressures of poverty. In between, we hear a boy recounting a dramatic beating from his mother, witness an encounter between a young girl and a "duppy" in the countryside, see the transformation of a man dressing in his wife's clothes to feel powerful, and are treated to guidelines on being a closeted homosexual in Jamaica. The diverse characters and points-of-view are meant to offer a tableau of what it's like to inhabit the island or to be a product of its environment. Jamaica is the unspoken character of Doan Trouble de Fish. But the more popular depictions of an island paradise are abjured in favor of urban squalor and uncompromising heat. The Jamaican environment is often harsh to the collection's characters, particularly to its women and non-masculine men. A concept underlying many of these stories is the liability of identity. A central theme to the collection is the maintenance of personal integrity in the face of an environment unwelcome to one's identity. Some characters find a way to forge ahead. Some are still trying to figure it out.
Doubter Come Home from a Drowning of Vision
Meadows, Carrie (Virginia Tech, 2009-04-07)
A poetry collection in two parts. Slingshot Catapult, the first half of the manuscript, explores the lives of two professional wrestlers. While the spectacle of professional wrestling is the backdrop for this series of linked, narrative poems, the relationship between protagonists Tracy and Dodge and who they are as individuals, rather than the caricatures wrestlers often play, are the core concerns of this opening section. Knotcraft, the second half of the collection, offers a mix of lyric, narrative, and formal poetry. As in Slingshot Catapult, common threads running through and between these poems include family history, romantic relationships, religion, and vision. Readers are invited to draw parallels between themes explored in Knotcraft and Slingshot Catapult.
Fault Lines
Dulaney, Laura Jaques (Virginia Tech, 2008-04-10)
Fault Lines is a collection of nine stories that explore the themes of otherness, isolation, and transitions. In most of these stories I explore the concept of isolation in its many forms— emotional, physical, social, and spiritual. Many of my characters are people who have been "othered" for one reason or another, and many of them are people on the cusp, not only of society but also their own lives. I also explore characters who are on the verge of transition, either staring one down with fear and denial, moving hesitantly and trepidatiously toward one, or, in rare instances, jumping gleefully toward that next big moment in their lives. Many of my characters yearn for something to transcend their ordinary, material lives, whether through a spiritual encounter or simply an ordinary yet unusual one. Some of these characters are stuck in the mire of their current lives, and we see an uncomfortable mix of lethargy and longing. Primarily, I explore exactly what catalysts people require in order to move from a state which, though unsatisfying, might be comfortable, to one that is unknown and risky but potentially fulfilling. The title of the collection refers to those moments or events in one's life that indicate or cause shifts or transitions, whether mental, physical, or emotional.
The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts
Palmer, Soraya Jennalee (Virginia Tech, 2014-05-08)
The following manuscript is a collection of linked stories that follows a family from Jamaica and Trinidad to the U.S. and back. The collection focuses on two sisters' episodic journey through their sexual awakenings, their mother's illness, their father's violence and absence. In the process, the sisters come to terms with their own hybrid identities. In writing this book, I drew not only from my personal experience, but also from extensive research both in Trinidad and Tobago and in books and oral histories. The enclosed stories include, "What's My Name?" which is told from the point of view of oral history personified--a narrator trying to break free from "dominant narrative." In this way, my work aims to challenge the nature of narrative itself. Other pieces such as, "Taino Instructions for Communicating with Dead Mothers," re-purpose historical figures into present day in order to create a mythic ghost story.
I Am A Lonely Engineer
Haynes, Jeffrey Kyle (Virginia Tech, 2015-06-01)
I Am a Lonely Engineer is a collection of poems dealing with the emotional fallout of a speaker whose life has been uprooted by the absence of his father. Through a series of semi-surreal narratives, the speaker eventually comes to terms with his father's absence and begins the process of healing in the wake of this familial trauma.
In God we troust - Derek Walcott and God
D'Aguiar, Frederick M. (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005)
The Language of Dolls
Sharma, Manisha (Virginia Tech, 2009-04-13)
The characters in the short story collection The Language of Dolls spring up from the poor, the resource less multitudes of society. Caught in their culture, locale, and state in life, these characters struggle to manifest their potential to the fullest. In a way, they stretch their boundaries and distinguish themselves. Teetering on the verge of a collapse, whether men or women, poor or psychologically impoverished, they all emerge triumphant or often signal ambiguous resolutions. Most of the stories present the struggle of women in adverse circumstances. The Language of Dolls is an act of translation. Set in India and the United States, these stories, characters, their speech, actions, rituals, traditions, setting all are an alien culture fused indelibly to the English language.
Last Rites for Uptown
Fields, Raina Lauren (Virginia Tech, 2012-04-10)
This autobiographical poetry collection is about identity, belonging, and brokenness, dealing with the aftermath of a dead mother, a deadbeat father, and a decaying home filled with years of trash and memory. In many ways, this collection is a buildungsroman. For me, what seem like ordinary questions become a journey into memories and experiences that were once repressed. As a child of a hoarder, one who fielded questions from family, friends, and the Department of Human Service for almost twenty years, I am just starting to confidently address the many silences that were and are present in my family: my mother’s quest to hide her breast cancer and her subsequent death as a result of her secrecy; my father’s four other children that I have never met; and my grandparents’ military history spanning three continents in the 1950s and 1960s.
Lesser Saints of Central Illinois - A Novel
Hobin, Andrew John (Virginia Tech, 2013-06-24)
An examination of contemporary Catholicism told through the stories of a priest undergoing a crisis of vocation, a young man alienated from his family, and an immigrant struggling to keep his family together.
Let's Waltz the Rumba
Kaja, Ben (Virginia Tech, 2008-04-11)
A collection of poems primarily in free verse that deals with loss, love, nostalgia, memory, nature (both human and wild), and the self. The title is a Fats Waller quote I found as the epigraph in one of my favorite books, The World Doesn’t End by Charles Simic. While it is literally impossible to waltz the rumba, since they are two different dances and types of music, I like the idea it provokes for me: it says to me, “let’s do this our own way"? or the old cliché phrase “let’s walk to the beat of a different drummer."? This quote embodies the spirit in which these poems where written.
Like Water, Like Clouds
Wilson, Ashley Kristen (Virginia Tech, 2009-04-07)
This collection of short fiction explores femininity – a difficult term, in and of itself, because it implies that to be a woman is to be feminine in the traditional sense, or feminist in the revolutionary sense – rarely do the connotations allow for much in between. But I choose this term over “womanhood," for example, because it is more difficult, and culturally loaded, and conflicted, and even offensive. In truth, these stories attempt to portray the multi-faceted nature of how we see the feminine. They hope to convey the most fragile and complicated net of relationships, with men and with women, with mothers and fathers and children and lovers and enemies, each of whom make their own demands about what sort of femininity they require. Considering all this, I tend to think that there is no such thing as the much-talked-about “strong woman" in real life, not completely. She is constantly being pushed into corners where she is weak, or careless, or cruel–secretly unsure of who she is expected and ought to be. The result is a female psyche that is always shifting and disintegrating and dissolving, becoming someone or something else, like the characters in these eight stories. The modern woman is no sure thing. She is in flux and changing shape. And really, it is for those of us who watch to decide if it is for better, or for worse.
Magic City Mischief
Roberts, Geri L. (Virginia Tech, 2010-04-13)
Set against a lush landscape of swaying palms and rolling waves in what should be a tropical paradise is Miami a.k.a. The Magic City—a hedonistic metropolis saturated with sex whose residents are consumed with the pleasure principle. Combine the sheer numbers and too-busy, modern lives—and the consequential ability to live anonymously—plus inhabitants who embrace the “me"? principle, whip these ingredients together, and traditional guidelines are abandoned. The linked fictional collection consists of longer, more richly-textured stories, as well as experimental and flash fiction pieces that mirror the characters’ unreflective lives and risk-taking nature. While aware of conservative literary models, writing stories about my home of thirty years demanded the more avant-garde tradition of the erotic exemplified by Vladimir Nabokov, Anaїs Nin, and Sidonie Gabrielle Colette. And because my stories are grounded in such a vehemently bold locale—not to mention a bolder present—I aimed for language as bold. To alert the reader that this is a different sort of read, a Sexual Relationship Tree—as opposed to the more customary Family Tree—has been placed at the collection’s start. Clearly, mischief abounds. Note it was my conscious decision not to insert a filter between the story and the reader. Keeping my narrator’s tongue tightly in check, I have embodied the commonly heard storytelling directive of “show, don’t tell"? by opting for a more reportorial approach. I trust my sagacious reader to supply a filter of his/her own when considering the thematic weights of the collection.
The Man in the Backseat
Sabol, Alexander Bryon (Virginia Tech, 2008-04-14)
A collection of short stories centered around characters in and from Virginia in a post-September 11th America. The characters, their despairs, hopes, and hopelessness are a product of a society that has watched horrible, life-altering events unfold on television, vowed to change their ways for the better, and then either forgotten that vow or become lost in the quest for how to change. Each main character is placed in either absurd or extreme situations that forces them to reexamine their lives and what they believe as truth. The central story of the collection, “The Man in the Backseat" is the story of a man who struggles to find meaning in his father’s suicide. “Martha Bullfinch and the Easter Bunny" is a dark comedy on paralyzing depression and hope. “Undressing Elvis" is a story about despair and the desire to better oneself. “Blue Yodels and Amber Ales" is a story about survival. “The Other Side of the Dunes" examines ideas of perception and “The Last Fair Deal Gone Down" is a story about memory, love, and loss. Iconic American music is a central theme that weaves its way through the stories. It’s used as a metaphor for the past, both of the characters and the society they live in. The music embodies memories both good and bad. In these stories and their characters’ personal searches for meaning, I hope to have found some truths about human nature and the desperate hope for change and meaning in a post-September 11th society.
My Mother and Father Were Astronauts
Katsimbras, Arian Nicholas (Virginia Tech, 2015-06-15)
In these lyric-narrative poems, the speaker is under constant threat of violence, trouble, danger, or death, but that death is never realized. Rather, the speaker, much like many of the lives in the desert, not only survives amidst the constant threat of violence, but flourishes because of it; the interior landscape of the speaker, the tenor of the language and syntax, and exterior landscapes implied in these poems are mirror surfaces, and as such, so are we. Despite the exterior world and relationships being arguably broken down, failed, impoverished, abandoned, etc., these poems gesture toward a sense of redemption, hope, reverence for life, and a kind of holiness that are found in the church of the desert. It has been said that the desert is monotheistic; if this is the case, then the speaker and the lives in these poems, despite being hardened by the desert, sing hymnals that celebrate that faith. There is a church in the wild.
Mythic Metamorphosis: Re-shaping Identity in the Works of H.D.
Mitchem, Sarah Lewis (Virginia Tech, 2007-04-13)
In section fifteen of the poem The Walls Do Not Fall author Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) address her audience and articulates the purpose of the poet in the following lines: "we are the keepers of the secret,/ the carriers, the spinners/ of the rare intangible thread/ that binds all humanity/ to ancient wisdom,/ to antiquity;/â ¦every concrete object/ has abstract value, is timeless/ in the dream parallel" (Trilogy 24). H.D. mined her own life for charged relationships which she then, through writing, connected to the mythic characters of antiquity whose tales embodied the same struggles she faced. Reading concrete objects as universal symbols which transcend time, her mind meshed the 20th century with previous cultures to create a nexus where the questions embedded in the human spirit are alive on multiple planes. The purpose of this research project is not to define her works as "successful" or "unsuccessful," nor to weigh the works against each other in terms of "advancement." Rather it is to describe the way she manipulates this most reliable of tools, mythic metamorphosis, in works stretching from her early Imagist poetry, through her long poem Trilogy, and finally into her last memoir End To Torment, taking note of the way she uses this tool to form beauty from harsh circumstances and help heal her shattered psyche.
Necessary Fire
Sullivan, Katherine Aiken (Virginia Tech, 2016-07-25)
In this collection the poet explores the gyre of domestic life and specifically how this complex and paradoxical storm pulls women/wives/mothers in many directions at the same time. Using a variety of motifs including glass, water, fire, and bodies, she writes about the deluge of joy, grief, fear, passion, desperation, wonder, salvation, and destruction that accompanies devotion to children, partners, relatives, and friends.

Browsing by Author "D'Aguiar, Frederick M."

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